Maitland takes steps toward ousting city manager

Maitland's city manager's days at the helm may be numbered.

At a special City Council meeting on Monday, the three Council members in attendance voted unanimously to hire a labor attorney to look into the costs of canceling its employment contract with current City Manager Jim Williams. Council members John Lowndes and Joy Goff-Marcil were not in attendance at the meeting.

The special meeting was called by Mayor Dale McDonald, who added the meeting to the city's calendar last Friday. McDonald said he was motivated to schedule a discussion on the city manager's contract after the Council decided unanimously at its last meeting not to give Williams a merit pay increase.

“That raises the question as to 'why?'” McDonald said. And in his opinion, it's because Williams is not the right person to serve as Maitland's city manager.

“He's a great guy, just not the right guy,” McDonald said.

McDonald said the results of the labor attorney's findings could be presented to the City Council as early as its next Council meeting on March 28.

According to Maitland’s City Charter, the City Council can remove the city manager with a majority vote. With that vote, the Council must state the reasons for removal. The city manager then has five days to file a request for a public hearing. After that five-day period, the Council can adopt a final resolution of removal if the manager does not file for a public hearing. If he or she does file for a public hearing, the final resolution can be passed any time after it is held.

A discussion over Williams' role in the city emerged after annual reviews filed by two Council members, including the mayor, gave Williams less than stellar marks.

On a scale of zero through four with four being “outstanding” and one being “unsatisfactory,” Councilwoman Bev Reponen and Mayor McDonald gave Williams a 2.5 and 2.2 average rating, respectively. Each of their reviews included several scores of one, meaning “below expectation.”

Reponen gave Williams the lowest ratings in the “administrative skill” category, leaving ratings of one for “effectively implements and enforces Council policies and procedures”; “takes responsibility for staff actions”; and “effective in resolving problems.”

In her comments, Reponen wrote, “Jim does not act in charge and appears not to have the knowledge of the answer, referring to staff to provide the answer.”

“He's a stand up guy... he's everything you would ask him to be; he's just not the right guy to be city manager here anymore,” McDonald said at the Council's March 14 meeting. “…I'm of the opinion that we need a new city manager here.”

Other City Council members rated Williams more highly, with average ratings of 4.0, 3.6 and 3.0.

Councilman Ivan Valdes, who give Williams an overall 3.0 rating, said while Williams does a good job a fulfilling the roles of his current job description, the needs of Maitland are changing.

“[City Council members] have term limits for a reason, so we come and go,” Valdes said. “I don't believe Jim or anyone should hold the top spot indefinitely.”

Following a discussion at that meeting, the Council voted not to give Williams a merit pay increase for 2016.

This isn’t the first time Williams has fallen on the losing end of a city council’s opinion. In 2007, after working for Winter Park for 34 years, 13 of those as city manager, Williams was voted out of a job by the Winter Park City Commission, which cited that he wasn't proactive enough in his management style. The controversial 3-2 vote launched a two-and-a-half-year legal battle between Williams and Winter Park. Williams sued the city over a contract dispute, arguing that a severance agreement in his employment contract entitled him to as much as $4.4 million.

In the middle of that legal battle, Maitland hired Williams, first as an interim public works director and soon after as the city manager in 2008.

In 2010 that lawsuit was settled, Williams receiving a total of $1.1 million between severance and the settlement with the city.

"Sometimes you settle things and sometimes you don't," Williams told the Observer shortly after the settlement with Winter Park was reached back in 2010.