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In a process that took only two weeks, the Fernandina Beach City Commission terminated City Manager Dale Martin in a split vote.
Vice Mayor David Sturges made a motion to terminate Martin’s employment with the city at the Feb. 7 meeting. The commission voted to postpone the matter until Tuesday’s meeting. Sturges had a laundry list of reasons he believes Martin should be fired, including what he called a lack of leadership in the matter of the Brett’s Waterway Cafe lease, his termination of Road Department Manager Rex Lester and his alleged language when speaking to department heads about a presentation by Commissioner Ross showing what a 10% budget cut would mean to each city department.
Before any discussion by the commission or the public, Martin made a short statement.
“All I have to say is it’s been an honor to serve this community and a privilege to lead this staff,” he said.
Several people addressed the commission about the matter, the majority of whom were there to support Martin. They expressed concern about how quickly the commission was making such a big decision, and how the city would be managed if Martin was removed.
“I see Commissioner Sturges’ motion as being trivial and meddlesome,” Michael Harrison said. “I don’t think it serves any purpose or is good for the city. It is not good for the city. It is likely to incur a great cost for the city of replacing Mr. Martin as well as replacing the other officers that are likely to leave the city because they can’t trust the security of their tenure of employment.”
“This resolution does not give any guidance for the administration of the city after Mr. Martin’s office access is denied tomorrow,” Margaret Davis said. “It fails to name a city manager pro tem to perform his duties while you spend the next four to six months on a professional search for a new city manager.”
City resident Darryl Ford is a retired human resources executive who said the commission should realize the gravity of terminating Martin’s contract.
“If I learned one thing, it’s that termination is the employment death sentence,” Ford said. “It should be employed only when all options have been exhausted. My concern here is not with the accuracy of Vice Mayor Sturges’ resolution. Most of the items on that list, I agree with. I was uncomfortable with Mr. Martin’s newspaper articles and I am uncomfortable that the permitting process in the city continues to be so controversial among the citizens and haven’t been resolved. These are real issues that need to be addressed. However, I ask that we pause for a moment, call Mr. Martin accountable on these issues … and give him a chance to address them. Should he fail, I believe that termination would be appropriate. Prior to that action, I believe this is premature.”
Ford also addressed a concern that the two commissioners who recently took office, who ran as Republican in a nonpartisan race, were shaping the commission at a political level. It should be noted that Commissioner James Antun, one of those Republicans, voted against Martin’s removal.
“I want to address the elephant in the room, that there is a strong conflict between Democrat, Republican, liberal, conservative type agenda that seems to underplay this discussion. I am concerned that that difference of political opinion is impacting a person’s career,” Ford told the commission.
Former Fernandina Beach Mayor Johnny Miller addressed the commission for the first time since leaving office. He asked the commission to take time in their decision.
Miller explained that, unlike any of the current commission, he was involved in the process when Martin was hired, and appreciated his military background, “that he understood the chain of command, up and down.” As an example of Martin’s service to the city, he talked about Hurricane Matthew, which caused damage to the city in 2016.
“This gentleman sat right next to me at the county emergency (operations center) and I never once had any doubt that we were going to handle that thing right,” Miller said. “If you want a guy at the helm, that was the guy to have. I sleep well at night knowing that he’s in charge. I don’t have to worry about stuff.”
“Mr. Martin has always been there at any time, to answer any phone call, any question I had,” Miller said. “All five of you give this guy direction. You all have input and ideas and you listen to your constituents and what they want. You hand that to the city manager and he has to take all five of those opinions and try to make them work. (The city manager is) herding five cats. I was a hard cat to herd, and he did a great job. He kept everything in check.”
The only speaker who was in favor of terminating Martin was Jack Knocke, representing County Citizens Defending Freedom. He said Martin had time to bring up any prior issues he had with the direction of the city to the new commission, and “… I am not aware of any list that he has brought to you to say we need to turn these things back because this commission has a different issue.”
“I’ve been speaking to you guys and your predecessors for some time and almost every other week I get a call from someone saying, ‘Can you believe this is going on?’ and in many cases I say, ‘Why don’t you take it to the city commission or city manager?’” Knocke said. “They are like, ‘I don’t want to be retaliated against.’ It has to do with building codes and other things that are happening and so I think we do need a change of guard and someone who is going to get out into the community and make this a tight-knit community again.”
During the discussion of Martin’s termination, Ross listed accomplishments of the city under Martin’s direction and quoted campaign materials from Ayscue.
“I agree with Commissioner Ayscue, who stated in his campaign, ‘By understanding different points of view, making decisions based on facts, not rhetoric and working together, we can rise to meet any challenge that faces Fernandina Beach now and in the future.’ I hope the commission would follow this advice and retain the city manager,” Ross said.
