By Con­rad Eas­t­er­day, CTCN Ed­i­tor

A Dun­can man who was one of three can­di­dates for the city man­ager’s po­si­tion at Co­manche earned the job and then re­jected it a short time later when the town’s mayor be­gan ques­tion­ing his per­sonal and po­lit­i­cal views at the be­hest of un­named peo­ple who are not res­i­dents of Co­manche.
Be­fore seek­ing the city man­ager’s po­si­tion, Daren Coats was vice pres­i­dent of the Ok­la­homa Blood In­sti­tute for more than 12 years, from 2008-2021. He was also a USHealth sales di­rec­tor for two years and once worked for Har­bor Freight.
He was in­ter­viewed in ex­ec­u­tive ses­sion Aug., 13 by the Co­manche City Coun­cil along with An­thony White and the in­terim city man­ager Wayne Mc­Casland. Coats showed up for what was os­ten­si­bly a fol­low-up in­ter­view only to be told he had the job. The Coun­cil voted unan­i­mously to hire him Aug. 29. If he had­n’t re­scinded his ac­cep­tance, his first day at work would have been Sept. 9.
Ac­cord­ing to a let­ter Coats sent to the Co­manche Times and oth­ers in the com­mu­nity, Mayor “Smokey” Dob­bins called him on La­bor Day morn­ing.
“He was con­cerned about some of my po­lit­i­cal views af­ter hav­ing re­ceived a few phone calls and mes­sages re­gard­ing my per­sonal be­liefs as seen from other peo­ple’s per­spec­tive,” Coats wrote in the let­ter. “He fur­ther stated that none of those who’d called were Co­manche cit­i­zens.”
Al­though a reg­is­tered Re­pub­li­can, Coats says he aligns more with Lib­er­tar­ian/​In­de­pen­dent view­points and has noth­ing in com­mon with the ex­treme right or the ex­treme left.
In his La­bor Day phone call, Dob­bins also told Coats, “he would have to call a spe­cial ses­sion of the Coun­cil to dis­cuss those be­liefs.” And if the Coun­cil voted to re­scind the of­fer, the Mayor told Coats he would have to an­swer pub­licly why the of­fer was with­drawn. He did not want to do that (Dob­bins did not re­spond to a re­quest for com­ment from the News.)
“He as­sured me I did­n’t ei­ther,” Coats said in his let­ter.
Coats ul­ti­mately took the first step, re­ject­ing the of­fer in the first line of his let­ter to the com­mu­nity.
The ac­cep­tance and re­jec­tion of the of­fer has im­pacted Coats’ re­la­tion­ship with his em­ployer in Dun­can.
“To say it caused some com­pli­ca­tions would be an un­der­state­ment,” he told the News.
Look­ing back, Coats said there were signs of what was ahead.
“There were some red flags in the in­ter­view,” he said. “But noth­ing that led me to be­lieve we would be where we are to­day.”
Coats spoke off the record about some as­pects of the af­fair, but he ad­dressed pub­licly his re­spect for the res­i­dents of Co­manche and the re­la­tion­ship with the com­mu­nity that might have been.
“I re­ally think I could be a great fit and a great help to (Co­manche),” he said. “I stand by the let­ter.”
The let­ter to the “Cit­i­zens of Co­manche” is lengthy and could not be pub­lished in its en­tirety in the print edi­tion of the News. See the full let­ter be­low.

