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By ANNE LINDBERG
© St. Petersburg Times, published May 27, 2001
PINELLAS PARK -- Saying she doubted his credibility and felt he had lost the county's respect, council member Patricia Bailey-Snook suggested Tuesday that City Manager Jerry Mudd needs to go.
"If we're going to have a hired gun, I think it has to be somebody we can trust their word . . . someone who has the respect of this county," Bailey-Snook said. "I don't think Mr. Mudd has that anymore. I don't think he's a credible person to be representing the city."
The other four Pinellas Park Council members jumped to Mudd's defense and blamed county officials for a dispute over the financing of drainage improvements to Park Boulevard.
"I don't believe in my own heart that Mr. Mudd has misled me so far," Mayor Bill Mischler said.
Rick Butler said Mudd was "straightforward and direct." Butler said the city manager had documented "every time" he talked with the county.
"This has been more documented than anything that's ever gone on in the city," Butler said.
Former County Administrator Fred Marquis agreed to pay to help fix drainage problems along Park Boulevard, Butler and council colleague Ed Taylor say, but now the county has financial problems and is trying to back out.
Bailey-Snook took her defeat calmly: "I just wanted to see how you felt."
After the workshop, Bailey-Snook said that she has long had doubts about Mudd's credibility.
In 1998, before Mudd fired Assistant City Manager Peggy McGarrity, he accused McGarrity of ridiculing him and some council members. McGarrity denied the charge.
When Mudd moved to fire McGarrity, Bailey-Snook said she called him to ask why. She said Mudd told her that Jim Johnson, at the time the city's risk management director, had been keeping "verbatim notes" of McGarrity's staff meetings. Mudd said he used those notes as a basis for dismissing McGarrity, Bailey-Snook said.
The St. Petersburg Times sued the city, asking to see Johnson's notes. Bailey-Snook was subpoenaed to testify on behalf of the newspaper, and she sat in the courtroom while Mudd testified.
According to a trial transcript, Mudd said Johnson may have read to him from "one page" of notes that came from a log that Johnson kept "at his home."
Later in the hearing, Mudd denied using the Johnson information to fire McGarrity: "The information that he provided to me, the one short item that he read to me, did not affect, at all, my decision on the termination of Miss McGarrity."
Later in his testimony, Mudd said he could not remember what Johnson had told him.
A judge ultimately ruled in favor of Mudd and the city.
Bailey-Snook said she was shocked at how Mudd's testimony differed from what he had told her. Ever since, Bailey-Snook said, she has had trouble believing Mudd.
"I don't like having a feeling of not being able to believe, of not being able to trust," she said Thursday.
Mudd declined Wednesday to discuss the circumstances surrounding McGarrity's firing, saying the city had an agreement not to disparage her. He also would not answer questions about what happened when he and Johnson met to talk about McGarrity.
"It's all in the record," Mudd said. "I told Mrs. Bailey the truth. I told the truth in the courtroom. I have told the truth every day I've been up here."