King City City Council calls for investigation into alleged phone mics.

King City City Manager Michael Powers had a rude awakening from his vacation last week. Friday afternoon, his phone started blowing up after news reports of a search warrant alleging Powers had installed mics on City Hall phones allowing him to listen in on employees' conversations.

City Council followed with a closed-session performance evaluation of Powers on Tuesday, a conversation that lasted for two hours.

The result: The new city attorney, Martin Koczanowicz, will bring in the city's communications provider, to inspect the system.

Maynard Group owner Dean Maynard said Wednesday morning that he'd already heard from city officials about the matter.

Maynard declined to comment on specific technological capabilities installed in King City City Hall. "The technology can be customized," he says. "There's a lot of features available in phone systems. It's an individual basis for each customer."

The tip to investigators allegedly came from Acting Police Chief Dennis Hegwood, who told them Powers had asked questions about a confidential conversation.

But in a letter distributed to community members and press just before the closed session Aug. 12, Powers denied any eavesdropping.

"I never intentionally tried to listen in to a conversation on the phone or other devices," he wrote.

About 20 people showed up and waited on the City Hall lawn during the lengthy closed-session discussion of the warrant. They were divided between supporters of Powers, and others who wanted him terminated.

Jim Albanese, a 75-year resident of King City, came out to support Powers. 

“The city manager is a friend of mine, and I hear something about wiretapping. That’s just hearsay," Albanese says. "Rumors spread around—small-town politics.” 

Margarita Lopez, a former council member, had urged City Council to fire Powers shortly after nearly a third of the city's police department was arrested in February.

She thinks the warrant was credible. "We either have a city manager that’s lying, or a police chief that’s lying," Lopez says.

As to his relationship with Hegwood, Powers says, “It certainly has put an interesting wrinkle into life.”

With a large portion of the city's police officers on administrative leave, sheriff's deputies are under contract to patrol the South County city for now. 

A lifelong resident of King City, 41-year-old Minnie Sanchez, wants to see new leadership in town.

“I’m concerned because of gangs, shootings, burglaries, and that we don’t have any officers," Sanchez says. "We need somebody that directs us in a positive way.”

She says she worries about her fifth-grade son going out at night due to crime: “I’ve heard youngs kids say, 'Once it gets dark, I don’t want to go out there because I’m going to get shot.'" 

As he waited for City Council to reconvene from the closed-door discussion, Albanese fondly recalled the old days when police would check the doors of his shoe store at night, and call him at home if he'd accidentally left them unlocked.

“This used to be Happy Days, this town," he says. "We didn’t even lock our doors in the '50s.”