STUART, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 The employment of Stuart City Manager Mike Mortell is on the line as City Commissioners are set to hold a formal vote tonight regarding his future. <\/p>\n
The vote follows a motion for his resignation made two weeks ago by Commissioner Sean Reed at a regular commission meeting. Monday night’s deliberation could mark the end of Mortell\u2019s more than 20 years of service to the City of Stuart.<\/p>\n
The motion to have Mortell resign took the City Commission by surprise during a meeting on October 13th and has since drawn strong and controversial opinions from the public.<\/p>\n
Stuart resident Mark Brechbill voiced support for the manager, stating, \u201cI think we\u2019re lucky to have somebody like him. He\u2019s an attorney, he\u2019s got experience as the city manager. He\u2019s previously been an elected commissioner, so he understands the pressure you guys are under.\u201d <\/p>\n
See also: Florida Senator Douglas Broxson joins Board of Governors for State University System<\/a><\/p>\n Conversely, another resident, Richard Hamilton, urged the commission to act, saying, \u201cAnyways, you have a hard job here tonight. We put you here to do a hard job. Do the job.\u201d<\/p>\n Commissioner Sean Reed cited his absence from the commission during Mortell\u2019s hiring as the reason for his motion. Mortell, who has also worked as the City Attorney and a Commissioner, expressed his surprise shortly after Reed’s proposal. <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m truly surprised at the approach we\u2019re taking tonight, just because I have been available and no one has called me to discuss terminating me,\u201d Mortell commented.<\/p>\n Longtime resident John Gonzalez argued that firing Mortell would be a mistake, citing his extensive experience: \u201cMike has led this city off and on for what 20 years as either a city commissioner, a mayor, he was the city attorney, and now he\u2019s the city manager.\u201d<\/p>\n Reed suggested that the city place Louis Boglioli as acting city manager until a new manager can be appointed. However, Commissioner Eula Clark warned that this decision could cost the city over two hundred thousand dollars if Mortell is fired without cause. <\/p>\n Find more ways to stay up to date with your latest local news. Sign up for our newsletter <\/a>to get the day’s top headlines delivered right to your inbox. Subscribe to our YouTube channel<\/a> for the biggest stories and can’t miss video.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART, Fla. (CBS12) \u2014 The employment of Stuart City Manager Mike Mortell is on the line as City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22915,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-22914","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22914","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22914"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22914\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22914"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22914"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22914"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}