##VIDEO ID:EPqT-3hBHyQ## with that good evening everyone today is January 28th 2025 it is 6:01 p.m we are at Cape Canaveral city council special meeting City Hall council chambers 100 PK Avenue in Cape Canaveral Florida I call this meeting to order mayor Pro Tim Kellum would you please lead us in the pledge to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with libery and justice for all thank you city clerk please call the role council member Davis for I mean here sorry okay council member Jackson here mayor proam Kellum here mayor Morrison here and council member Willis here we have a COR Council thank you all for being here and want to thank the public and all who are participating live streaming online thank you for being a part of this meeting this time Council approval of agenda as written or with amendments are there any changes we have one item we're going to do public public participation first and then one item for consideration and it is to adjourn there no reports or anything on the meeting so if we intend to make any changes or additions I'll make a motion that we approve the agenda as written I'll second that motion got a motion by mayor protim Kellum second by council member Jackson to approve the agenda as written any further discussion city clerk four council member Jackson for mayor protm Kellum for mayor Morrison for and council member Willis for okay unanimous agenda stays as written thank you before we go to public participation have a question for our City attorney the public comment cards are they limited to the items tonight I've got a scenario with two cards one of them is not related to the item tonight the other is just want to make sure I mean it's a special meeting and there's one purpose so um typically it's public comments um um limited to what's on the agenda but of course the council can uh choose to entertain any other comments your prerogative um the the first card I have is uh Mr John bent John if you're here uh that you have submitted two cards yes sir and we ask that we stick to the special meeting uh agenda item which I see you did submit a card and so if you could uh please keep it to to one item merge the two if you choose I certainly don't mind or if this Council would like to allow for two cards to be submitted I think we have a lot of cards tonight so we'd appreciate appreciate it if you could just just one yes sir please okay so I hear that we're in here to see if the city manager is going to get fired and I saw the meeting the other night and you were talking about favoritism and he was favoritism Kevin man the man that owns the space man stores that came in and testified that I lived in the warehouses accused me of being homeless living in the warehouse I wasn't there didn't live in there I had a police officer in the unit next to me that was my rener he was up there as much as I was the month before you found me guilty he commented he was there up there for 160 hours working on his cars He rebuilt two of them in one year and then Kevin man he testified that he didn't have any people living in his Warehouse there was a half a dozen of them in there and they gave the board after the code enforcement hearing they gave them all pictures of them and they were left in there to just to piss me off is all it was thought I would go over there and take the law in my own hands not going to do that man took the FBI when you called the FBI that's when they got them all out He barked at me out there in the parking lot and I barked back and then I went home over here he he sided with them he he wouldn't give me a code reduction hearing Kevin man got there and testified against me and then you wouldn't let me defend myself I told you driver's license electric bill phone bill electric bill I don't live in the warehouse this went on for 4 months and then when I testify Kevin gets up and testifies after me throws me under the bus and a lawyer she wouldn't let me defend myself and I took a sign and put her name on it that Bogen Ms and Ms hires corrupt boneheaded lawyers and judge Crawford came out of the courthouse over that sign and three Days Later Bogan Ms and Ms pulled her profile off their website and then she bid on the job in Dustin Florida just to give her a bone because she they didn't want her he got rid of her too let somebody not defend themselves she's a lawyer she's a judge in there it's disgusting and and this manager over there he trespassed me your city manager trespassed me Mr Green and he got fired for that and Mr Randle lost his first election in 31 years because of that and then you give him the manager's job and then he trespassed me again last year and he and he claimed it was an accident he sent his two goons out here they didn't even introduce themselves to him and I sent him an email and say hey who's those two guys that came out there and trespass me he said he would be responsible for it that he would to take the blame and then then you your your people that's holding your signs wants to come out there and beat me up because I'm holding a toy sign I can put a nasty sign out there Jose Crawford asked me to take that sign over here Randall sign and Kim cop sign because you guys caused a problem and when he left and went back in with with the two deputies and a psychologist he said uh if I had a sign that said I was railroaded he may hold it so we need to get rid of this manager over there and that and and as far as Brian Palmer goes I don't have a problem with Brian Palmer yeah he's on the code board but D the one you fired or quit or whatever she's the one that caused a problem because I asked her the second I didn't tell my rener to cop anything about this except for the first meeting said hey the code board I think I got them under control I told him they're all on the other side he's just said I'm just glad I'm not involved so when they started coming back I didn't tell him yeah he probably would have come and said something but how many people got fired here he got two promotions man he got a promotion from Deputy to detective and everybody else here got fired you need to get rid of a city manager this is what we're here for anybody wants to give me any information if anybody knows anything that can help me out to to get have fired you can email me at Sandy Brites at Yahoo spelled just like it sounds and I know I got six minutes because you turned the light off forgot to turn the light off so thank you very much thank you I have um I'm gonna we have Dan is the next one and just so you're ready following Danon is uh Michelle savastano and then Angela Raymond you do those in order please wait the when they came in I they came in multiple Stacks well okay Dan live uh 226 pul avenue right over here the new construction and I just want to uh say that I support uh Todd as our city manager he's been doing an excellent job had some uh challenges with the building department but since I've started my constru instuction my experience has been that they've really turned it around all of our inspections have been timely professional and courteous so uh I do not support the uh firing of Todd thank you Mr con Michelle savastano Angela Raymond Don Mays will follow hello my my name is Michelle savastano and I'm from the Cape canabal Estates um I spoke at the December meeting and brought forth my concerns about the damage I received from Hurricane Helen and the flooding thereafter we are pleased that the city is finally addressing the cleanup um of the canal behind us so I thank you for that but from the but from the hurricane and the canal I have incurred a lot of damage my AC and heat unit it got destroyed and I have to pay approximately 10,000 to replace it I had no heat for months and I had a roof leak from the um hurricane water damage inside which is going to be like 6,000 so the cost has been substantial both monetarily and healthwise from the mold in the walls and AC Ducks so while dredging the canal will eliminate some of the problem by allowing the runoff of the water to enter we are still affected by the adjacent properties who must do their part that's the mango Manor and the other side so I'm asking the city to please address the issues with the adjacent properties and my second um asking is um femur has been nowhere to be found um I have uh submitted my application and stuff like that so um they say I'm waiting for inspector is there any way that the city could help with that that's my question two questions we will I'll make sure to take a note of that and we'll we'll follow up with you if you have my email and try to get an answer to as soon as possible okay thank you thanks if John Von wants to go before me he's more than welcome I want to hear what you have to say so Angela Raymond Don May and then following as Brandon ibok I'm Angela Raymond and I was a former member of the city council and I have nothing but wonderful things to say about Todd Morley as I said in the past I think that he has worked here for 23 years and he's shown his loyalty to this city in good times and in bad times and I think to judge on just one or two cases is a bit ridiculous uh I find that this is a new height of ugliness that I found at the city council and to tell the truth I'm very embarrassed about it and other people from other cities are watching us I don't know if the Press is here tonight but they ought to be I think that uh the way that some of the staff has been treated is is a terrible thing anyone in management knows that whenever you have something negative to say to someone who's working day and night night you take them aside and you speak to them privately you don't embarrass them at a city council meeting I almost feel that some of our staff is working under a hostile environment and this is wrong our staff was happy our staff was working together laughing together and enjoying themselves as they're working you should enjoy your work now I'm not so certain I see that there's a lot of angst and I think some of that has been created by you mayor and I feel sorry for you right now and I have some empathy and sympathy about the way that you have acted in public and some of the things that you have said and I'm sorry to say but Todd Morley has been a loyal employee and he should stay a loyal employee and you can't judge I'm just one or two things that have happened in the city you have hashed and rehashed over and over again two places Filmore and Jackson excuse me we're a whole city and we have 10,000 residents here we all have issues please don't make a judgment on just one or two things look at all the hundreds of different things that Todd Morley has done the good things along with what you might call a mistake if you've never made a mistake in your life you know stand up excuse me I've had enough thank [Music] you thank you yeah hi Don ma Brandon ibuk and John Bon good evening my name is Da Mae I am here in two capacities won as a property owner of a number of commercial properties at the uh at the end of Astronaut Boulevard and as well I am the chair of the bed board uh for the city of coun City count for the City of Cape canabal I have two issues tonight I'd like to share first and foremost um I find it very um I'm glad there's a crowd here but the notice level on this meeting was minimal at best um normally a city council meeting has a much longer notice period I just happened to see it this afternoon in my email um and so that was very Discerning to me as how quickly that the mayor requested this meeting at 4:00 on a Friday for a meeting on a Tuesday evening there was not a lot of time for people to have an opportunity to respond second of all I'm here at standing in strong support of uh Todd Ming I have worked with him on a variety of projects over the last 20 years he has in a variety of different roles R I have seen him represent the city in community organizations I have seen him work directly with um projects that we have done and I've also seen him consistently work with staff in positive and productive ways I stand again in um in accordance with the fact that I believe he is an excellent city manager and has done a great job I can't really top what Angela said I thought she did a great job um but I do ask that the city council look at the whole of his work uh over all the years of service and his ability to do an amazing job with the community thank you very much thank you we have Brandon ibok John Bond Lisa day my name is Brandon ibok and I'm a resident of Meritt Island to the citizens and the staff of the City of Cape Canaveral let me say that I envy you those who have lived or worked here long enough have had twice the years that I've enjoyed of the personal and professional qualities of Todd Morley he is one of the finest people I have ever had the pleasure to call my friend with the exception of my family there are very few things in my life which give me nearly the feeling of Pride and accomplishment as the work in live music that I have done with Todd in the last 10 years he has helped me grow both technically and personally always seeking to improve the quality of our work the professionalism with which it is performed and the value it brings to both our audiences and the venues that employ us I envy you in that the city and its people enjoy the full benefit of not only Todd's extensive knowledge and experience in matters of City business but also his leadership abilities he has often built me up for my technical contributions to our shared work has helped me to see where I can grow as I seek to emulate his remarkable capacity for encouragement patience compassion and mentorship to his peers and his teams contrary to the picture some may try to paint here I have never known tdd to seek out power leverage or even recognition believe me there are times that I begged him to embrace his abilities as a leader to H the cats or guide his fellow musicians he has always steadfastly maintained his philosophy that we're all in this together as equals I'd like to say that there is something for which you can all Envy me in return because I get to work with Todd in his true passion music however I've often heard him talk about his work for the city and its people and I assure you his passion for It suffers no loss in the comparison Todd has had a long and accomplished career in the City of Cape canaval and I know he wanted to continue here until he was ready to step down from his career as a civil servant he is a better man than I can ever imagine myself being enduring with poise and dignity the often deplorable behavior and reprehensible tactics we' witnessed in recent proceedings here by those clearly pursuing some sort of misguided personal Crusade or Vendetta rules and ethics be damned if this Council and its leader simply cannot effectively work with Todd for the good of the city then I hope they will do right by him in The Parting of their ways lest there be nothing left to Envy in this community and its moral fabric thank you thank you John Bon Lisa day Susan Denny normally I don't need a mic but uh for recording purposes Mr Mayor I have supported you in the past but absolutely cannot do so so tonight and I'm going to try to write a wrong before it even occurs you've seen the letter that's in front of you it's my understanding that those allegations have already been reported to the state so we'll see what comes out of that um I know you don't like Todd moley the city manager there were two um I also know that there were two issues caused by employees for which you're trying to hold the city manager accountable those long-term employees are no longer with the city and at least one of them was fired by Todd Todd spent a lot of time fixing the issues uh that happened and they they were all pretty much due to um pering he's the best city manager we've ever had of course I wasn't around here when the city was founded in 1966 I was 5 years old you remember the Fiasco of David green and his rain and what happened at the end Todd is a delight and very popular with the residents he's experienced he's intelligent he's objective and uh his work is widely admired by a lot of people and other cities would love to get his hands that get their hands on him we can't let that happen and he's uh he's too loyal to the city uh now let's talk about something that really counts and that's money if you fire Todd it's going to cost2 200 to $300,000 to replace him and that's not exaggerating uh you're going to have to pay him either his Severance which is about 60,000 Plus or you're going to wind up paying attorney's fees you're also going to have to pay uh a consultant or a head hunter to find another another um city manager and 20 years ago I don't know if you were around but it cost about $182,000 to hire David Green so with the extreme roll backs that you have instituted the city cannot afford to do this right now with the condo reassessments uh when the condo reassessments take place the after the 15 to 20% drop in value over the last 18 months the coffers are going to be very very empty and uh and I know as a real estate broker I know that the uh Market is not coming back overnight and uh all of this is wrong just very wrong it will be a stain on your legacy and the City in general and we do not need this type of publicity and I'm asking you to drop this action it makes no sense to move forward thank you thank you have le Lisa day Susan Denny Bob Boger Lisa day Executive Administrative assist assistant Todd Marley and office manager for City Hall I am beyond outraged by the accusations and the treatment that this city council has placed on current and past employees I have sat quietly meeting after meeting watching some of you bully belittle accuse and call for the removal of several staff members who have long served