Lon Pluckhahn sits in the City of Vancouver council chambers on Nov. 13, 2026.
Erik Neumann / OPB
The Vancouver City Council voted unanimously to remove Lon Pluckhahn from his role as city manager during a special meeting on Friday morning. Councilors gave no specific reason for removing their top administrator during the meeting, which lasted about five minutes.
Tensions have grown between city officials in recent months as they debate how to expand city limits. Earlier in the year, Pluckhahn was at the center of a different controversy, when the city’s former chief financial officer notified Vancouver she may file a lawsuit alleging Pluckhahn fired her in retaliation.
At the brief meeting to fire him Friday morning, Pluckhahn sat with members of the public. He declined to answer reporters’ questions.
After the meeting, Vancouver Mayor Anne McEnerny-Ogle read a statement that called the firing the result of “ongoing evaluations of the city manager’s performance and the city’s long-term strategic direction during executive sessions over the past year.”
The city manager is akin to Vancouver’s CEO. Their role includes developing biennial budgets, carrying out the city council’s priorities, and managing city departments.
City leaders voted to remove Pluckhahn “without cause,” because giving a reason would be “extremely damaging to a person’s career,” City Councilor Sarah Fox said after the meeting in council chambers.
“But I would imagine folks that have watched council meetings over the past year probably could have picked up on some things without us calling them out individually at this time,” she said.
The city council voted to hire Pluckhahn as the city manager in late 2024. Before that, he served as deputy under City Manager Eric Holmes, who was in the role for 14 years.
Questions about the city’s financial planning arose between city officials in recent weeks as they considered annexing Vancouver’s urban growth area into city limits as part of the 2027-28 biennium budget. Various proposed scenarios would have added tens of millions to the city’s deficit by making Vancouver responsible for services to communities that are currently outside city limits.
In a letter sent to councilors in late October, the former city manager, Holmes, expressed concerns about “fiscal consequences” of the current annexation plans in the proposed budget.
Holmes urged the council not to adopt the annexation plans, noting that the city is already operating under a structural deficit and that, in the proposals, current Vancouver residents would end up paying disproportionate costs for service in areas that are absorbed from Clark County.
“However the numbers are reworked, the cost of providing urban services outstrips the capacity of the revenue system meant to support them,” Holmes wrote.
The annexation proposals were later dropped. The City Council is set to adopt its next budget on Nov. 16.
Pluckhahn’s conduct toward employees came under scrutiny earlier in the year when the city’s former chief financial officer, Natasha Ramras, filed a tort claim against the city in February, alleging retaliation after the city manager fired her, according to the Columbian.
In her claim, Ramras described financial and ethical concerns in the city’s use of public funds and questioned Pluckhahn’s hiring of a different candidate for a deputy city manager position after she had applied.
Pluckhahn will be put on paid administrative leave until his termination is finalized during a regular Dec. 14 council meeting. Deputy City Manager Lisa Brandl will serve as acting city manager until a permanent replacement is found.
