Baker City Manager Barry Murphy fired Fire Chief Todd Jaynes on March 8, we read in The Baker City Herald.

It reminded of us when Prineville Police Chief Larry Seymour and Capt. Robert Gray resigned in January. In both cases, the community was told very little about what happened. And in both cases, we believe the community should be told a lot.

A fire chief being fired or two top police officers resigning is about as clear a sign of trouble as there can be. And when there is trouble in key aspects of a community’s public safety, the public deserves an explanation. It deserves more than “The City wishes both of them the best in their future endeavors,” in the case of Prineville or “Per city policy, we do not provide comment on personnel actions, ” in Baker City.

We do know more now about what may have led to the resignations of Seymour and Gray. A lawsuit said “Prineville’s former police chief allegedly retaliated against a department administrator who reported that he and a captain harassed and demeaned an officer who was injured while on-duty, a new lawsuit against the city says,” The Bulletin reported in February. And we also know thanks to The Oregonian that Seymour “got more than $300,000 in severance to resign while under investigation and his captain got close to $200,000.”

The Baker City Herald reported the fire chief there may have been fired over how he was running the department.

Employers do have to be careful about what they say about why an employee is let go. Doing much more than making an announcement can be problematic legally. The right balance does not seem to be struck, though, with those concerns with the public’s right to know what is going on with its government.