MADEIRA BEACH — With only days to go until its current city manager will leave for his new job, the city has lost both a temporary and permanent replacement.
A week ago, the commission offered Michele Neuner the permanent position. Monday, just four days later, she turned down the job.
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Also on Monday, the commission decided after much discussion to offer the temporary interim city manager position to Wayne Saunders, who recently retired as St. Pete Beach city manager. The next day Sauders declined, too.
In both cases, the candidates cited lack of support from the commission.
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In a separate issue, the public learned Monday that Commissioner Deby Weinstein, with the help of City Attorney Ralf Brookes, mailed a letter to State Attorney General Ashley Moody last week.
Weinstein asked Moody to issue an opinion on Weinstein’s accusation that fellow Commissioner Doug Andrews possibly violated the state’s public records law and the city’s charter when he objected to the hiring a new public works/marina director.
“What the hell is going on in Madeira Beach?” resident Robert Preston pointedly asked the commission Monday.
“We are a total laughing stock for what goes on here. You are not going to get top-rated employees here. We will only get somebody no one else wants to hire.”
During a meeting on June 27, Mayor Maggi Black initially did not want to hire any of the candidates for the permanent city manager job, but reluctantly voted along with three others to hire Neuner.
Only Commissioner John Douthirt, who had not attended the candidate interviews, voted against Neuner’s appointment.
“The citizens of Madeira Beach deserve a city manager selected with the full support of the elected leadership,” Neuner said in a letter Monday to the commission, adding that she and her family decided Madeira Beach “is not the right fit.”
It was almost the same language Black had used several weeks ago when she tried to call a meeting to fire City Clerk Clara VanBlargan without cause. VanBlargan was “not a good fit for the city,” the mayor said.
That meeting has yet to occur, and VanBlargan has hired an attorney to fight the proposed firing.
“I am certain that my experience would provide you with the leadership needed during the transition to a new manager,” Saunders wrote to the commission Tuesday. “However, I am withdrawing from consideration due to the limited support for my appointment and lack of full commission support to bring in an outside professional.”
Commissioners had voted unanimously to approve Sauders’ appointment, but Andrews was initially reluctant, strongly objecting to hiring an outside interim manager because of the cost.
An internal candidate has yet to emerge. City Manager Jonathan Evans, who will be departing on July 9, told the commission Monday that, despite sending a notice to his staff, no current employee had applied for the interim position.
Andrews and Vice Mayor Nancy Hodges then suggested re-hiring Dave Marsicano, the former marina and public works director, to be the interim city manager. Marsicano resigned in February from the position he had held for 17 years, citing negative treatment by Evans amid an audit of the city marina.
That audit, which conjectured that the marina had lost thousands of dollars because of discounted fuel, was later refuted.
The commission rejected re-hiring Marsicano on a 3-2 vote.
Weinstein then moved to offer Saunders the interim job, prompting a heated debate in which Andrews objected to hiring Saunders “just based on a piece of paper.”
Andrews also accused Douthirt of causing Neuner’s rejection of the permanent post. In addition to voting against hiring Neuner, Douthirt had demanded that her salary be capped.
Andrews demanded that Douthirt apologize to Neuner. “I don’t owe her an apology at all,” Douthirt insisted.
More heated remarks led to a tense squabble, with Black eventually deciding the commission needed to meet again to determine how to “go forward” regarding management of the city.
Meanwhile, Brookes, the city attorney, tried to hedge his position regarding Weinstein’s letter, which claimed that Brookes agreed that Andrews violated both the state Sunshine Law and the city’s charter that prohibits commissioners from asking the city manager to fire city employees.
“I don’t know if you knowingly violated the law,” Brooks told Andrews at Monday’s meeting, arguing that there were “completing clauses” in the laws.
Weinstein insisted she had a right to send a letter to the attorney general.
“I feel kind of blindsided by this,” Andrews replied, wondering if he should hire an attorney. “Are you trying to get me off the board?” he asked Weinstein.
“No, not at all,” Weinstein replied, laughing. She later accused Andrews of trying to bully her.
Weinstein is usually affiliated with a commission majority that was elected more than two years ago as a faction intent on fighting intense development in the city.
Before she was elected, one of the commission’s first acts was to move to fire former City Manager Shane Crawford and his wife, then the city clerk.
Andrews, the city’s recreation director at the time, was later fired by the then-interim city manager, Fire Chief Darren O’Neal, who was later found guilty of ethics violations and fined by the Florida Commission on Ethics.
“It’s a sad day for Madeira Beach,” Crawford said Tuesday. “This is a divided commission and no one is going to want to come here.”