To St. Augustine Beach Mayor Undine George, Vice Mayor Margaret England, Commissioners Richard Burtt O'Brien and Donald Samora: Your colleague, Commissioner Maggie Kostka, asked for support for a national search for a new city manager last year. Now that it's revealed that BRUCE MAX ROYLE's mismanagement resulted in theft of money, documented by SABPD, don't you feel like revisiting the issue?
Citizens: come speak out November 13, 2018 at 6 PM at St. Augustine Beach City Hall. Democracy dies in darkness.
From Daytona Beach News-Journal:
Landon out as Palm Coast city manager.
Assistant City Manager Beau Falgout named interim replacement; Landon in line to get severance package worth about $250K
PALM COAST — Longtime Palm Coast City Manager Jim Landon is out as the city’s chief of staff.
Council members voted unanimously Tuesday to immediately terminate his contract with the city and appoint Assistant City Manager Beau Falgout as his interim replacement.
Landon said “thank you” and walked out of City Hall through a side door immediately after the decision, which came during the final moments of the board’s regular council meeting Tuesday morning.
Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland made the motion to fire Landon and apparently convinced fellow council members to go along after airing her grievances during an impassioned 10-minute plea.
“I feel like we are standing still and I do not think that’s in the best interest of our residents,” Holland said during the discussion. “I want a sense of urgency by our city manager that we need to get these strategies done.”
Holland said she felt that Landon, who has been Palm Coast’s city manager since 2007, has not adjusted to the vision of the current administration, which has shifted one of the city’s primary focuses to upgrading its technological infrastructure. She also criticized Landon for lapses in communication with council members.
But perhaps her biggest frustration was a lack of progress on policy initiatives that council members laid out as priorities earlier this year. Holland blasted Landon during an Aug. 28 workshop, saying he had not made progress on some of the city’s goals from last year.
“We’ve taken a tremendous amount of time and effort to discuss those priorities as a whole,” Holland said during Tuesday’s meeting. “And to have a manager come back to us and not even work on one of the priorities as identified, not even start on one of them ... I think is frankly astonishing that you would even come back with that.”
Outgoing Councilwoman Heidi Shipley was absent from Tuesday’s meeting due to illness.
Councilman Nick Klufas supported Holland’s motion and lobbied Councilmen Robert Cuff and Vincent Lyon. He said he felt the need to replace Landon during the Aug. 28 workshop as well.
“The day-to-day operations of the city are continuous ... ” he said. “But the priorities that the council sets for the single person that’s responsible to answer to us weren’t being moved forward. At that point in time, I told myself that if this moment were to arise that I would state that and I thought we need to move forward as rapidly as possible.”
Cuff seemed surprised by Holland’s drastic proposal at the back end of the meeting and asked for the issue to be discussed during a special meeting. He initially said he didn’t feel comfortable supporting Landon’s immediate termination but later voted for it after Klufas, Lyon and Holland had already done so.
The city must now pay Landon a severance package that, according to his contract, includes six months’ salary, unpaid personal leave and a year of insurance benefits if he is terminated. That’s estimated to cost about $240,000.
Last year, Landon announced plans to retire in the summer of 2019 after his granddaughter graduates high school. Council members said he never gave them a firm retirement date and refused to do so until next year. Holland said that put the city in a predicament.
Landon did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday.
Palm Coast hired executive search firm Strategic Governmental Resources earlier this year to conduct a nationwide hunt for Landon’s replacement. Those talks had been put on hold at Landon’s request, but Holland directed staff members to ask members of the search firm to attend the council’s next meeting and deal directly with them.
Holland was one of Landon’s biggest advocates when former Palm Coast city councilman Steve Nobile pushed to have him terminated in August 2017. But she emphasized a “sense of urgency” numerous times Tuesday, saying she felt the need to terminate Landon as soon as possible.
Holland said state Rep. Paul Renner, R-Palm Coast, has “asked us to position ourselves accordingly” for when he assumes the role of Florida’s speaker of the House in 2022 and she argued it’s critical for the city to part ways with Landon now.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while,” Holland said during an interview after Tuesday’s meeting. “I certainly think not giving us the agenda well in advance of our meetings was a source of frustration for myself and other council members.
“I just felt a very serious disconnect for a while,” she added. “It has been a series of frustrations that has caused me to take a different thought process on how we move forward.”
No comments:
Post a Comment