Maitland votes to fire city manager

Maitland City Manager Jim Williams is out. Maitland passed a preliminary resolution on Monday to fire Williams after he had served eight years in the city's top seat.

The Maitland City Council passed a unanimous 4-0 resolution to suspend Williams with pay effective immediately at its March 28 meeting. Councilman John Lowndes was not present at the meeting.

Assistant City Manager Sharon Anselmo was installed as the acting city manager after the vote, as Williams packed his things and quietly exited the City Council Chambers.

In his motion to fire Williams, Councilman Ivan Valdes – in his last meeting as an acting City Councilmember – said it's time for the city to install new leadership to prepare for the city's future.

“I believe new city management is necessary for us to grow,” he said.

Valdes said there is no cause to blame Williams’ firing on, just the need for the city to go in a new direction.

“I think it's time for us to have some new leadership going forward,” he said.

Valdes himself will also be replaced by new leadership at the next City Council meeting on April 11, when his term ends and Councilman-elect Mike Thomas will be sworn in to take over his seat.

According to the city charter, Williams has five days to file a request for a public hearing contesting the ruling. After that five-day period, which will be up April 2, the Council can adopt a final resolution of removal if the manager does not file for a public hearing. If he does file for a public hearing, the final resolution can be passed any time after it is held.

The decision to fire Williams was not advertised on the meeting's agenda. Labor attorney Jeff Mandel told the Council during the “old business” section of the meeting that the city would owe Williams a total of $238,324 for canceling his employment contract. The Council contracted Mandel at a special City Council meeting last week to research how much it would cost the city to fire Williams.

Mandel’s findings report that Maitland will owe Williams, per his contract, one year of severance pay ($161,481), his 300 hours of paid personal leave ($23,290), and one year of employee-plus-one health insurance ($10,736).

Williams has served as Maitland city manger since 2008. He took the position months after being abruptly fired from the same position in Winter Park, which he had held for 13 years. In 2007, the Winter Park Commission voted him out for not being 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 2010 that lawsuit was settled, with Williams receiving a total of $1.1 million between severance and the settlement with the city.

In Maitland, Mayor Dale McDonald helped spearhead the campaign for ousting Williams, which began publicly earlier this month during Williams’ annual performance evaluation.

“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.”

In Williams’ performance evaluations for 2015, 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.”

The reviews resulted in Williams not receiving any merit pay increase for 2016.

Until Williams’ firing is finalized and the search for a new city manager finishes, Assistant City Manager Sharon Anselmo will serve as Maitland’s acting city manager. The Council directed city staff to look into adjusting her salary as necessary for her taking on additional duties.