this community with dignity and respect tonight I can no longer sit quiet and watch you call for the removal of our city manager tonight I am the voice of my co-workers and those residents in the city who do not support the firing of Todd Morley he has done an amazing job for this city and has continuously supported your efforts and those of the residents when you took your oath of office you swore to represent all the citizens of the cape canaval not just the few but that is not the case it seems as though those few individuals with grudges against the city have swayed your decisions to support their vandetta in firing Todd Morley you as council members know the good that Todd has done but choose to ignore his successes to support this vandetta and in doing so the residents of Cape canaval will soon see who their true leader was and the differences he has made for this community thank you thank you Susan Denny Bob Bogger Nancy Dean hi Susan hi I'm Susan Denny I'm currently on the Planning and Zoning Board and I live in Cape Canaveral I love it um I think that Todd is a very nice man um I think some of the things that we heard in the other meetings were accountability I have been a manager I've been an assistant director I have managed over a 100 people hourly salary Engineers you know you name it and I'm accountable for everybody underneath me in that organization it has always been the leader who is accountable I know great uh great vice president that we had in our company he signed off on a travel expense well guess what he didn't read it good enough or there wasn't he got fired because it was a bad thing that happened through the company so you know I think the good old boy network was mentioned I've seen it I've seen it and when I first started on the board I was I did this just because I'm retired and I wanted something to do I care about this city and to me I almost quit because I could see it okay I see the city moving in a great direction there's a lot of good stuff going on there's a got a lot of good people I did see a lot of young people who I thought were very talented they left I don't know why they left but when it comes to accountability it's stop at the top right if you your cell phone doesn't work or you know you can't know what everybody does well that's what your job is that's why you have supervisors that's why you have meetings that's why you have Open Door policies to make sure you know what's going on because you're ultimately accountable you know I don't I think we're getting better information on the Planning and Zoning Board it was like pulling teeth to get a lot of it when the parking issue came up you know people were saying well what about slide in what about tip of few you know do they have enough parking spaces you got this little nod well you know I don't know well my husband and I went out drinking beer at all the bars okay so that's four beers per bar cuz I wouldn't do just one and done counting seats and and and stuff so we went on our own I presented the data that not not everybody's being treated fairly Moon Hut they got a CO with not having enough parking spaces and they were a new business that wasn't part of the exempt ones the existing so I think that there is some uh selective stuff going on so I do think Todd is a nice man but I think the city needs to step up thank you Bob Boger Nancy Dean Lamar Russell U Bob Bacher I actually live in Coco Beach but I'm a large property owner here I've been uh doing business in uh Cape canaval since 91 uh my family moved to this area in ' 61 my dad moved into Cape Kabal we came family uh8 months later so I seen cap gaval change okay and so the leadership uh for that change came from the different Commissioners and the managers that ran it so I can tell you uh without any hesitant that uh Todd ranks up there as one of the better city managers I have seen I have worked with him uh every meeting and I have many always started with the best interest of this city and ended with the best interest we never always agreed on everything but we work through it and I think the city was Ben benefited for it um take a case and example is across from the Rison uh we put in a development agreement that we negotiated with the city attorney and Todd in the city council and basically it kept uh 450 jobs in it also allowed us to improve uh tremendously the building uh so ethically uh you won't find it anybody better and uh what seems to be missing from this is there's a historical perspective of this city that that when you long-term employees leave uh you lose a lot um so I'm I'm a course against this I consider uh uh Todd a friend we do not socialize I've never socialized with him after hours but uh he is a friend because he's very ethical and forthright what he can do and what he can't do uh in in my uh observation of his talents he has always been with the commissioner so I don't know what got uh off base on this commission with him not being able to work with the will of the commission CU you all hire and fire you're the last St in the city I recognize that and for me I try to stay out of the politics of this city because I I'm a high-profile Target uh so but I I want to uh mention a couple things the lean I listened to the last um uh uh commission meeting and and the big issue on the lean well I bought a property that had a $90,000 lean on it the the the city uh released it I did not pay for it okay uh I found a technical uh flaw in the lean it was a five or 6 acre 8 acre parcel and had multiple ad addresses and they were putting the wrong address on the uh Lan so I had a technical issue it got passed nobody got fired my point you won't find a better or more ethical person to help you run this city thank you Nancy Dean Lamar Russell Tom sure yet good evening uh I have been in front of all of you before and um I'm have back tonight uh I have much regret to have to tell you that last time I was here um the city staff was told that they were to communicate with me uh and um that has not been the case so I do want you to know that right off the bat um right after the meeting we had in November um I had a lot of questions and emails and things that still to this day have not been answered at any rate um the reason why I'm here is because um I have lost confidence in the city staff in particular in the building department um I have lost confidence in in the manager um my first uh time speaking to him ever was in July there was a project going on in my neighborhood I was very concerned about and um I had a conference call Little did I know uh A call came in to my phone there were three people on the phone there was um I don't want to mention their name but there was Todd and two other staff members on the phone I expressed what my concern was uh about this project going on on Coral Drive he said I will get back to you it probably within 24 hours this was mid July I'm still waiting the call never came in but at any rate um around July 26 because I didn't hear from him uh I did everything I could do with all staff members to get help I contacted the mayor I I I gave everybody a chance I contacted the mayor I communicated with the mayor what was going on with the project in my concerns so I just wanted to to to let you know that now I another reason why I have lost confidence this is now a safety issue I don't want to talk anymore about that project I want to talk about a safety issue related to that project it was brought to my attention on November 24th that there was a pool that had been built that pool was filled with water the back fencing was totally dilapidated there were slats down totally unsafe for children in the neighborhood uh the place was not secured the pool was filled with water I was very very worried about it so I contacted the city I I said look I don't even think this make meets Florida statue law you've got a pool sitting here you've got a fence totally dilapidated you know pay attention to this um it really bothered me there was nothing done for many many many weeks so that P was filled with water wasn't secure there's the Florida statute law that says You must have proper fencing around a pool um so I just I've just lost all confidence I tried my best to make sure that the city staff knew what was going on emails were not answered telephone calls were not answered I've just totally lost confidence in the city and your manager and I think the City of Cape canaval can do a lot better and aside from that there could have possibly been a big liability here that gentleman that was talking money and finances NY we're going to have to cut it I'm sorry thank you so much okay we have a lot of cards thank you Lamar Russell Tom shorak Jim Houston I'm Lamar Russell uh thank you for hearing me as I look around the city I see a clean orderly Place streets are clean roads are paved power lines work sewer system works good it's managed well we have a well-managed city why should we divert our attention of running this great place to a few issues surrounding one person we don't need to do that we don't need that problem the garbage is well collected hurricanes not withstanding Todd came here at a time when the city was not well organized people used to wander around in the Departments council members too Mayors give it everybody godos everybody had a goo and nobody knew who to answer to and Todd came here he organized it he cut off that wandering around he made a system where you fill out a sheet State your problem it goes on the stack and it gets worked when it comes to the top your problem is going to get worked well okay there are a few problems now that people are telling us that not are not getting worked they need attention we need to help him put more attention on those jobs we don't need get rid of him that would not be a good thing to do because you'll spend hours and hours of useless time not on their problems but on your problems of finding a replacement if we keep Todd and give him the tools and work with him better we'll be able to work with their problems and not your problems I think we ought to keep Todd he's a good man thank you thank you Tom Tom shat Jim Houston and steuart Smith good evening Tom shyak property owner resident here in the city I watched uh last week's uh council meeting I was pretty outraged about the $110,000 lean that wasn't recorded and not paid to the city and that comes out of our pockets the taxpayers that could have gone towards the city's finances and lowered our tax rate next year and to think that it's not standard procedure to record a lean for a code enforcement violation once the magistrate has determined that there is a fine due that's ridiculous it's that's uh negligence I don't know the city manager never met him before but I I have to say this is the way the city's run he probably you probably should replace him with someone else and another thing I i' like to walk around the city the city is is some of the blocks are just pitch black no Street lighting what's going to be done about that that's something if I was managing a city I'd maybe take a drive-thru at night down the streets and see what things look like and it's it's we have a pretty safe City but it it's some of the streets are just pitch black and those the same streets don't have sidewalks on them uh another thing the um perhaps you know how many other properties the $10,000 lean which discussed last last week how many other properties has that happened on that we don't know about is my my the big question to be answered and that's could be you know hundreds of thousands of dollars in City Revenue that's lost and to think that you're not in charge of that Todd that's pretty ridiculous and you know you I don't think you really if that's that you're that flippant with the city's money you probably shouldn't be employed here I know if someone in the private sector cost their employer $10,000 because of their negligence or I forgot to do something didn't have the procedure they get fired and I think we ought to look into how many other properties this has occurred on and uh how many other leans should have been recorded that weren't and how much the revenue loss was to the city thank you thank you Jim Houston Stuart Smith Tamara mulbach steuart Smith toar Bill Skinner uh good evening all thanks for the opportunity to address the council and city manager and City attorney my name is Stuart Smith I live at 215 Coral Drive I'm also a member of the business and economic development board the bed board as we call it um that could be changed um full transparency I do not have a financial um interest or otherwise involved in L May um I was here when when Todd was selected as city manager and completely supported him at the time but here's my concern um I watched the city council meeting from 121 and I have to say it was not mustsee TV in any way shape or form and I actually you can blame me I sent the email requesting this special meeting because I just felt if it went too long if it went to the next regular meeting too much time would be elapsed and what I saw was just dysfunction this is not a Todd issue or city council this isn't us issue like we got to get it we got to get it together if you watch this from the outside looking in it was a it was really difficult to to watch so I was concerned about um I'm really concerned about good governance and operation in the city and being in question and it includes the things I sent in the email lack of clarity and transparency lack of inherence and accountability um and addressing or resolving real perceived impropriety dealing with the city staff City Council Members citizens in particular property owners so as a citizen I'm concerned that if the issues aren't addressed immediately that we would just be open to more problems right so that was the that was the impetus for asking to convene this sooner than later um I also had a long career in human resources and I know when you have employee issues they're difficult um it's like a Band-Aid right it's best when pulled off so if and that's a big if Todd the city manager violated city laws code procedures violation is of the severity to terminate him then do so if it is not let's get our stuff together as a council and City staff and work together effectively and clean up the code enforcement policies and procedures so that's all I ask and this is not a lecture it's just an appeal that a reminder as elected officials and staff you guys have a higher purpose than your worldview your political leanings your orientation or even your ability to work together effectively interpersonally and I'm really hoping that this evening we can come to whatever the right resolution is thank you thank you Mara Bill Skinner Peg schaer hi Bill Skinner manager and Resident cap IAL Mobile Estates first I'd like to thank the city and uh Tim for finally getting that drainage ditch going but with the other very problems with the adjoining properties um I keep getting blown off and it's been that way since I've been down here I just like to know the reason why uh code enforcement never followed up and with numerous back and forth I even came down here to speak with somebody and I was told that get they'd get back to me and to this they just blow me off on it and it's a concern with all the residents um just like to have that resolved that's it thank you thank [Music] you deira Peg schaer Tina Freeman um Tam mulbach and I'm a resident here in Cape Canaveral uh thanks for the opportunity to speak make it brief I'd like to take a moment to point out lack of fiscal responsibility and poor decision- making exit by the city manager in the last 12 months this is in addition to all the city's time and resources to deflect responsibility for improprieties conducted by City staff on Filmore Jackson deflection ta tactics include smoke TR screens redirecting avoiding direct answers burying facts and minutia poor record keeping just really a total lack ethical conduct I would like to point out when the city manager his report of findings on Jackson and filmer investigation one of the city managers recommendation was to create a new or chartdirector position this would in effect create a new position for an underperforming director that was part of the problem and cost the taxpayers another six figure salary or one close to it now he wants to take credit for the fact that the director is no longer here with the city in the end the director separated with from the um city with a severance package none of the Bad actors were disciplined shifting gears to post hurricane recovery in the underresourced mobile community no sense of urgency was displayed in addressing the emergent health and safety issues with power line standing water and fire even when there are photo photographs of in iminent danger it was days later before the city manager got involved the property experienced significant flooding homes literally drowning in water bill Skinner property manager who addressed Todd and Council in the October 24th meeting had begged for help the reason that Todd had given for not sending the city's water pump to the property was it was me wanting to be prudent with the city's resources that seemed kind of incredulous to me we didn't need to buy a pump just move it to the sinking properly property interesting timing to be fiscally responsible this is so much bigger than Jackson and Filmore just the tip of the iceberg the cities the citizens of Cape canaville deserve so much better in the reign of the good old boy Network thank you thank [Applause] you Peg schaer Tina Freeman Eileen item good evening again Council Peg Sher a business owner and a resident of Cape Canaveral The Narrative that has been displayed up here that the city council has been rude to staff