Our new mayor isn’t saying why he fired City Clerk Patti Kirkpatrick, who’s described by current and past city officials as someone who was competent and helpful.

Tim Matthes, who’s only been in office a few weeks, won’t even admit he fired her. He tried to pass it off euphemistically as a “separation.”

There may be some undisclosed City Hall machinations involved here that nobody’s willing to discuss on the record.

But if there’s a plausible and rational explanation for canning a supervisor who by all accounts seemed to perform her duties effectively, then the public is entitled to hear it.

But don’t expect to hear any such explanation from the mayor of his decision … if it was in fact his decision.

In his campaign, Matthes often talked about the need for more public input on city government decisions, and for more transparency about how those decisions are made. Unless that was just hollow campaign talk, he needs to practice what he preached.

So maybe someone should ask him at an upcoming City Council meeting to publicy explain his questionable decision to use his authority to fire an at-will employee. And remind him to be transparent about how that decision made with no public input is in the best interest of the citizens who elected him.

Ask him how firing someone — perhaps because his handlers didn’t like the person — makes Port Orchard better for people.