STUART, Fla. \u2014 Former Stuart City Manager Michael Mortell is breaking his silence after city commissioners voted Monday to terminate his contract.<\/p>\n
The commission voted 3-2 to fire Mortell without cause, following weeks of tension that began when Commissioner Sean Reed called for his resignation earlier this month.<\/p>\n
WATCH WPTV’S COVERAGE BELOW:<\/p>\n
Former Stuart City Manager breaks silence, calls termination ‘unfortunate’ and ‘retaliatory’<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were things that caused me concern throughout my due diligence or things that were brought forward to my attention,\u201d Reed said during Monday\u2019s meeting.<\/p>\n
When asked to elaborate on those concerns, Reed declined to speak on camera.<\/p>\n
Mortell said he felt \u201cambushed\u201d by Commissioner Reed’s comments during the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was astounded that in a modern society that this could actually happen and that he actually thought that there was some level of that that was appropriate,\u201d Mortell said.<\/p>\n
Mortell said the allegations against him were misrepresented and motivated by retaliation.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is the most unprofessional thing that\u2019s happened to me in my entire life and it is him retaliating against me because I told him that he has to follow the law and he thinks that he\u2019s smarter and bigger than everybody else,\u201d Mortell said.<\/p>\n
Mortell, who has spent more than two decades with the city, said he plans to pursue legal action.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe damage he has done could cause me to be unemployed. I\u2019ll have to find out, but I know what\u2019s for sure,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m going to take whatever action is necessary to make this stop.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite the abrupt end to his tenure, Mortell said he remains confident in the city\u2019s staff and their ability to continue serving residents.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe staff at the city is so professional and they’ve been there and they care so much about the city\u2014they care as much as I do and they will work as hard as they can to make sure the city stays the way it is,\u201d Mortell said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STUART, Fla. \u2014 Former Stuart City Manager Michael Mortell is breaking his silence after city commissioners voted Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26329,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[3305,965,171,173,172,19869],"class_list":{"0":"post-26328","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-city-manager","9":"tag-michael-mortell","10":"tag-port-st-lucie","11":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","12":"tag-port-st-lucie-news","13":"tag-sean-reed"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26328","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=26328"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26328\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26328"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26328"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26328"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}