is only because staff was not giving getting the answers back to council Council had to ask repeatedly for the information and staff did its very best not to give that information The Narrative is is that the city manager took action as soon as he knew that the staff members underneath them were Derick in their duties however that is verifiably false the city manager was well aware of the derck of Duties as written by a letter from my attorney dated August 14th of 2023 months before city council brought it to the attention of the public had the city manager taken any action to ensure that the selective enforcement that was ramped in this city would cease would would not gotten to city council instead city council asked questions and they reive false information they received false information about what documents were available documents were falsely identified documents were manipulated in the system I have met with Todd I think he's a really nice guy however he is he did not take responsibility still hasn't taken responsibility to my knowledge no one was fired no disciplinary action we have a building that I requested eight times because of a life safety issue Mr Willis was clearly able to see it with his eyes it was dilapitated you folks have all been there spent my entire life life savings to create a safe space in the City of Cape Canaveral and instead of getting help I was retaliated against not once but twice each of the eight times I asked for help the only thing that I got was another notice of violation which by the way were unsubstantiated when you take responsibility for your team and immediately asked for the information of why why this selective enforcement has been happening you don't wait for city council to ask you to do it you do it when that becomes aware when you are aware when you are received a certified letter stating of the impropriety and the times and the dates that's the time you earn the respect of your citizens the or chart is the citizens of Cape Canaveral then it is the council and then is the city manager there's no guarantee the next person that comes to tries to help the city is not going to receive the same treatment I did because it wasn't until Council asked for Action that action was taken than thank you Tina Freeman Eileen idam and Lee visad Domin good evening City Council Members um my name is Tina Freeman I'm a full-time resident and property owner here in Cape Canaveral and have been since 1996 um I to have witnessed a group um being singled out and targeted on an issue by a couple of bad employees when it was their incompetence incomplete records and under the watch of the city manager I know firsthand the detrimental effect it had on our condo boards and our neighbors first and foremost I've done the research and I've been involved D with the city coming to City Council meetings and such first and foremost the taxpaying citizens have already lost so much money not to mention the trust as a direct result of the lack of oversight the complete lack of follow through no accountability and huge missed opportunities to collect fines on violations and those violators hey don't Qui down back there it has cost us a lot of money not to mention aggravation then to add insult to injury we're rewarding the city is rewarding those bad employees for their bad behavior for failing to do their job for which they are paid with taxpayer money and then they're turned around and rewarded with severance pay upon their exit um how is that being good Financial stewards of our tax taxpayer money I I think enough is enough and then to hear a city councilman say well this is a bad hand that he was dealt with the city manager couldn't help what he was dealt with when it was part and parcel part of his doing the city manager has been here for over two decades he's been involved in several departments he's continued to allow this and contributed to this culture of lack of transparency disrespect of the citizens and the city council the dereliction of Duty the bad behavior and more is to be accepted that's to be acceptable um the lack of processes the lack of oversight is unacceptable the lack of due diligence the failure to carry out the responsibilities of the job not following the mandates and the codes that the city has established it absolutely should not be rewarded um most importantly I believe that 76% of the citizens reelecting the mayor speaks volumes for what and who the city residents support um their ideals and their policies thank you thank you [Applause] Eileen idom and Lis s Domin and if you have not heard your card raised or you passed or wanted to go again just please come forward and we'll make sure you're heard thank you hi my name is Eileen idam I'm a city resident and I thank you for the opportunity to speak on a couple of concerns um one being uh well actually both from the meeting on Friday um but it was mentioned that when the transfer of the phone took place duee to a poor battery charge that information was transferred over to the new phone with the exception of text messages and just with the clouds up above and all the technology that we have today I'm I'm just truly surprised that that happened and I'm curious um we didn't really get an answer the other night we were told that photos transferred but I'm wondering if contacts were transferred over if emails were transferred over I'm only assuming that they were so how is it possible that text messages only weren't transferred I um I would love to find out the answer to that sometime in the future and then another concern that I had was um I believe it was uh council member Davis was talking about the inability to really truly manage somebody 247 I think she had asked you mayor Morrison if you actually had the opportunity to supervise or manage somebody because you can't possibly know what they are doing doing all the time and I have to disagree with that I have worked in the public and the private sector I have supervised and I have been supervised in both the private and public sector and I do know that um it's all about accountability you have meetings you have schedules you get together you go over projects and agendas and you followup that is what it means to be accountable to your direct support and I understand there were I believe three direct support to to Mr Morley and and they are no longer at the city and I just believe that if the city manager had done his job then the direct support would have done their job and we wouldn't be in this position right now with the city manager trying to keep his job thank you thank you [Applause] Lis aomine and for those of you who are listening online if you intend to speak uh we ask that you raise your hand and we'll follow the same procedures and try to unmute you and make sure you're heard just want to give you a heads up thank you Miss Miss adamin uh good evening uh I've been a resident since 1989 I've seen people come I've seen people go I've seen things done well I've seen things done not well my concern as a citizen is the way we treat our business people is very very important I happened to be at pegs the day that they said her garage was cleaned out and it wasn't and she made the phone call to the city I was quite concerned I was Peg questioned me about the lean and I said to her you have title if it's not on your title you don't have to pay the lean this is a problem between the title company and the city you have a clean title as those people on Filmore they have title insurance and that title insurance guarantees them that their property is safe this isn't between you this is between Anthony who deals with the title company that's why we pay Anthony the money we pay Anthony none of us have that knowledge nobody sitting here has a law degree from my standpoint I don't know all the ins all the outs my next concern is what is it costing me this is my bottom line always it was brought to Todd the best of my knowledge it was brought to Todd's um gave Todd information about city employees that weren't doing their jobs to the best of my knowledge those people are no longer working here if they were terminated and we as a city terminate Tod we're holding ourself liable for lawsuits haven't we paid enough money with the the buildings on Filmore it's a title problem it's not our problem it's a title problem we all pay title insurance we're getting confused if we throw out the person that instructed the other people to go and there's quite a few of them like why wasn't that that leveraged against the building is that our city clerk who no longer is here was that her job she's behind Todd was it Mia's job to make sure Todd had this information we don't know she's not here we can all second guess and do all of these other things but we're up here right somebody's head of the city thank you can I continue can I ask for continu mayor as you do many meetings what's that can I ask for continuance as you do many meetings uh I try to to be balanced with all of them uh I gave some people 10 extra seconds or so would be fine thank you so if we aren't holding ourself to the same standard that we ask our city leaders to hold themselves to we're responsible for our money let's end the bleeding of our money let's hire a real engineer instead of a company paying $100,000 can we pay someone cheaper to be on our staff to okay these things and now we know we need an engineer because they didn't have an engineer we have these problems on Filmore thank you all right thank you I'm just saying okay thank you thank you sorry Anthony all right is anybody intended to speak that didn't get a chance to submit a card okay seeing none we are still in public participation if anyone online would like to speak uh we ask that you please raise your digital hand and we'll make sure to unmute you um from top to bottom the first one jny cold iron am I unmuting I'm going to leave it alone if I've got some help back there want to unmute Jenny cold iron thank you for your patience trying to figure it out okay Jenny you're unmuted I'm sorry can you hear me floor is yours can can you all hear me dennie if you can hear us we cannot hear you okay I'm sorry I can't I don't know what's going on it if there's anything that I can do to help please let me know I'll try one more time can anybody hear me thank you all for your patience didn't work shoot hey Jenny can I believe we can hear you now you can hear me now uh yes maybe a little louder please okay is this better no I think you're talking fine if we can increase the volume okay that's we'll listen closely okay I'm sorry for the technical difficulties um my name is Jenny C iron and I was the deputy Finance director at the City of Cape Canaveral from January 2020 until March of 2024 and tonight I'm speaking on behalf of Todd Morley I will not speak to the specific situation that the mayor and other council members have alluded to in regards to their decision but I feel I had to speak out regarding Todd Morley's integrity and character of which he has plenty his leadership is the type of leadership that good employees Thrive under he is not a micromanager and trusts his directors to run their departments as they see fit however I know for a fact that if City Rules or regulations were not being followed and Todd knew about it he would not have allowed it to continue he is not a facilitator of and does not not participate in the quote good old boy system that the mayor mentioned in the last meeting in my experience that would be the exact opposite of what he expects from City staff he does and did trust his staff members to do the right thing and do their jobs correctly he also does not make snap decisions when it comes to his staff I'm sure he wanted to believe in the honesty and integrity of his employees this is the type of leadership you want in the city he is empathetic to his staff and truly cares about things that go on with his staff outside of the city hall Todd has been over backwards to serve this city the council and his staff from what I see it's a thankless job trying to constantly balance all of those needs but I think he's done it well I respectfully ask that the entire Council please reconsider this decision please don't make unfortunate situation even worse thank you for your time thank you okay uh Pat Campbell we'll go ahead and try to unmute you some help believe we can hear you um my name is Patrick Campbell I'm a 40-year resident City of Cape canaval 40 years um I think I think CI from my perspective citizens expect accurate and consistent application of city ordinances um in my experience with the city for a number of years um I feel you're falling short in the accurate and consistent application of the ordinances um I have a um if laser fit is up anyone can go in and review we we lost you there well I don't I don't know where you lost me at we we can hear you now okay I'll start over uh citizens expect expect accurate and consistent application of the ordinances in my experience over a number of years um I think the city falls short on the accurate and consistent application of our city ordinances uh if laser fit is up anyone can go in and go to the public records section uh I have a number of folders uh in there anybody can review things that I have um I have asked to be addressed within the city I will say that uh in all of my dealings with Todd and I believe I'm I'm probably have had quite a few by any measure Todd has always been professional it's never been a matter of does he care is the professional it's a matter of of results and from my perspective the city's falling short on consistently applying the ordinances and when I say consistency it spreads across all kinds of things not just code Code Enforcement but certainly code enforcement is the one that's on my mind all the time thank you thank you I do not see any other hands raised online want to make sure we've scrolled down if you don't mind to the bottom and thank you all for participating and listening in okay confirmed no other hands are raised and see one card in the back for president city of Cen afal Joe abber uh wasn't aware of all this stuff the only thing I knew was I read an update that me of go forth was no longer here had no idea why that happened apparently it was something happened here last meeting which I did not attend and did not view online Mr moley I don't have anything against him I think he is a very nice fellow as like a lot of people have said Mr moley was kind of forced upon the city council at the time I don't think any of you were on the city council when he was appointed except for maybe Mayor West so there's a reason that those other people aren't here anymore you might want to think about that a lot of the testimony I've heard are not coming from residents they're coming from people that know him one of the gentleman said his passion is music it's his side passion or are we his side passion I don't know what has happened I have one issue that I've been working on for since 2016 and that is the retention pond at the end of my street every time I've asked him which hasn't been many two or three I always get told to go see it was Jeff now it's uh I can't think of his name 10 10 thank you Carlile still nothing has ever been done down there every council person here has seen that retention Pond and it's still in the same shape eight years eight years I heard somebody else complaining about something on Coral Drive I think it was so you're getting a lot of complaints there's a reason for that somebody's not doing their job and as another person said it always goes to the top he's the one that's got to make the the choices now if he's not getting the information from the people that he working for him that's his job to fire them and if those people aren't firing the people that are not doing the job for them it's up to them to get them fired and I know that the attorney has to watch all that stuff because you don't want to get into a legal thing about firing people without cause so really consider maybe being able to try to work this out thank you thank you [Applause] okay is that another card coming forward there please please and Jenny if you if you intend to speak I just want to make sure your hand is raised and uh and take that down thank you thank you sir Missy aen hello my name is Missy Aken and this is one of the few City Council meetings I have attended um I'm not only a resident I'm a property owner and I'm an employee of the city um I'm fairly new to the State of Florida I come from Scottdale Arizona which is a very very large city I will have to say that I've been not only shocked but appalled by some of the things I have witnessed from the city council board I was um very enlightened after reading a survey that was put out by um the city uh with its employees regarding the atmosphere the clients of the city and um I think that um kind of says it all I'll have to say I am new here to the city as an employee and on behalf of Todd I don't know him very well but my interactions with him have always been professional he's always been outstanding and so is everyone that I work with and have worked with in the city I know some of of you have had some issues you seem to have some issues but I think people need to understand you live in a city you are not the only people who have problems or issues you're not the only people who bring their problems and issue to the city manager there's a lot of people in this city who have a lot of issues and because you don't get your response or you don't get this or you don't get that or you don't get an email maybe you need to take into account that there's other things that may be a little more pressing than what may be your issue at that point in time now to you they're very