Cit­i­zens of Co­manche,

I am writ­ing to for­mally re­scind my ac­cep­tance of the of­fer for the po­si­tion of City Man­ager for Co­manche, OK. Af­ter care­ful con­sid­er­a­tion, prayer and dis­cus­sion with my wife, I be­lieve this de­ci­sion is in the best in­ter­est of both my­self and the com­mu­nity.
I have been deeply hon­ored by the op­por­tu­nity to pos­si­bly serve as City Man­ager for such a com­mu­nity with a vi­brant spirit and en­gaged cit­i­zens. I un­der­stand that the de­ci­sions made in city gov­er­nance of­ten re­quire bal­anc­ing var­i­ous in­ter­ests and pres­sures. How­ever, it has be­come clear that the will of the cit­i­zens, whose voices are the cor­ner­stone of any de­mo­c­ra­tic com­mu­nity, has not been fully ac­knowl­edged in this process. It is my be­lief that the role of City Man­ager must be one that unites and em­pow­ers the com­mu­nity, fos­ter­ing trust and col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween the elected of­fi­cials and the peo­ple they rep­re­sent.
La­bor Day morn­ing, I re­ceived a phone call from the cur­rent Co­manche Mayor. He was con­cerned about some of my po­lit­i­cal views af­ter hav­ing re­ceived a few phone calls and mes­sages re­gard­ing my per­sonal be­liefs as seen from other peo­ple’s per­spec­tives. He fur­ther stated that none of those who’d called were Co­manche cit­i­zens. As I see it, non-con­stituents were given un­due in­flu­ence in­side the Co­manche City Coun­cil this week­end. He stated he would have to call a spe­cial ses­sion of the coun­cil to dis­cuss my be­liefs as he’d been in­formed by oth­ers, and I was wel­come to at­tend, but if they chose to with­draw the of­fer, he would have to an­swer ques­tions pub­licly about why it was with­drawn. He stated he did­n’t want to have to an­swer any ques­tions about this sub­ject, and he as­sured me that I did­n’t ei­ther.
For the record, I am a reg­is­tered Re­pub­li­can, but my be­liefs lean more Lib­er­tar­ian/​In­de­pen­dent. I dis­agree with the ex­treme views of the left, and the right. I am not a right wing ex­trem­ist nor am I a left wing ac­tivist. I’ve heard both about my­self in the last 72 hours. I am a Chris­t­ian, who firmly be­lieves in all the lib­er­ties and free­doms be­stowed upon me at birth and doc­u­mented within the US Con­sti­tu­tion and the Bill of Rights. I will not apol­o­gize for ei­ther of those be­liefs. To me, those rights are vi­tal, even when some­one dis­agrees with me and even when it’s in­con­ve­nient or un­com­fort­able. Re­spect­ful de­bate cre­ates strength and un­der­stand­ing. Those who lack the courage to speak up and who seek to limit or elim­i­nate the free­doms of fel­low cit­i­zens are a threat to our com­mu­ni­ties and our Re­pub­lic. Yet, I do be­lieve in the rule of law.
I spoke up against city wide mask man­dates dur­ing the COVID-19 pan­demic be­cause I be­lieved it was gov­ern­ment over­reach.
When em­ploy­ers be­gan to man­date the ex­per­i­men­tal COVID-19 vac­cine, I ex­pressed con­cerns be­cause it was a vi­o­la­tion of 45 CFR 46 and be­cause it was im­pos­si­ble to pro­vide in­formed con­sent for an ex­per­i­men­tal vac­cine. The safety pro­files were un­known at that time and the long term im­pact is still not fully un­der­stood. I think it’s im­por­tant for cit­i­zens to choose whether they want to re­ceive an ex­per­i­men­tal in­jec­tion or not and should not be forced or man­dated.
I re­cently sup­ported can­di­dates to un­seat two lo­cally pop­u­lar politi­cians be­cause I did­n’t be­lieve those politi­cians had our lo­cal in­ter­est pri­or­i­tized above their own per­sonal agen­das, and each is no longer in those roles. I par­tic­i­pated by speak­ing up. I did so prop­erly, and I voted and en­cour­aged oth­ers to do the same. Therein lies the is­sue. I spoke up.
It’s a very sad state of af­fairs when elected lead­ers lose the abil­ity to use their own dis­cern­ment re­gard­ing those who seek to in­flu­ence them via twist­ing a per­sonal vendetta to ma­nip­u­late an out­come. Slan­der is a de­spi­ca­ble thing, but cow­ardice may be worse. Poor lead­er­ship dis­cour­ages good hearted peo­ple with valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence from want­ing to seek roles that would im­pact a com­mu­nity and make it a bet­ter place for all its cit­i­zens.
I have no fur­ther in­ter­est in jus­ti­fy­ing or de­fend­ing my Amer­i­can prin­ci­ples, and will con­tinue ex­er­cis­ing my free­doms. I refuse to com­pro­mise my in­tegrity for the sake of pop­u­lar­ity. I also have no de­sire to work in a dys­func­tional group. A per­son ex­er­cis­ing their civil rights should never be a detri­ment to a ca­reer field. Sadly, be­ing la­beled in any di­rec­tion po­lit­i­cally cre­ates di­vi­sive­ness and dis­trac­tion from prob­lem solv­ing.
As some­one deeply com­mit­ted to the prin­ci­ples of unity and ser­vice, I feel that step­ping aside is the most re­spon­si­ble course of ac­tion. My in­ten­tion is not to con­tribute to any fur­ther di­vi­sion but rather to al­low Co­manche the op­por­tu­nity to find a leader who can bridge the gap be­tween the ad­min­is­tra­tion and the com­mu­nity it serves.
Thank you for the op­por­tu­nity to be con­sid­ered for this role, and I wish Co­manche every suc­cess in its fu­ture en­deav­ors. The cit­i­zens of Co­manche de­serve much bet­ter than they’re cur­rently get­ting and did not win to­day.
Sin­cerely,
Daren M. Coats