FORT PIERCE – The City Commission majority decided May 4 to postpone a debate over the roles of its three city charter employees that erupted without warning on April 20 and had been scheduled for the next meeting due to concerns with a potential lawsuit over an alleged violation of federal law involving department heads and one of those employees.
Commissioners directly hire the city attorney, the city clerk and the city manager as part of their charter structure. During the earlier meeting, commissioners and City Manager Richard Chess danced all around the seriousness of a potential federal law violation involving the suspension of an employee for having her wages garnished without actually naming that employee.
While the Hometown News found online evidence April 22 that Finance Director Johnna Morris had received a final $14,343.61 judgment from JPMorgan Chase Bank on Jan. 8 and a writ of garnishment served on the city exactly three months later, Fort Pierce officials failed to respond to a public records request for confirmation or denial of those facts.
Other media sources published her name on April 20 after the latest meeting despite the fact that commissioners were even more tight-lipped during that conversation.
As soon as the latest meeting got underway, Commissioner Arnold Gaines – who’d been the primary voice for creating a May 4 agenda item on the discussion – advised his colleagues against continuing that debate.
“I’m going to make a motion that Item 13A be pulled from the agenda,” he said April 20. “My reasoning is we received a letter of intent last week. I don’t want anything that could come out of this discussion to be used, and that letter of intent, to hurt the city. As a steward of the taxpayers’ money, I think this discussion should be pulled for this time until we’ve dealt with that lawsuit, or potential lawsuit.”
Mayor Linda Hudson agreed with that plan.
“Commissioner Gaines, thank you very much,” she said. “I share your concern. I want the best for this city, [and] I want us to move forward. I think this discussion could be held at some future date.”
“I’ll second it,” Commissioner Curtis Johnson Jr. chimed in, referring to his colleague’s motion.
“So, you’re supporting the agenda without 13A, correct?” Mayor Hudson prodded.
“Correct,” Gaines replied.
The two remaining commissioners, Michael Broderick and Chris Dzadovsky, then made comments. The two had verbally sparred during the sometimes emotional April debate, with the former taking the side of the City Attorney Sarah Hedges and the latter siding with Chess.
Those two charter employees had a disagreement over whether the city manager could seek outside counsel without the purview and oversight of the city attorney’s office concerning the suspension of Morris over the garnishment of her wages.
She was ultimately reinstated when officials became aware of a federal law prohibiting employers from disciplining or terminating an employee because of a single wage garnishment.
“I was actually going to make that motion if somebody else did not,” Commissioner Broderick said. “I agree with the three of you so far.”
Commissioner Dzadovsky, who’d dominated most of the April discussion, still had much to say.
“While I respect my commissioners’ points of view, I believe this matter needs to be dealt with sooner than later,” he said. “The presentation that I had put together to raise the issue had strictly to do with the city charter [and] the roles, responsibilities and authority of our charter officers. It has nothing to do with any other issue that may be on the table currently and/or coming. I think it’s important that we, as an organization, operate under the charter that was built to protect the city, the citizens, the taxpayers and the charter itself. I would ask you to please rescind that so we could have that conversation.”
Even though he made several other persuasive statements, he got no traction with Commissioner Gaines.
“I’m not going to rescind it,” he said. “I have not spoken to any outside attorney based on what we have received in the mail. I can only go by what was said at our last meeting, and it dealt exactly with all this charter stuff and it got into why we’re now being sued.
“So, as a steward of the taxpayers’ money, I need it to be pulled tonight until I get some assurances from an outside attorney rather than us discussing any roles of the city manager and anybody else named in that lawsuit or intent to sue.
“At the end of the day, the roles of the city manager and the attorney can be discussed; however, we need to protect the city and the taxpayers from any lawsuit,” Gaines said.
The City Commission then voted 4-1 to postpone the discussion, with Commissioner Dzadovsky dissenting.
Although Commissioner Gaines had advised both Chess and Hedges to remain silent during the first discussion, the latter complied while the former did not, revealing his simmering anger over Hedges’ attempt to limit him from independently seeking outside counsel.
“I am an adult, and I don’t need anyone to speak for me,” Chess said April 20. “I’m a grown man – no one gets to tell me what to do and who to speak to.”
While no mention was made in that discussion about possible motives for the suspension, Morris’ position in Fort Pierce overseeing the city’s $67.5 million budget could have been a contributing factor. City officials had already found themselves doing damage control after Florida Chief Financial Officer Blaise Ingoglia directed the Florida Agency for Fiscal Oversight to analyze the city’s budget early this year.
On Feb. 18, Ingoglia announced that FAFO had uncovered $10 million in “excessive, wasteful spending” and that the City of Fort Pierce General Fund Budget had mushroomed more than 50 percent and outpaced population growth since the 2019-2020 Fiscal Year.
The City Commission expressed interest afterward in doing a forensic audit of all city departments.