pressing because it's your issue or your concern however you're one amongst many other issues that occur within the city and I'm not sure what all the legalities are right now that got us to this point right here but I really think it's pretty appalling that this board has chosen to walk down this path rather than working with a city manager who not only respects the employees but treats their employees with dignity and the employees and the city are his passion just because someone said music is his passion doesn't mean the city comes second he is here daily his heart is in this job the majority of the people that work for this city work for you way beyond our 80 hours Way Beyond the pay we receive for working in the city so please keep an open mind and keep an open heart and do the right thing for the city not your own agenda thank you [Applause] okay Bruce Robertson is the microphone working I understand it hasn't been for a couple of meetings um thank you for allowing to speak tonight I'm a little late but L late than never I just want to comment on what this lovely lady just said and I agree with a lot of what she just said but what prompt me to step up and I wasn't planning to was their characterization of our elected city council as a board this is not a board these people have been voted on by the citiz of hey bris our mayor was elected with 7 96% of the vote at the poll he wasn't appointed to a board as are the other city council members who are elected this is we a small town this is what a small town democracy is supposed to be the mayor and the city council have taken an oath to perform Doe diligence on the May on the city manager and the people who work at City Hall that's what we elect them to do that is their job they are not a board that was volunteers to come in every once in a while and medal in the city manager's business hey Bruce you can speak into the mic and please okay so there was an old saying the buck stops here and if there are discrepancies in code enforcement over the last four years or six years however long Mr Marley's been the city manager if there have been discrepancies in Code Enforcement selective code enforcement well then as the man at the top he is responsible he doesn't have to be a micromanager but he has to accept responsibility and accountability and I cannot understand how members of this elected City Council can accept the reply I don't know you know my granddaughter when I catch her doing something that's not not Kosher and I asked her Annie why did you do that she looks at me and she says I don't know she's six years old she's not 56 years old she doesn't get paid $135,000 taxpayers money a year not to know let's have some accountability in City Hall and I think that's what the mayor and several of our board not board members our elected representatives are trying to do thank you thank [Applause] you I see a hand rais from I believe Virginia Scott Virginia if it is your intention to speak you are online I want to make sure we unmute you thank you very much I'll let you know you are unmuted me okay can you hear me now yes okay I just this is a a technical statement I am online I could hear the two people who spoke at the meeting who were also online I could hear them while you at the meeting live could not that's all I wanted to let you guys know if that helps you sus out any issues okay thank you okay okay thank you very much um I do not seeing other hands raised and if don't want to close it until we make sure seeing no other hands or any cards that completes and with that we'll go ahead and close public participation and bring it back here to the city council first I just want to say thank you thank you all each and every one of you I love this city we have tremendous staff I do not disagree with many of the comments I heard about our city manager there were some things that were stated that were based on some assumptions that that should be corrected the first is no longer with the city yes that's true terminated disciplined written up I have not been made aware of any accountability at that level despite hearing that people are being told they were fired so I would feel just like you if that was the truth and I would agree with you if that was the truth but that's not what happened we have a tough job to do in s a city staff and that's what makes the wheels of a city go around so today in the sake of efficiency I'll I prepared a statement that I think would help keep us on track to the citizens of Cape Canaveral and esteemed members of the city council tonight I stand before you to speak not only about the challenges our city fa bces but also about the opportunities we have to ensure our government reflects the values standards and aspirations of our community at Heart of this discussion is a decision a difficult decision but it's necessary to take action for the future of Cape Canaveral let me Begin by asking you this how much longer can we accept inefficiency and neglect in the systems that serve our residents how much more can we allow excuses to delay progress how many more opportunities will we miss to restore the faith and trust of the people we are here to serve this is not just about Filmore and Jackson Avenue these incidents while significant are merely the latest symptoms of deeper longstanding issues that have plagued our city operation these issues have been echoed by the voices of our citizens concerns raised over the years about the performance of our departments the fairness of enforcement and the Integrity of our leadership they represent patterns of inefficiency negligence and a failure to uphold the high standards our community deserves some might look around Cape Canaveral like we heard tonight and say things seem fine look at the projects we've completed but I'll remind you that those successes are largely the result of spending money not necessarily operational efficiency or leadership beneath the surface the information shared with the public over the years has often failed to align with reality the full story has not always been told in the reality of the inefficiency and neglect have often been obscured the risks of inaction are immense continuing down this path exposes our city to lawsuits further erosion of public trust and inefficiencies that will inevitably lead to higher taxes every inefficiency and procedural failure cost our residents not just financially but in the trust and confidence they place in their government can we afford to let this continue the city manager holds one of the most critical roles in our government the position is entrusted with ensuring that every Department runs efficiently that our codes are enforced fairly and that every dollar is spent responsibly it is a position that requires competence accountability and Leadership and while mistakes can happen they will happen because no one is imp perfect including myself what are the dealing what we're dealing with here is not just a single misstep but a pattern it's a pattern of negligence incompetence and the failure to meet the standards required by our city Charter city code state law and the employment agreement we signed some have said everyone makes mistakes and no one is perfect to that I say this as your mayor I can say we have shown Grace we have shown Mercy we have shown forgiveness we have shown patience I have worked as hard as I can and I know this Council as well to work to exercise our City's values of kindness accountability integrity and teamwork but there comes a time when Grace and forgiveness must make way for our duty to take decisive action I believe that time is now the failures we have seen under the city manager leadership are not isolated incidents from improper permitting and in and infrastructure issues to selective code enforcement and recordkeeping failures these are breaches of trust that affect the Liv of our citizens Beyond these specific examples they reflect systemic weaknesses that demand immediate attention over the years I have received countless inquiries from residents about issues like these as mayor I've made sacrifices just as my fellow council members and City staff have to serve this community we do this work not for pay or recognition but because we believe in the higher calling of leadership yet the reality is that we cannot address every single issue if we are constantly moving from one problem to the next that is why I chose to focus on Filmore and Jackson because these properties mirrored many of the historical problems within the same departments the decision was to go all in on a few cases to uncover the truth and fix these systemic issues for everyone who calls Cape Canaveral home to my fellow council members I recognize the sacrifices you make the long hours the difficult decisions and the personal toll this work takes but tonight I remind you the duty we have to hold accountable those who are well compensated to serve this city the time has come for us to take that decisive action I believe that and the window of opportunity is now the January 2024 special meeting that we've heard about where these issues were first fully brought to light after years of unsuccessful attempts to solve them internally working directly with staff just reached its one-year anniversary and yet the problems largely remain and worse we have identified additional failures how much longer can we wait to fix what we know is clearly broken to my sorry to the citizens and all who are a part of this I ask do we have the courage to make the difficult decisions do we have the resolve to ensure that our government works for the people I remind you of your duty Council to hold the trusted place in Us by our citizens to ignore these failures to allow a separation severance with out cause is to fall and fail in that duty to the citizens of cap canaval can we afford to accept anything less than Excellence can we continue to entrust our future to leadership that has consistently fallen short in these areas this decision is not about blame or punishment it's about ensuring that our government operates with high integrity competence accountability and professionalism this is a pivotal moment for Cape Canaveral by taking action we send a message that we demand more from our leaders that we are committed to restoring trust and that we will not waver in our responsibility to protect and serve this community I ask that we move forward with courage and resolve let us honestly and openly read and apply the terms of the agreement take the emotion out in many truths we heard tonight and look at what actually happened and if if we do that we are obligated to follow and make the changes needed to ensure a better future for cap canaval one built on Integrity accountability and Trust thank you i' Council I've prepared a document that I would like to share and put on the record as far as the the points I will pass one down for the City attorney as well um city manager as well after reviewing the long-standing issues in our city and findings related to Filmore and Jackson from the January 2024 special meeting presented by the city manager and City attorney and referencing applicable provisions of the City of Cape canaval Charter code Florida state laws and the city managers employment agreement I recommend the termination of the city manager with cause and I'd like to explain below is a detailed and organized account of the reasons basis and recommendations for this action align with the city's Mission Vision and values first reasons for termination one building building department failures the city manager failed to provide proper oversight and corrective action and addressing procedural and operational breakdowns in the building department specific issues include improper permitting and certificates of occupancy approving inspections building permits and issuing certificates before construction met inspection and engineering design standards infrastructure failures improper install of drainage systems swes and utilities inadequate oversight lack of adequate supervision of the Community Development Department resulting in repeated procedural errors and compromised Public Safety procedural failures such as poor recordkeeping practices lost records and public hearing requirements hindered the city's ability to manage development two code enforcement failures significant failures were evident under the city manager's oversight of the code enforcement department selective enforcement inconsistent and unequal enforcement of city codes raising concerns about fairness and transparency records management public records and database entries related to code enforcement actions were deleted missing altered or poorly maintain violating I believe chapter 119 Florida Statutes and undermining public trust database management poor recordkeeping practices hindered the city's ability to track and manage code violations effectively failure to file leans the city failed to file leans after enforcement actions and magistrate orders were made missing critical opportunities to hold violators accountable and recover cost demonstrating fiscal negligence three incompetence in fulfilling responsibilities the employment agreement explicitly requires the city manager to perform the duties and responsibilities quote to the best of his ability and in a professional and competent manner failures include failure to maintain standards approving per and certificates without proper inspections ensuring compliance with safety and Engineering standards reflects a lack of competence and maintaining operational oversight ineffective leadership persistent procedural issues and departmental failures demonstrate a lack of effective leadership with no disciplinary action taken and reported inability to implement best practices mismanagement of recordkeeping and enforcement and transparency under undermines public trust now I want to address the claims that were brought up in the last meeting regarding willfulness and intent first negligence as sufficient grounds neglect of Duty incompetence and Reckless failure to perform are sufficient grounds for termination regardless of intent or willfulness two objective standards incompetence the city manager's performance did not meet the Professional Standards outlined in the employment agreement three impact over intent the harm caused by the city manager's actions Financial liabilities diminished public trust and compromised safety is the critical factor four repeated failures despite warnings after longstanding knowledge of the issues from staff contractors citizens and eventually the city council there was a continued inability to comply with the law and resolve the issues reflecting ongoing neglect of responsibilities misalignment with the Mission Vision and values while these aren't contractual such as the charter code state law or the agreement they're very important and we've spent a lot of time talking about them and we as a council bury the heavy burden to apply them and to enforce them the city's Mission includes providing excellence and Municipal Services fiscal responsibility and environmental stewardship the city's vision statement emphasizes resilience safety and responsible stewardship the failures include procedural ER errors and selective enforcement demonstrating a disregard for consistent and highquality City operations fiscal irresponsibility including failing to file leans and approving severance pay for underperforming employees infrastructure failures compromising our environmental Integrity neglecting resilient infrastructure in public safety as we saw in Filmore and Jackson incidents inconsistent code enforcement undermining responsible governance and the mismanagement of permits and selective enforcement discouraging business devel vment that's how they tie to the mission and vision the values while we have several there's five that stand out the first value commitment to Excellence persistent departmental failures second one is accountability no disciplinary actions for implicated employees third is fiscal responsibility pour oversight and leans and security bonds not obtained for is integrity altering deleting public records and selective enforcement eroding trust and five is communication inaccurate and poor communication with the council and the public the basis for termination employment agreement Provisions three of them the first section 11 C3 neglect of Duty failures in supervising departments resolving procedural issues constitute neglect of Duty number two 11 C4 Reckless failure mishandling public records code enforcement and permitting demonstrates Reckless failure to perform those duties and three section 3A incompetence inability to fulfill duties promptly professionally and comp competently the city Charter and code violations I'm sorry I asked for a page so I can follow along there's another copy I got it thank you you're very welcome City Charter and code violations Charter section 402 this is the charter this was adopted by the people failure to enforce Municipal laws and overseas City operations effectively the city code section 633 negligent oversight of departments and ineffective management code section 2101 failure to provide sustained administrative leadership and proper supervisions I also believe that chapters 119 112 3 and 112 313 of Florida State statutes are in question chapter 119 alteration and deletion of public records violates transparency laws and chapter 112 3113 actions breach fiduciary duty and ethical obligations my recommendations are to terminate the city manager for calls terminate under the provisions of the employment agreement the city Charter city code Florida law under the documented failures including neglect of Duty incompetence and Reckless failure