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How many votes to fire a city manager?

Zephyrhills decides to keep the figure at a supermajority, four of five council members.

By MOLLY MOORHEAD
Published August 11, 2005

ZEPHYRHILLS - The committee reviewing the city's charter agreed Wednesday evening to leave the city manager position as is: The top administrator shall be appointed by the City Council and can be fired only by a four-fifths vote.

The issue has been a point of contention among committee members, who were appointed by the five-member council to review the charter and make recommendations for changes. Council members will have their own look at the changes and then put them before voters in April.

Much of the committee's work has dealt with the mundane, but the city manager issue has been a hot one.

Rj Morgan angered other committee members by airing his opinions and frustrations about the matter on his Internet blog. He favored amending the charter to require only a three-fifths vote, or simple majority, to fire the city manager.

Quoting statesmen like Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt, Morgan said the four-fifths "supermajority" runs counter to the democratic system.

"The supermajority requirement gives way, way, way too much power to one person," he said. "That's not what our system is based on."

He was alone in that thinking Wednesday.

Member Emily Keene said she favored the status quo because it insulates the city manager.

"Because political issues can really be hot, I think that to protect this position it should be a supermajority."

The current city manager has withstood several shifts in the political winds. Steve Spina, who has held the job for 10 years, escaped firing in 2001. Last year, newly elected council member Gina King threatened to fire him but never brought the issue for a vote.

Committee member Art Reynolds did not attend Wednesday but left an impassioned plea in writing to do away with the four-fifths requirement.

"We should not continue with this shady scheme of bending our city's charter into something that will surely come back in the future to haunt us, maybe in the form of a tyrannical city manager who might decide that he is a king and not a public servant," Reynolds wrote.

Morgan acknowledged the issue had been settled.

"As a matter of fact, it was defeated with a supermajority," he joked.

The committee reached consensus on other charter issues. After previously deciding to extend council terms from two to three years, they agreed Wednesday not to impose term limits. They also left standing the system of electing council seats at-large, as opposed to by single-member districts.

Member Gary Ward favored districts.

"I like the idea of having somebody that is assigned to me, and I think it'd be better for it to be my neighbor," he said.

But other members said Zephyrhills' small size makes districts impractical.

"We're a small city. I think we want the best people up there representing us," Tom Vanater said. The positions of police chief, fire chief and city clerk all remained the same: The city manager hires them and the council confirms them.

[Last modified August 11, 2005, 00:43:15]