Riverton's city manager has resigned after being charged with voyeurism, even though the City Council had planned to wait a month before deciding whether he would keep his job.
Mark Cram gave Mayor Bill Applegarth and the council a letter on Tuesday announcing his resignation, effective immediately. He was charged last week with class B misdemeanor voyeurism after a 16-year-old girl told a tanning-salon cashier that he had peered above a 9-foot wall to watch her as she was changing her clothes.
Cram said in his letter Tuesday that he felt he needed to resign after the public attention generated by the incident. "I no longer feel it is appropriate to subject all of you and your families, my family, friends and other innocent people to the constant barrage of negativity," he wrote.
Applegarth said Cram's resignation was his own decision. Cram, 50, had been placed on paid administrative leave after he was charged, and the council planned to wait until a July 25 meeting to determine whether Cram would keep his job, be fired or stay on leave.
"This wasn't a letter of resignation where I called him or anybody else called him and said, 'We need a letter of resignation or we're going to terminate you,' " Applegarth said Wednesday. "This just came from him. I didn't expect it."
He said he was confident Cram had put a lot of thought into the decision.
"He has just been bombarded in this process," Applegarth said. "I understand the media has a role to play, but it has been very emotional for Mark through this whole thing. He has had TV cameras knocking on the door of his private residence."
The council gave Cram a severance package of 45 days' pay, an amount that Applegarth called "on the low side. The man's going to have to make a transition economically and we wanted to help. But we need to be very, very careful with public funds."
The city will immediately begin looking for candidates for a new city manager. City managers in Riverton are hired by a majority vote of the five-member council and mayor. In the meantime, Development Services director Lance Blackwood will serve as acting city manager.
According to the charges, the voyeurism incident occurred on June 14 at the Tahiti Sun tanning salon in Riverton. Salon owner Fred Johnston said Monday that the teenage girl noticed a man watching her over the salon wall. She waited until the man finished tanning and left the salon, and then she told the cashier what had happened.
Applegarth and Cram's attorney, Chris Crump, both said Cram has taken full responsibility for the incident.
The charge was filed in Riverton's justice court, but because Cram has overseen the court as city manager, the case will be transferred to another court. No court appearances have been scheduled yet. Because the charge is a class B misdemeanor, it is punishable by up to six month in jail and/or a $1,000 fine.
E-mail: dsmeath@desnews.com