to perform responsibilities I believe the next step should be a legal preparation and before going so to affirm that these codes are applicable not necessarily uh the City attorney in a position to state that we can terminate four calls and to recognize that these are the sections to terminate for cause direct the legal council to provide this confirmation guidance and to draft any necessary documents and consider a termination resolution ensuring actions taken in compliance with the appointment agreements and applicable laws three I think we should appoint an interim city manager transition immediately in St to stabilize operations and restore public confidence until the city can hire a city manager and next we should Implement oversight mechanisms consider immediate actions further investigations policies and procedures to adopt to prevent future administrative failures and Ensure accountability and last would be to hire a new city manager to restore operational Integrity by utilizing the services from a party from a third party to perform a search and hire a city manager to address these deficiencies the decision to terminate the city manager with cause is necessary to uphold the principles of transparency accountability and effective governance this action is essential to restore trust in our City's leadership and Ensure the best outcomes for the residents of Cape Canaveral it is very difficult to take this position Todd and I to this day have a very good line of communication we clearly do not agree there are a lot of narratives that have been shared that are simply not true and if you sit in the shoes of any of these council members there are more layers and when you dig in I have a responsibility to apply what I Rose my right hand to uphold this is not a quick knee-jerk reaction this has been going on longstanding and If today was about counting public comments or taking the emotions of what was said that we would not have enough room in here to hold the people I did not make one social media post I tried to draw as little attention to this as possible by simply focusing on what was true what was factual it's not a comfortable position to be on the city council but the truth is the truth no matter who says it I live here I go to sleep here I'm going to have to wake up with you residents tomorrow in the next day and I promise you if you take the time to look into what we've went through you will see that we are on the right side of this issue and we have a moral and ethical responsibility long after forgiveness and mercy has been shown that is all I wanted to say I know that sometimes I can go off and and been criticized uh for for talking long and I would agree with you I'll conclude there and allow the council to speak if they choose and no particular order [Music] member Jackson thank you since joining this Council one thing that I have I had campaigned on is the fact that I want the focus on our constituents the people that pay taxes in the city are who we are to be serving so I want fair treatment of citizens I want codes resoltion ordinances and state statutes to be P um applied fairly to all in the cases of Jackson Street and Philmore this was not the case and I actually am someone that had a property here that it wasn't we I we had issues with it a long time ago so there were things that have occurred over time and these things need to be cleaned up this is a very very difficult and unpleasant place to be at at this time I think all of us actually like Todd and our city manager he's a a nice person that's very um it's hard not to like him but when you talk about leadership there's plenty of studies and organizational behavior that have said leadership is top driven down and so all of the things within your staff and that type of thing are driven by the attitude of your leaders we've had a great opportunity to clean up some of these things um as far as uh when our city manager came in unfortunately those things didn't not happen it doesn't take the accountability away as far as being a leader um I think selective enforcement is probably one of the worst things that can happen to a person whether you're a business owner whether you're a residential property owner whether it's at your condo or anything like that most of us have run into that at some point in our lives if we are going to stand and serve our Community we have to be prepared to equally apply the law as far as code our city Charter ordinances State statutes and ensure that we address when selective enfor enforcement is occurring within our city it is very difficult being up here with this particular topic um unfortunately we've had some of those things that we're looking at we've been looking at this not for a short amount of time we've been looking at this for over a year during that year because of the amount of time that it took to investigate this and look at all these things and there is not resolution there are still things happening we still have two properties that have problems we can't afford as a city as citizen taxpayers to not be able to issue building permits to be able to work with developers or builders that come into our city and help them successfully build a structure we we can't have code enforcement apply to only some within the city that is when we as a council if we allow that to happen we are not doing our jobs for the citizens I think our staff has a lot of talent I think this city is blessed with that talent I think that unfortunately these things have occurred for quite some time and in order for us to fix the things that are occurring we have to address these things now as unfortunate as it is and difficult as it is and how unpleasant it is it's not pleasant for us sitting up here either but we owe it to our citizens to ensure that every the law is applied equally to all thank you mayor P Tim Kellum yes thank you um I I agree that this is a very heavy time for us as a council um we all like Todd I like Todd he's he's helped me personally with things um I think he's a really good person again we have obligations to our taxpayers um to make sure that the city runs the way it should be and we're financially um responsible the way I looked at this and and it's been weighing heavy on my mind for a while I I said to myself let's ask why and I'm going to go through this bear with me um so why did the residents feel that they had no recourse but to bring their problems to the council why why when a open letter uh to the building department starting with Chris Robinson and everyone else was there was given to um Todd was also copied on it from um the elay project um on August 14th 2023 nothing was addressed until it was brought to the council in 2024 then we started an investigation why didn't an investigation start on April 14th 2023 when everything was outlined in this letter that was happening uh with that property um why I'm and I don't know if the we suddenly had an employee engagement survey yesterday and I just thought the timing of that was a little odd but any I looked through it was very informational it helped a lot but why you know it was said many times in the survey from the employees that everything was good until 2024 2024 is when this was brought to the council and by code um I'm sorry the the problems were brought to the council for some kind of action the staff of the building department was not able to or did not address their concerns why when in code the council Council by code has the right to call witnesses ask questions do investigations when needed and when we did that we were harassing the staff we were just trying to get the right answers why Council asked why when Council asked several times in budget meetings in workshops if these problems in the code enforcement department and the building department if you need more people we will find the money and get you more people why did they never add another person or figure out what what would be needed at that point I believe that the city manager saw the problems knew there was problems and should have stepped in and said we need more people um I why Mike German a building official that was a employed here for nine years did not understand the codes did not apply the codes that were needed to um Filmore Avenue I I just you know these are things that um weigh heavy on my mind and I I just don't know um you know why another why is why can't when Council asked for metrics standard of operations employee handbook for months into years it didn't happen um why canabal Estates now today still is is and getting answers on flooding and things that are important to them um again the building department and code enforcement a problem that in our city um the short-term rentals why were we not told that the company we hired to oversee the short-term rentals did have no knowledge of how to take care of short-term rentals how to oversee that why did the council not know that um I just think that you know the these are just things that weigh heavy on my mind and it's not an easy decision it's a very hard decision I just think that it's time to move on and last and not least um why in section 2-101 of the powers and duties of the city manager um it says appoint when deemed necessary for the good of service to suspend remove all city employees and appoint administrative officers provided for by Under the CH uh under the charter why did we not fire the people that were responsible for the problem and then we pay them severance pay I don't understand that and that's the things that um the the mayor has spelled out in the in the reasons why this has to happen I think is where we need to go that's all I have thank you thank you mayor ptim council member Willis would you like again this is this is a very difficult thing it's difficult to sit here it's difficult to hear both sides of the arguments that we've had to listen to um I personally have dealt with Todd quite a bit on these issues and he in my mind has made every effort to correct with the employees with procedures he's made those efforts and I am all for working with the city manager to correct it and to continue I do not feel that uh at this point we should be firing the city manager and will not support firing with calls at this [Applause] time council member Davis okay I agree that this is a difficult situation obviously I'm in support of our city manager Todd moley um you know people have spoke about different issues that they've had and different things like that but like the mayor had said there is so much more involved in this than maybe your side or your story or your situation there is so much more involved so you know one of the things that I um up well I'm upset with that Todd did not you know once Todd found out what problems were going on he dealt with them he corrected with the Sops he dealt with the people he corrected it he did what he needed to do as far as our situation when F you're upset about filing or um firing the people with Severance that's an administrative decision that's not any of our business that we need to be in that's not City council's business that's administrative we may not please we have to we have to maintain order um let council member Davis speak please thank you my understanding what I believe it is to the city manager it's his choice you may not like it or whatever but it's his choice to do so you can disagree or whatever there's all the different things as far as um you know you talked about the survey the one thing the survey said is that the council is getting involved in I don't know if you guys have seen the survey if not I suggest you look at the survey and read it cop there are copies in the back it states that city council is getting involved in administrative and getting way involved beyond our our responsibilities that's one thing that we excuse me I you I don't know who's commenting we could please but I'm going to ask if any comments are made again that and you can't respect my opinion I've listened to you I've listened to everybody I may disagree I may agree but if you're going to keep making comments I'm going to ask the deputy to ask you to step out because I'm entitled to my my decisions or my opinion so you know the one thing yes there was there was issues made on these two two properties but nothing was done intentional everybody is saying or not everybody certain people are saying oh the city you know put records in there or they they filed records there was no transparency nobody in this city would or a city employee would intentionally do that they've already had a comment or a well the person I won't say that was fired also commented that he' put it in there Todd had nothing to do with it so you know everybody's jumping to conclusions about what's going on when you everybody doesn't know the whole story so um I just I'm I could keep going on but I'm going to say that I'm 100% support of the city manager he's done his job he's been willing to work with the people um if you read the survey you will find the issues with the staff and what um what their true feelings are and how they feel about what's been going on I have sat back and and I have stood up for these employees that have gotten bullied belittled I've gotten bullied on this dis I've gotten ignored on this dis so I will stand up for this city staff because I do not believe that any time they have intentionally gone out to do anything wrong oh I think I'll come in today and I'll hide some information or I'll do this nobody did that intentionally and if you know you're saying that there's certain ones that are here or that did they're no longer here so you know it's time to start a new start a fresh start we have all new staff we not all new but we have new staff we have a wonderful city manager that we used to council used to be able to work with you know and we should be able to work with them again and again like you said there's 100 problems in this city yes you're important I'm not saying your problem isn't important but there are you know a lot of other problems out there and if they didn't get back to you I'm I'm sure there's a reason or a priority or whatever the case may be I can't answer to that but to sit here I think it has been vindictive what has been done to this uh to the city manager and to other staff how the staff has been treated how Council has been treated at times and I totally disagree with it I think we should keep the city manager on and keep moving forward with the city it's going to cost a lot of money we've already wasted I'm not going to say wasted we've already put forward a lot of money involved in this there's times that um Mr Mayor you have said you're willing to do whatever and you know unopen number and you wanted to put an open anopen number for for this you can't count you can't vote on an unopen number when you don't know if it's going to be $5,000 or $500 or whatever it may be you you know so I'm just not going to go on I support the city manager and I am appalled by some of the actions taken and misrepresentation by this city council [Applause] thank you uh City attorney I just want to check in with you um as far as U the the employment agreement Provisions 11 C3 and 11 C4 under the termination for Clause section it I'm confirming it is as it reads those are some of the reasons uh that the city council has the authority to terminate for calls um yes under Section 11 sub paragraph C it does State um the the potential reasons for terminating the city manager with cause and as you laid out in your uh memorandum 11 C3 neglective duty is is explicitly stated in the employment contract as a basis for cause uh in addition 11 C4 um involving the Reckless failure to carry out the duties assigned under the city Charter or state or federal statute is also a basis for cause thank you Council any questions for the City attorney city manager would you like to make any statement floor is yours yes I would thank you we're two hours into the meeting and I'm finally able to say something uh two things I want to put on the record um first is a 14th Amendment due process issue um let me specify what I mean by that I work for the city council not any individual city council member so the directives that come to me come from three or more City Council Members not one person including the mayor this document the mayor handed out and read tonight this is the first time I've seen this keep in mind this is not a council document this is a mayor document so this is the closest we've come to giving me notice of the specified charges so I have a problem about how this proceeding has occurred because I have not been provided notice of the specified charges from the city council this is a 14th Amendment due process issue it's very serious and this is not an emergency that's the first thing I want to put on the record the second thing I want to put on the record because of statements made in the previous public meeting it is obvious that there have been Communications about this outside of the open meetings act and this meeting is being conducted in violation of the open meetings act I want to be clear this meeting is in violation of the open meetings Act and should be stopped immediately however if the City attorney does not advise the city council to stop it I will proceed I will proceed U City attorney we've heard two issues of the 14th Amendment due process issue and open meeting act you help bring maybe the city manager can explain what he means by that this preceeding needs to stop because there's a sunshine law issue my understanding is that um pursuant to city code a request was made on Friday by uh the mayor to request a special meeting and that went through the city clerk's office uh for determination of whether or not there