Ross said he had spoken to three constituents who had told him that “that the mayor told multiple people that it was ‘a done deal’ that the city manager would be fired.” Bean said he had gone through his email, and the only mentions of the phrase “done deal” were in emails sent to him, and “I will assume that somebody told them that phrase but it was not a quote that I said.
Antun asked the commission if they wanted to consider giving Martin a list of goals and deadlines “and allow opportunity for remediation, or is this a done deal?” No commissioners responded. Antun also asked what the plan for the city was if Martin were to be removed.
Mayor Bean said he realized he was the swing vote in the matter, and that the way it was brought up at the previous meeting “was not correct,” but that he had had time to reflect. He called Martin “a stand-up guy.”
“I have had the time to hear from a great many constituents. Most importantly, I had the opportunity to make a plan,” Bean said. “Depending on how this vote goes, we need a plan. For a city that’s incredibly important to me. I reached out to Police Chief Foxworth on Friday and he has agreed, depending on how this vote goes, he will be our interim manager for a certain time until we hire a new city manager. That would be the plan.”
With that, the commission voted 3-2 to terminate Martin, with Antun and Ross casting the dissenting votes.
After the vote, Ross peppered Bean with questions about Foxworth’s taking over as interim city manager.
“Did you discuss salary terms with Foxworth?” Ross asked the mayor. “So we are going to hire him not knowing the salary, not knowing the terms, not knowing the scope of what he is going to do? Is that your plan? Is that the Bean plan?”
“We know a general scope of what he will do,” Bean replied. “I would say that is more common sense than anything else. He has proven time and time again he is an excellent manager of people, one who knows our city inside and out and he will be an excellent interim city manager until we bring in a new candidate.”
City Attorney Tammi Bach explained Foxworth would be paid as a salaried employee, with no benefits, at the rate Martin was being paid, $75.50 per hour. She said his employment contract with the city was 90 days with an option for renewal, at the suggestion of the mayor.
City Engineer Charles George has been titled deputy city manager, yet was not named interim manager. The News-Leader reached out to the city commission after Martin’s termination and asked why George was not named to the position. Ross said he did not know, and Ayscue said he “had assumed Mr. George would fill that role until another interim was appointed or the new city manager was hired. I certainly would have liked to have been part of the discussions in a workshop format, however I appreciate the efforts of Mayor Bean and Commissioner Ross for being proactive in such a time of adversity and I support their actions.”
Sturges told the News-Leader, “It was communicated to me when Charlie (George) was asked if he wanted to serve, he was not interested in stepping into that role at this time.”
The News-Leader reached out to George about the matter, but he did not respond by press deadline Thursday. Ross called Bean’s recruitment of Foxworth “totally inappropriate” and said that he would have liked the opportunity to be involved in choosing an interim city manager.
Bean simply said Foxworth was very qualified for the position, with no reference to George. Antun did not respond to any of the questions posed by the News-Leader.
Ayscue said he voted to terminate Martin in an effort to unify the commission.
“It was obvious to me by the comments made at the Feb. 7 and Feb. 21 meetings that Mr. Martin had fallen out of favor with the mayor and vice mayor,” Ayscue said. “These two commissioners have worked with Mr. Martin for over two years and, by their comments, I did not believe that they were going to be willing to work with Mr. Martin going forward. With the commission split so decisively, I felt any further delay in what I believe to be an inevitable action would have paralyzed the city of Fernandina Beach. Having been in public service (as a firefighter) for over 24 years, I have seen these situations occur many times, and it is the citizens who ultimately suffer by inaction and indecisiveness.”
The News-Leader asked the commissioners for their response to concerns that firing Martin was a political move. Sturges, Ross and Ayscue were the only commissioners who directly addressed the matter.
“During the campaign and beyond, there were many candidates, across all political spectrums, that spoke about Mr. Martin’s job performance both openly and on social media,” Ayscue said. “There are also many citizens that have done the same. To claim that the decision to terminate Mr. Martin’s contract was political, while ignoring the easily available information to the contrary, is disingenuous at best and political grandstanding at worst.”
“It was political, 100%,” Ross said.
“If it was a political or partisan agenda the two other Republicans on the city commission would have voted unanimously,” Sturges said, referring to Antun’s vote to keep Martin on board.
“I don’t see any benefit to terminating Mr. Martin,” Ross told the News-Leader. “We lost a true public servant.”
After the commission’s vote to terminate Martin, Bach said that regardless of the action taken by the commission, city government will function.
“The city will be in good hands tomorrow,” Bach said. “You have all the city departments and other officers that are here every day. Although we will miss Mr. Martin, the city is going to go on.”
Martin had no negative words the day after the commission meeting.
“I wish everyone well as the next chapter in Fernandina Beach government begins,” he told the News-Leader.
jroberts@fbnewsleader.com