City Hall settles into a new regime

 

BY PRU SOWERS

KONK LIFE STAFF WRITER

 

In the wake of the sudden departure of City Manager Bob Vitas on June 30, reverberations continue to be felt at Key West City Hall.

 

City Attorney Shawn Smith has refused a request from former Assistant City Manager David Fernandez to reconsider voiding Fernandez’ five-year contract with the city; an agreement negotiated and signed by Vitas but cancelled by Smith because, he said, it “violated a number of provisions of state law” and Vitas was acting “outside his authority in executing” the agreement.

 

The contract, which would have started shortly after July 3, the day Fernandez retired after 28 years working for Key West city government, was the last straw with city commissioners, who voted unanimously June 30 to sever all relations with Vitas, offering him 18 months’ severance pay to walk away one year early from his contract with the city. Vitas had agreed to the severance deal prior to the City Commission vote.

 

In the meantime, Interim City Manager Jim Scholl has jumped into the already-begun budget deliberations that traditionally take up most of staff time in the summer. With the end of the fiscal year coming up quickly on Sept. 30, and public budget workshops scheduled with city commissioners on July 21 and 22, Scholl has had to hit the ground running.

 

“The budget,” Scholl stated flatly when asked what his number one priority is. “Normally we start a little earlier. We need to have a pretty good handle on it by the [start of the budget] workshops.”

 

“There’s some catching him [Scholl] up on that. And I’m new myself,” said Assistant City Manager Sarah Spurlock. “It will be a busy couple of months.”

 

Vitas and his staff had already drawn up a draft budget before he left, containing the proposed spending submitted by each department in City Hall. The next step is to meet with department heads to try to winnow down the spending requests. After those discussions, city commissioners will hold a series of public budget workshops where they accept or revise each budget line item, usually with considerable input from the city manager’s office.

 

Scholl said he and Spurlock are “working together real well” in preparing the proposed fiscal year 2015 budget and will be ready for the public workshops.

 

“I’ve been through the process in Key West before,” he said, referring to the five years, from 2007 to 2012, when he previously held the city manager’s position in Key West. “Most of the senior staff [in City Hall] is the same. I have a professional working relationship with all of them. Hopefully, we can start back up with that. They know what I expect and how I work.”

 

Meanwhile, city attorneys are waiting to see whether Fernandez’s lawyer, John Marston, will file suit against the city for voiding his client’s contract. The contract would have paid Fernandez $113,000 a year plus benefits for five years in return for him managing the city’s utilities projects.

 

“I disagree with your analysis about the contract being void, and if it has to go the judicial route, that’s something we are prepared to do, but only as a last resort,” Marston wrote in an email to Shawn Smith. “Our prime goal right now is to see if something that works for the city and David can be salvaged.”

 

In a response letter to Marston dated July 2, Smith said no deal, writing it was his “firm position” that not only was the contract void but that he would not reconsider extending Fernandez’s July 3 retirement date.

 

Scholl’s new contract with the city is for 12 months, during which time city commissioners will conduct a search for a permanent city manager. Scholl said this week he hadn’t heard of any move yet to officially form a search committee. City commissioners have no regularly scheduled meeting in July, except for the budget workshops, and wouldn’t be able to formally create a search committee until their next meeting in August at the earliest. In addition, Smith is on vacation for most of the month of July.

 

“I’m sure the elected officials and city attorney will determine the required process,” Scholl said about the search committee timeline. “Hopefully, I’ve given them some comfort and there’s not an overwhelming urgency. You don’t want to create more stress than necessary, especially when the budget needs to be done.”

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