was a majority of the city council to be present at this meeting it's my understanding that there were a majority of C council members that were willing to attend the facts uh prove out that five of them are actually here to attend this special meeting and it's my understanding that the meeting was noticed so um explain why the Sunshine Law um there's a sunshine law issue I I guess is my point there were previous in the previous meeting there were comments made by the coun a council member and you can hear it in the recording where the council member says I have my three votes this was before a motion was made a second was called or the question was [Music] called that indicates there's a Sunshine Law violation and that violates the open meetings act I would like to add to that as well because I was the one that was told that he has three votes and my he doesn't care about my opinion in other words he didn't want to hear my opinion on that had his three votes so I want to put my in there and the question has yet to be called um I mean that I mean does that goes to a different issue than whether or not this meeting can actually be held because it was not noticed properly I got the impression from your first comment that you had concerns that this meeting should not be held um I haven't heard any information indicating that the Sunshine Law in terms of providing proper notice uh was not no the notice is a separate issue my 14th Amendment issue you specified charges you're clarifying a separate um accusation um you know I'll I'll I mean that's your that's I guess that's your conclusion and opinion um you know I can't really address that accusation um I'm just addressing whether or not this meeting was was held in accordance with the city council's procedures and the I'm not questioning that at all okay all right well that's clarification for the record so mayor he's he's raising a separate issue regarding um you know Sunshine that's correct so do we have a an issue with the 14th Amendment due process City attorney in your opinion that's a that's a nice conclus conclusory statement on what basis is there a due process violation I mean the manager under the employment agreement serves that will of the city council the city Charter also says he that will um there's no procedure under the city Charter or the city code um for this type of situation I mean you're at will um you have an opportunity to respond fully um to what's being stated um Todd um you know and and you have that opportunity so I'm not quite sure what the due process issue is let me clarify I'll state it again it appears that I'm being terminated for cause that cause has yet to be presented to me by the specified charges this is the closest we've seen what specified charges are and this is not a council document this is a mayor document this is the first I've seen this and it doesn't even represent the council's opinion that's the due process issue this is the first I've seen it um okay with all due respect um how in order for me to get the council's opinion one person has to bring it in that was me a vote would give you the council's opinion however it goes each individually prior to the last meeting prior to bringing this up there was a 30 minute recess God do you remember when I asked if you had a moment to speak with we went into my office we shut the door I said I believe it's a time for change do you remember that yep that's not notice I'm not claiming it is anything I'm just trying to state that you and I had a talk I stated the reasons why in that verbal meeting and believed that you deserve to have some sort of awareness you could choose to resign I felt strongly that these were issues that were applicable to your agreement you disagreed we then agreed I said well I can't make a decision by myself we came out in the meeting that we're referencing last month we saw what we saw in that meeting I stated some of those reasons since then I spoke with the city attorney very briefly to just understand his roles and responsibilities in this special meeting we are now at the next part of the story we are sitting in the meeting with my first formal written proposed charges after verbally stating them to you and then stting them to the council and today putting them in writing so if as long as we are on the same page that happen I'm not disputing what you're saying I'm not agreeing to what you're saying but I think it's important to know and for the public to know that these were stated in in confidence with you at that meeting briefly and today they were formalized to try and respect what I believe is following our code and ordinances and I think affirmed by our City attorney but please um if it please the council I'll continue then the for well I wanted to take so the 14th Amendment due process we've got that the Sunshine Law statement um just to clarify that the the the do you you're maintaining that this meeting is is outside this meeting right now is outside of the Sunshine Law the one that we this topic this topic violates the Sunshine Law having this meeting based on the statements you said okay so when a a city manager in another city comes in there's nothing on the agenda and during a reports a council member we've seen it Mak a motion to terminate because the agreement that we sign says right up front as our City attorney I believe said but I think it's important for my understanding and what I implied is that at any time at at any time at any moment at will we can we can make this decision and so you're saying that these this document that I provided as an addendum should have been a part of the packet and noticed out to the public I'm just saying this is the first time I've even gotten something close to notice but you know what we could short circuit if you just uh answer this question mayor I just want to follow the law and you're making some claims that I want to make sure we're we're on I can ask a very pointed question if it helps have you spoken to any other council members and received positive votes that they would vote to terminate me prior to this meeting no I have a question about that mayor I have a question on that do you have any more questions no I have a statement to read I do have a statement so I we had not taken a vote we really hadn't well hold on I want to take order council member Jackson asked to speak the city manager had the floor city manager you've raised an issue of the 14th Amendment Sunshine Law and then I entertained your question that I think was highly in appropriate but let's keep it open here okay I'm ready to continue um I have responses regarding the January 224 2024 meeting about uh Jackson and Filmore I'd like to hand this out so everybody has a copy what is it it's my responses um I went over them largely last time we met there's one for the city clerk but I want to read it um aloud again before that we we go to that section I you will have I think there was a relevant question perhaps to the last statement from council member Jackson and council member Davis I believe you had a statement I don't want to move on to the next topic until they have a chance to thank you clarify uh thank you mayor at the point that that statement was made we had all as council members discussed how we felt about this so it would not have been a piece of information that we all didn't know we all had made statements as far as the topic so that was known it was not the it was something that we had it was something that we all had discussed it we all have made comments every one of us sitting up here at by the time that statement was made I I and if you go back and watch the video you will see that that that statement was made after each one of us spoke in regards to it the word you use was votes I don't recall the statement we're talking about and I just I think think it's it's it's pretty absurd uh CU I I made my point I I have the honor to serve with I believe all five council members here try to walk heel to toe and so carry on I'm ready to move on yes sir oh yes council member Davis thank you so when you told me you had your votes and my opinion didn't matter you didn't care about my opinion so why would you sit there and say if you're willing to listen to all five of us that my opinion didn't matter you've said you have three votes and my opinion didn't matter later which off the Record when I tried to explain to you why I wanted the meeting held at night instead of during the day because I work and I'd like to be here you told me I can leave and just go to sleep you said you were tired I think this is getting off track I just wanted to say that I'm not I think I I really uh I look forward to so it was the statement that I made it at 10:45 at night I Believe by the comment you made to me that my opinion didn't matter you had three votes I took it also as well as it had been previously discussed council member Davis your opinion matters well you said it the people said so I think that that you wanting to go home whatever was stated late night meetings get your opinion matters and I think my record speaks for itself I've always tried to honor your time and in the hard work that you put in yes time thank you document that I handed out is taking all of the um and pasted from all the months of minutes where the January 24th item was discussed and you'll see I've got highlighted portions there they are responded to my with my response on the right hand side so the first one from January was obtain and distribute a city council a building permit inspections report that was a response was submitted on March 19th 2024 second one was to obtain the engineering report from kimley horn on February 20th 2024 kimley horn proposal for C Engineering Services was approved D February 26 staff walked the site with kimley horn engineer so that was done number three request plans and confirmation on date for FPL to remove overhead lines and reinstall lines underground January 30th 2024 FPL removed the overhead lines placing them underground on April 11th 2024 FPL removed the poll on May 20th 2024 and they indicated the rebar was already at that location prior to their work and they're not responsible for its removal number four utilizing engineering report above exercise available remedies to gain compliance and you'll have to turn the page for this response status updates provided to council at every meeting and at other times number five city manager and City attorney present any findings and or opportunities that was uh May 7th was my report of findings uh July 10th the opportunities to improve were submitted um I can't speak for the city man city attorney's response on that matter discussion ued regarding properties at 11618 and 12 Jackson Avenue um this one required number one one through five also number one provide a report showing all actions and correspondence related code enforcement that item was uh placed in laser fish on May 14th 2024 and responded to item two create and distribute administrative procedures um that was under development however that has since been sent to city council the code enforcement administrative procedures were received I think approximately two weeks ago number three for our city code enforcement employees provide a listing of certifications continue education that's submitted on plac in laser fish on um June 11th 2024 and uh submitted to Council on May 21st prior to that number four distribute a monthly bsna report of all Code Enforcement cases open Code Enforcement cases that uh report started in May 2024 and that has been a very useful document because we did put metrics into that where we can now track all Code Enforcement cases by date from the time a complaint comes in to the time it's respond or investigated from the time time of courtesy notice goes out to the time of notice violation goes out all those numbers are generated through the bsna program printed out and we now can use that as a metrics tool to monitor code enforcement it's been very handy very useful and that's now how code enforcement is run number five present any findings and opportunities again the um report of findings was submitted on May 7th and the opportunities was July 10th moving forward in February there's another meeting um the task order was approved we talk about that March there was another meeting we held continuing discussion and talking about how remedying all these issues of these properties will take close to a year in April um discussion was held at the regular meeting report of findings was under development in the month of April U moving on to a the April meeting the special city council meeting it was scheduled and held on a April 22nd um I requested to meet with City Council on May 7th to present that report of findings and that was approved um staff presented the building inspection report that time moving on to the next highlight city manager instructed staff to have FPL confirm the Line locations and burial depth um further down in that um you see the bsna report of the city's current o Code Enforcement cases again that's all covered previously uh conclusions recommendations report um skipping forward to May 7th uh Council reached consensus to allow the city manager to present the report of findings it was uh the report of findings was reviewed in detail John picar was contacted as city council requested uh and responded that verbal approval of the site work was given to to the building official he indicated however the vast majority of projects had written approvals to the building department regarding the rocks and the Swale complaint dated 5423 the reason it was new information in the report of findings is only because it was information obtained during the course of my preparation of the report of findings the code enforcement officer handling the case indicated to me and his and his uh manager that it was information that he had stored outside of bsna the information was uploaded to bsna in order to keep all information in one place when confronted with Mrs Scher statement that the date could not be correct as the Rocks were delivered several days after 5423 that code enforcement officer said that he was sure of the date um next um on May 24th city council um was given access to bsna as they requested uh that code enforcement officer's last day was June 21st I'm just going chronologically through uh the department director's last day was July 15th um moving on to the June meeting um we talked about requesting consensus regarding if Council wants to have a meeting in July what preparation I can do for that provide an estimation how long it would take to resolve issues based on the presented recommendations for Filmore and Jackson Avenues the Filmore fieldwork completion time cannot be determined it was stated Council reached consensus to schedule another special meeting and that was held on July 10th uh at that point the council accepted the completion of the city manager's recommendations until this time importantly city council and staff were working under Mr Whit's assertion that he was the developer that he would be completing the work at Filmore however due to the length of time with no forward progress the city council changed course and began to pursue a demand letter um and we can skip to the next page um in July on July 31st city manager held a meeting with Mr whiten his attorney the project engineer uh City staff members City uh engineer uh the topics of discussion were the council's coming demand letter and a path toward completion on the Filmore Town Homes following this meeting the City attorney and Mr whins attorney held a number of discussions over the next five months in September Council reached consensus for the mayor have meetings with the city manager and City attorney and City engineers and City staff has needed in order to find to help Define his goals and outcomes at a future special meeting there being no forward progress on September 17th the demand letter was forwarded September 25th at the recommendations of the City attorney the city manager forwarded the demand letter to the Filmore town home unit owners adding as instructed by the city inity the city is not at Liberty to provide any additional comments about the letter at this time in November uh city council met and City attorney uh offered to meet with Council individually regarding Filmore Avenue status and confirmed that no lawsuit had been filed no action was taken December December 17th the mayor city manager and IT staff held an online meeting with representatives from bsna the meeting focused on reviewing the capabilities of the system and questions and answers related to document storage in an effort to assure Ur no utility conflicts were in the as yet unconstructed drainage sale and Filmore town homes on January 6th the city manager and city engineer met with representatives from FPL to determine the location and depth of underground FPL utilities as a result FPL indicated a need to adjust the location of the underground utilities the work was begun on January 16th but was interrupted by the discovery of an underground swimming pool in the easement area city engineer documented the discovery and provided two options my office is currently requesting Kim leorn Prov or evaluate and provide additional options City manager's office is currently working to schedule a similar on-site assessment of the brigh house Utilities in closing I met with Mrs schaer on January 8th 2025 and asked her if there was anything else that she thought could be done to bring this item to closure she stated the damage was done and all that could be done was to ensure that code enforcement customers do not feel targeted I said that code enforcement policies have been implemented to ensure that all