FORT PIERCE \u2013 City Manager Richard Chess received unanimous kudos from Fort Pierce commissioners Monday for \u201chitting it out of the park\u201d on his December recommendation to hire Police Chief David Smith.<\/p>\n
But several members want to see Chess turn up the heat on revamping employee ethics, the city\u2019s purchasing department, improving employee morale and his own accessibility.<\/p>\n
After meeting with employees across city departments last week, Commissioner Michael Broderick claimed worker morale \u201cis at the lowest ebb I\u2019ve ever seen,\u201d except at the police department where \u201cthe rank and file are over the top\u201d since the hiring of Smith.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, commissioners lauded the job done by City Clerk Linda Cox and her office, praising professionalism, response to public record requests and ongoing training.<\/p>\n
Broderick claimed the city commission shares some responsibility for overall low city staff morale and said Chess has the skills to \u201cfix the woes of this city.\u201d<\/p>\n
Broderick wants faster change, calling on Chess to \u201ctip city hall on its edge and shake things up.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also praised the city executive for his response to the recent South Hutchinson Island beach erosion.<\/p>\n
Issues in the purchasing department and writing and evaluating requests for proposals for everything from leases to city purchases are also under commissioners\u2019 microscopes.<\/p>\n
Mayor Linda Hudson said purchasing must assure high ethical standards in the public sector and Broderick called current practices \u201ca disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Design and award of some city bids has led to criminal charges against a former city manager, an ethics violation by a city planner, and underperformed work by some bid winners and lack of compliance by others that have cost city taxpayers money.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Arnold Gaines urged Chess to \u201cfind more time to talk with the community\u201d and to create an internal environment where city employees \u201cfeel safe that they can tell you things that are going on.\u201d<\/p>\n
Commissioners Chris Dzadovsky and Curtis Johnson Jr. urged Chess to explore new avenues to address city trash disposal issues, including the possibility of contracting with private interests.<\/p>\n
Officials are unanimously concerned about how a state vote to roll back Florida\u2019s local property tax revenues will impact Fort Pierce.<\/p>\n
Chess said he\u2019s asking each city department to propose spending cuts to match potential revenue losses and he\u2019s already pursuing purchasing department changes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a screamer,\u201d Chess said about his leadership style.<\/p>\n
Broderick said recent tension between the three independent charter employees wasn\u2019t \u201ca performance issue, but a charter issue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve already lost one charter officer and I fear another is coming,\u201d said Broderick, referring to Monday\u2019s contract non-renewal for City Attorney Sara Hedges, but not naming whether the next loss could be Chess or Cox.<\/p>\n
For her part, Cox said, \u201cI love my job and I absolutely love serving this city. Mr. Chess and I have a great working relationship.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 City Manager Richard Chess received unanimous kudos from Fort Pierce commissioners Monday for \u201chitting it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":300766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-300765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie","tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","tag-port-st-lucie-news","tag-st_lucie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300765","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=300765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/300765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/300766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=300765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=300765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=300765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}