violations and compliances are well documented and that robust reporting and review is designed to assure that time frames do not make code enforcement customers feel targeted additionally as relates to the code officer statement about Cowboy complaining about rocks in the Swale on 5423 that comment was either purposely false or inaccurately recorded as you may recall that statement was also previously stricken and notated as stricken due to lack of corroborating evidence as for the Filmore Town Homes relying on Mr whiten during the first half of 20 24 to complete the work proved fruitless in July Council directed we move forward with the demand letter since that time the completion has been a pending legal matter along the way process improvements have been made of the employees directly involved none remain employed by the city with the exception of me employees who have inherited those roles have been informed of the mistakes that were made which cannot be repeated formalized code enforcement standard operating procedures have been developed and have been forwarded to city council and some I Faithfully worked to complete all that Council has requested I do regarding Filmore and Jackson these are and were two very difficult items Jackson is done Filmore is awaiting utility rework and a council decision I respectfully submit that Council needs to make a decision on the Filmore utility work to be done and then close this item also I would like to add that I've advised from the beginning and I believe the City attorney has as well city council should not have gotten involved in the Filmore project even though the these were extremely unfortunate Errors By the city's building official and city engineer the city council should never have inserted itself into a civil matter over construction defects at the mayor's urging the city council did just that putting my office in a no-win situation there has been no neglect I've not failed to follow instructions I've not been discourteous or disrupting to the work environment I have performed all of my job duties in a reasonable Manner and I believe that I've done everything the city council has asked me to do the correct analogy is you can't put me in a no-win situation and expect me to win if Council chooses to terminate tonight that is your prerogative there is no cause I would say to the employees here I think you're a wonderful group of people every one of you is very professional very dedicated as much as I am and I applaud your efforts and I will accept council's um whatever Council decides to do I just would argue that there is no cause because I followed everything city council asked me to do and I don't work for one council member [Applause] mayor thank you thank you Todd I have many many positive things to say about Todd Morley I I do not agree that those items uh are complete but that's okay and I think that's a big reason why we're here um the the vote was a five vote not one council member unanimous I did not and I think I can confidently speak on behalf of each council member none of us wanted to be involved in that so that accusation that this is us meddling in administration or Worse one member of this body meddling in administration mayor is is is is a bit far the truth is the the the residents the businesses and the history goes on and on from surf drive to Oak lane to what I would say and I don't use this word often legitimate victims of the wrong side of the issue does it mean that these people were were uh not making mistakes does it mean that our city uh was was was completely flawed no there was effort there was diplomacy there was professionalism at times but there was no management it was a management style that can work that I communicated at link with Todd needed to depend on different actions it was not working and it went on for years behind the scenes and if we do not want to get involved but when a resident has no hope that's why we exist where else do you go when you can't get a problem solved the administration could not solve problems that were not civil problems that is outright insulting those problems were on private property but those problems the audacity to say that is is very very troubling mayor I just want to clarify there are clear flaws on our City's inability to do the procedures not a perfectionist highly unreasonable actions were taken and then like most and these two in of Jackson and Filmore were rare people they fought back they did not give up I have not been able to answer many phone calls from people and I did not answer the phone calls from the Filmore Avenue residents and the Jackson residents many times but they did not stop and it's not because the squeak wheel gets fixed only it's because they were significant and when we dug in when you followed the procedures I went as I was asked by our city manager to do and the former city manager is bring it to us if you go back and watch the meetings I've stated this all through 2024 and I think it's a big reason why we had a 50 vote to direct the counil the city staff so those narratives are not the truth that is a great example mayor you misheard me okay the - vote that's the document I read that was 50 I did everything the 50 vote asked me to do that was my point and well my my point before saying that was I do not agree that you did everything these the these are the things this is everything there's nothing outside of this that that that is that is your your opinion it was a council request and the council will say I can't say they're complete a majority of this Council will determine whether those are complete or not I respect and understand and even agree that some of those might be complete and I fully understand that in your opinion on behalf of the administration you believe their complaint I believe I've done my very best job it's worth any time to talk about why they're not complete today and I think this is a real life view of what it's like serving the City of Cape Canaveral exact that's exactly right they they are this is a real life they are not they are not they are not they are not complete and I don't think it's worth the time to go through them because we've spent exhausting have improved been made absolutely have we learned a lot absolutely the wording of this is why the narrative exists the wording of the report of findings everyone wins it is it is not an accurate story of what happened and I believed and I maintain today that until we can identify the real root problems of these issues we will always apply the wrong solution and so today it's not comfortable it's not comfortable to be here but I've seen too many people that I work for in this community on the wrong side of the issue their problems didn't get resolved I watched our city manager direct directors copy me appropriately and and and direct them to do something he gave them instructions to get back weeks would go by nothing then another I have to intervene anything going on now rinse and repeat over and over again and time goes by then the emails would get firm and it would say please communicate on a weekly basis with them or give them some sort of update those actions might happen and many times they would not happen and there's a big difference in responding and resolving the city Administration resolved a lot of problems but all responses are not resolutions you have been acknowledged we are responding to you but I cannot sit up here and say nor do I have the authority to say that these are complete this Council will vote and decide when these are complete in my opinion and I ask for a 50 Council vote again to work independently with you and not and to respect the interference Clause of our of our uh Charter and code that we follow and reaffirmed it on multiple occasions so I appreciate your open and transparency today and I thought we've always had very diplomatic meetings oneon-one but it is not to say that I did not leave feeling like things were not resolved and that you clearly understood how to to resolve them and the reason I'm here today is the actions or therefore lack of action that was taken to resolve undisputable values honesty truth transparency and the effort that we have to go to to get access to things that you no City staff member no member of this Council the public the people own my work product up here these computers this building we sit in any software that we operate and for reasonable cause if we want to see it it it does not help to delay that is not how we restore trust and then when we get in there the rest of the story comes together I did not bring an exhaustive list I handled this professionally one onone and I don't like the narrative as if if this is a mayor who has just swooped down interfered and and needs to get out if your feelings are your feelings that's you have the right to that but the record speaks for itself that I was not interfering I was a pure to only work through the city manager on all items and so it's important cuz I got to go that way to to go to bed and that's that's to Cape canaval and when I wake up they'll be here and and that that narrative that that is not accurate thank you for providing this it it is there there's there's no comfortable way to do this but I've tried to do this in the most honorable open transparent way I did not want to have to come to this level but the decision to not um resign uh to not accept and take responsibility for the faults is why we're here today and I can't look a resident in the eye and say I'm doing my best for you if I do not hold and take these these aren't suggestions the code and the charter and the Constitution are not recommendations if we don't like a part of it we don't get to just pick what we like and pick what we don't like we don't get to say well didn't make sense and we also don't get to say well on basic Common Sense items I did not have a policy to tell me to do that so I did not do that when we saw there's many instances where no policy existed and exercised options it is a big day it's a hard day but I am optimistic on the future of Cape Canaveral and I do believe that we might take a step back but I will will not stop working to take two steps forward and I think that's what 2024 was about and 2025 is about going forward council member Davis thank [Applause] you ask the city manager did you say at one point you discussed with the city attorney that it was a civil matter I said I believe the City attorney has also advised the council members of that but I I'm not certain he have to answer that question I ask can oh you can ask me cuz I never said it was a civil matter thank you okay you're talking about Filmore I never said that that was so asking now is do you consider that a a civil matter between absolutely not thank you thank you that's all I wanted to know another glimpse of what it's like to be there this is the information I get this is this opinion council member Davis no I was just going to ask because um with City matter you know it was between the contractor and the homeowner the homeowner bought as is and we got involved you're always considered you know spending money and with the budget when we went below rowback we don't have any extra money to spend on anything and the city will I'm not even going to go there so I had a a item put together so the amount of money that we have spent on Filmore and Jackson is $159,000 $387 and um you know a lot of that to me that's why I was asking a lot of that at the beginning was between the contractor and the homeowner and I you know I was just concerned about us getting involved in places that we may not have gotten to need to be involved in uh yes if there was issues we needed to address that but we didn't need to address all these so I just wanted to make it aware that we have spent basically $160,000 that's what happens where mistakes are made thank you city manager is there anything else that you'd like to State excuse me you put words in my mou that is not what I said so you can say that but don't say that mistakes are made because I'm not saying that all this I'm saying some mistakes were made they been corrected but we have spent $160,000 on a roll back below roll back budget so there's not much money you want to do this and do that we don't City doesn't have the money now so we're going to move forward Council any further discussion on this item um yes Mr yes mayor Tim Kellum yeah I just I have a couple things um when when we started this and Dave Dicky Community uh director of community um I had a discussion with Todd and we talked about Mr Dicky's shortfalls and what what the problem was and then his solution was to move him to another department instead of firing him which he should have been fired um because he as as uh Todd said didn't follow up on things there was under the um under the number five of the section 2101 um for the good of service he was not doing the good of service and and his answer was to move them to a different department um I don't think that was right and then my question Todd maybe you can answer this is is on August 14th when you and the whole building department got the letter from uh Miss scher's attorney August 14 2023 why wasn't an investigated an investigation of all this started then why did we wait until it was brought to Council in 2024 just because you get a letter doesn't mean you start a full-fledged investigation you task your directors to deal with with it that's what a manager does but they didn't it turns out they did not effectively deal with it but that's where you start but then when they didn't you didn't um I disagree may you may not like the length of time it took but I certainly did address it in 2024 when it was brought to the council okay that that never got addressed um you know I like I said this is a very hard decision I think that we have been as the mayor said uh benefit of the doubt gave him time we trusted him we gave him 11% raise we gave him another raise during all this that was happening we did have confidence in in his ability but when we fired the employees or we didn't fire them and gave them severance pay that was kind of I I you know like uh council member Davis says it's an administrative thing the money that we gave them is taxpayers money so you know I we answer to the people and you know when the people come to us and say look I'm not getting any results like the people on Carl and we had I brought them the people from Carl to the city to meet with the city because they could not get the answers they were looking for and it was very concerning for the construction of this house and I'm not going to get into all of that but they couldn't get the answers they wanted and then after the meeting was over they still didn't get the answers they wanted um Joe on uh longpoint the retention Pond which we talked about several times several years years we just had a CIP come up um recently or in the last budget where we were going to pave Long Point and I said wait a minute why are we going to pave it when we haven't done the retention Pond I mean and that's again taxpayers money um and we haven't told the people on or helped the people on Long Point with the retention Pond there's just things that have you know it's not just Filmore it's not just Jackson I don't know how many people I've talked to about code enforcement who just said I gave up I don't bother with them anymore um it's been a long long hard Road for code enforcement and again you know Council offered to hire more people if that's what we need to do and again I think that the city manager should have said enough guys we need more people we did we hired one more yeah not when we two years ago when we offered please let's get another person in there did it in the last budget session Mayer Tim anything else that's all any other comments Council City oh can I ask um I hate to put her on the spot but Natalie um when people get severance pay is that with your experience in the past is that a common thing for people that have left to get severance pay and is it the liability I mean are we open to a possible lawsuit if we deny severance pay to some people the attorney well hold on we're going to need to if we're going to ask Natalie I I apologize to interrupt you if you don't mind would you mind coming forward on the the record and we we should work through the city manager for this uh to asking directors I didn't know which one yeah I mean are we open subject to dep I know each situation is a little different but on are are we open to a lawsuit if the severance pay is denied for some that resigned or anything unless you have a contractual arrangement I mean city employees don't have um I don't believe have a ba have have a basis for severance pay um but many times when there is a separation of employment you know the city manager who supervises those employees has the ability to um if if within his or her judgment thinks severance pay is appropriate you know um will try to negotiate a separation agreement um that's a judgment call um generally you know for city employees and um I mean that's that's it now there statutory limitations right not to exceed six weeks um so there's limitations for servants pay for employees without yeah without an employment contract yes council member Jackson I just want to clarify on the meeting that Mr Morley had with um Peg I was an intendance and I discussed the fact that I thought the meeting would be a good idea Mr Morley agreed early December he did um get in touch with Peg and she was unable to do it until after the first of the year um but I was there in attendance with that meeting and I had encouraged City manager to have that meeting with with pegan he was willing to do that so I just wanted to clarify that because I hadn't heard that mention and I need to clarify one thing the the conversation on request uh the text message that was brought up in the last meeting was absolutely relevant to uh the city manager I needed to confirm that action was taken by the city manager um he could not produce that record those records I do not what know what the latest is uh but but uh the claim that City business is not done and sometimes the outside uh folks will will will text a city employee on a city phone uh but you know there's no initiating or outbound that's that's the furthest from the truth there was a text initiated by the city manager regarding 100% City business the lean one lean of many leans don't want to quibble over that but that's why the text was was brought up that text was wasn't lost the last I checked all texts were gone and all records have we confirmed or done any taken any steps to recover those texts that I believe the last time uh we spoke on that government phone were not available or accessible city manager my understanding is that those records can be obtained by the carrier now when I turned my phone in I did not ask the it manager uh what he intended to do with my text messages um I wasn't aware that they would be deleted I just got a new phone handed in my own one that's my answer okay and and but you did not Del only the text messages were deleted not your photographs what about your contacts the photographs um the it manager made those available to me in a separate folder okay the contacts did migrate over to the new phone okay I do not understand how thank you Commander I do not understand how contacts could come over uh but the the text could not I don't either and um okay thank you for verifying that I do have one card we are at 8:48 uh we need to I'm going to to see you uh Shannon uh Dr Roberts we have we have closed public comment and I am concerned that if we reopen public comment were you not here Dr Roberts earlier did you come in late no I was here but had just listen to what the dialogue was from the council and from okay I could comment I'm comment okay let me make sure that council member Davis is heard and and my only concern is that uh you know I try to be fair and equal and let and close it and allow it but one moment I I'll have to ask the council yes I would like to ask Mike from it I have a couple questions for him regarding the text messages I have some questions for M okay um sorry and again we should work through the city manager on asking directors any questions uh if that's okay with the city manager absolutely full transparency here sir um EXC me but Mayor Mike is not a director I just want to correct you he works for me he's a manager I just want to make that he is not a director thank you for the clarification there's questions about the text messages and I would just like to ask Mike some questions okay um I don't see Mike um here yeah yeah I think he he he might me okay can can please come out thank you sorry Mike to pull you out of there but I just have a couple questions at the January city council meeting you explained you know that there was and I I apologize I'm not an IT person so I can't be technical with you that there was a reason you know that there the city had impli imp implemented sorry a policy that that would not Happ you know how you transfer or whatever you do my question is did you advise city manager that his he would lose those Texs I don't recall you don't know no I I can tell you though that several months ago we started looking into this uh we started investigating processes to do this when the previous city clerk pointed out that we had a deficiency there and at the time as of now we have contacted four different companies investigating and requesting quotes and procedures for how to go about And archiving text messages on phones um and it's not the same as doing personal phones because when you use uh government phone systems the process is different you don't use iCloud or any of the tools that are offered on personal phones but in b basically any City employee could have the same issue with their phone come up to you and say mik my phone's not charging oh it's an old phone let's get you a new phone and then you transfer without them having knowledge that their text messages or anything else would be missing and give them the opportunity to take a photo or do whatever they needed to do to preserve that correct that's correct so it wasn't just Todd and that he intentionally you know had his text deleted it would happen to any City employee and they would have no idea that they're going to lose that that information that's correct at this time what we've been doing uh since I've been here the last 11 months was to advise the person to takes uh snapshots or screenshots in their phone um in this particular case uh Mr Morley has taken many of snapshots of these text and they are in his pictures folder but he might not have had chance to do that before his phone died I mean just that is correct I mean it's a hypothetical we don't know either way but he may not have had the chance to do that so to say that he intentionally did it is not correct oh I would never say that no oh no I'm not saying you're GNA say that but just you know to say that he intentionally tried to get rid of this information or whatever is not correct correct no and in fact there's plenty of evidence that he was doing screenshots of his of his texts okay so I have issued with that that that's one of your reasons for termination he had no knowledge you may not have had knowledge Lisa may not have um okay if you want to I well but hold on I don't what I'll chair the meeting respectfully are you finished with oh yes I'm sorry okay that's okay um is are there any other questions council member Davis of of Mike no and thank you for coming out of your room yes ma'am thank and then mayor I I see a hand raised by one of my directors who would like to speak would you entertain her speak I I would I would say this it's uh 853 if we can identify any and all directors or anyone who wants to speak um and Council I'd ask ask obviously for us if we have any comments we've got one res uh citizen request um the director would like to speak yes yes I'd like to hear from her yes Brian Bri please thank good evening council members and everyone present uh my first day with the city was August 19th 2024 I'm the community and economic development director and the community redevelopment agency director for the city um right before Christmas I my phone wouldn't hold a charge I had inherited the phone from my predecessor who I had no Handover period with because his last day was in July and um Our IT director said to me you know here I've got a phone for you I'm like great something that will hold a charge from 8:30 to 5 our hours um he had the phone ready for me and I said okay so you can transfer the I said contacts texts and and um photos over right because I've worked for a city where I've had to surrender text messages so I know to ask those questions and um he said they cannot do text messages and I was not informed to screenshot them so I trusted the professional thank you very much for sharing that anyone else city manager no sir okay Council any other comments up here I know we're going back and forth in some new topics looking for consensus on uh Dr Shannon Roberts I certainly would support her chance um to to have a chance to speak no issues Dr Roberts please come forward and thank you does anyone else want to speak for their first time uh if you did not get a chance to speak public participation is important we did close it but uh just checking to see okay seeing none we are Flor is yours thank you so much and I want to compliment Council and staff in the community uh some of you may not know that I've served on city council here before and I am a resident in the city and I've had the great opportunity to work with many of you um I want to thank the citizens that came out and spoke their respective opinions and in that vein I wanted to listen to what was was being said here by the audience as well as the council and and um Mr moley and I um having worked to NASA and some other federal agencies one of the things we do when there's a um a difference in opinion about executive performance is we have Executive coaching in other words there was an issue about executive performance we do allow for some opportunity to have specific corrective action have a probationary period of time um have clear accountability for uh responding back for whatever Corrections have been made and I just wanted to suggest that as a consideration for Council um that that's an opportunity we have before us uh and i' I'd be glad I've served in this capacity myself I'd be glad to do that um and non-compensated just because of our love for the city and just to help see if we couldn't bring ourselves together you know whatever the resolution of the outcome is it would be real specific it would be real accountable and it would be a demonstration back to council the staff and the community about uh whatever Corrections are needed thank you thank you Dr Roberts yes it okay we're going to go ahead and close public comment um council member Jackson yes I had a question in regards to the text messaging and all of that because um I we heard from Banna saying that she was not informed to capture messages um when and Mike may be the one that needs to answer this let's ask it okay when what council meeting was at held what I had heard last during our city council meeting last week that the council had decided not to purchase that software system that would have captured SMS texting through for the city so I'm wondering what year was that you do you know um city manager don't recall that Mr Mayor yes I think it was stated that it probably predates all of us um considerable time ago okay and this is my concern um and I understand because technology moves really quickly but in order for us to maintain public record we have to stay on top of those things and that is an administrative Duty so I understand um first off I understand as Michael was uh talking about the systems governmental systems and large Enterprise systems are different um but technology is really moving quickly so that procedure should have been in place for all the staff members to know that per state law we're supposed to capture those those texts and it's concerning to me because how many other ones have we not been capturing because that's exactly what this that discussion tells me and that is a administrative function somebody somewhere should have had some policy in place and especially as we move forward because we do have a lot of things happening in technology right now I know that Michael and it are looking at um the the things that we need but that is definitely a policy Gap that needed to be brought together thank you I think in the short term to protect data when in doubt don't throw out if it was a phone that was not being passed to another employee there should have been no urgency to erase the phone if the Port Chart wouldn't charge there's wireless chargers and other capabilities you can't charge my phone either but I have to use a wireless charger every effort to do our best to protect that data if there's nothing else um um I I do have another question of city manager I would like to ask Mike a question of course Mr Mr Mike okay Mike's getting his work out hi Mike thank you um you say you said that you were informed by the former city clerk that we didn't have the capability of saving Texas and that was a problem is that what I understood that's correct and we had a couple meetings about it to determine a path forward to fill the Gap um um something as simple as do we just turn off texting all together as a capability and remove it to looking at archiving tools that are out there and since then I've been in contact over the last several months over with uh four different companies they provideed me proposals and designs on how to fulfill this uh requirement okay was the city manager involved in that meeting absolutely the city manager was involved with this and we we kept him informed and apprised of situation and it was actually the city clerk that brought this to our attention that there was Gap okay thank you yes ma'am any other questions for Mike trying to help you out there okay thank y'all um I think we're we're finished here it is 9:01 p.m. um City attorney the um do you have any uh recommendations um as far I I I believe that it is clear and I'm confident that uh we have uh and I I want to be the the agreement that was provided in the agenda and and properly noticed of what we are discussing tonight it's important that we go to 11c it's page five of8 and kind of in the middle it'll list a numerical set of reasons um and and this is section uh C of uh which follows sort of the severance pay what what needs to be done to earn severance pay there's some tenure first year second year third year under no circumstances shall we uh not make that payment but this is the section where I say it's a difficult job uh towards the middle of section c on the agreement right when it ends the ninth uh reason uh which is not one today but after number nine there's a sentence there kind of in the middle to the right that says uh the city manager shall not be entitled to any severance pay so that's the the end of the sentence after it concludes when I said we have a duty I am referring to this and as this agreement points to the Charter points to the code certainly state law always has a place um this isn't a discretion this isn't a recommendation you elect us we make observations and I've stated the reasons uh and summarized them as well to what I believe I think mayor ptim Kellum you stated some code as well which I think that overlaps uh 2 101 was the code you did uh but just for the record um City attorney uh if if I to make a mo motion do I need to cite the specific codes um or um as presented in this document um you know mayor the um employment contract with the city manager as as you I think you stated you know the manager serves at the pleasure of the city council and the city council May terminate the agreement and the city manager's employment with the city at any time for any reason and for no reason and under the provisions of the of the agreement if the manager is terminated without cause um he would be entitled to at this point given it's beyond four years of service a maximum of 20 weeks severance pay if the manager if the council you know were to terminate the city manager for cause as you mentioned there's an enumeration under subparagraph um 11 C um setting forth the basis for cause so if this to the extent um you're suggesting that the manager would be terminated for cause then you would have to State the reason and I think in your memo you stated um at least two sections here 11 C3 and 11 C4 you know with with that said you know it's council's that you know that becomes a judgment call for Council and you know terminations for cause can be challenged um and in the way the the contract reads the challenge would be uh to a court of um competent jurisdiction and you know the courts would then look at the reason and um determined by the preponderance of the evidence admissible evidence in court whether or not that reason um holds water so to speak if not um then the contract reads uh the manager would be uh then be deemed terminated without cause and would be entitled to um Severance so that's like the general framework of the employment contract um so if we were to um terminate with cause would you uh draft a resolution or what would be the any agreement or documentation that you would put together that would summarize a resolution is not required okay um a motion um would be um the minimum that is that is required um that's the way the contract reads that's there's you know there's no requirement that there be a written resolution you I want to ensure that we are um uh making the motion in a way that gives uh sufficient evidence to ensure that with with cause was justified and so for the record I believe the basis for termination is for uh do the employment agreement Provisions sections 11 C3 and C4 um as well as section 3A City Charter code violations 402 and code section 633 code section 2101 and I believe Florida chap statutes chapter 119 1112 313 and so with that I'm looking for Mr Mayor a motion uh yes I was just going to I've had my hand up I wanted to see if I can make a comment before we have a motion okay I would like to just throw to the council um with all this going on and hearing the difference of opinion and outs of the staff or excuse me of the city residents I like Dr Shannon Roberts's um example or suggestion and I would just like to throw that into the mix that I would suggest that we can put on a probation period or whatever that he is you know trained and retrained or I forgot how exactly you work at it I'm sorry but I would just like to throw that it is an option for people to consider before we do this vote okay thank you um I'll make a motion to terminate the city manager with calls under the provisions of the employment agreement City Charter city code Florida law under the documented failures including neglect of Duty incompetence Reckless failure to perform responsibilities I'll second the motion got a motion by mayor Morrison second by council member Jackson is there any further discussion City attorney I have nothing no further comment at this time okay city clerk to turn on my mic I'm sorry it's not turning on against for four four against motion to terminate for calls passes 3 to two and with that meeting [Music] adjourned uh oh we need to enter them can I reset we need to enter them