FORT PIERCE\u2013Mayor Linda Hudson Monday urged city staff to begin an immediate search for a successor to City Attorney Sara Hedges whose employment contract was not renewed by a 3-2 vote of city commissioners June 8.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to make sure we have a city attorney as soon as possible,\u201d said Hudson, who voted with Commissioner Michael Broderick June 8 against a motion to not renew Hedges contract for another year. \u201cWe don\u2019t have a lot of time and we need a city attorney.\u201d<\/p>\n
Deputy City Manager DeVoshay Johnson said the city\u2019s human resources department had already been activated to begin the search, saying most of the city\u2019s top lawyers have been hired from outside existing ranks.<\/p>\n
Hedges had been an assistant city attorney before being tapped to head the legal team in September 2023.<\/p>\n
Under terms of Hedges\u2019 existing contract, the city was required to give her notice by June 15 if commissioners planned not to renew it. The existing contract now officially ends in mid-September, although officials hinted that departure negotiations could see Hedges leave sooner.<\/p>\n
Before the vote June 8 not to renew Hedges\u2019 contract, she had offered her resignation, effective Dec. 31.<\/p>\n
Under terms of the existing contrast, the city has the right to terminate her employment \u201cwith or without cause\u201d at any time. Severance provisions can be invoked in some circumstances if the city ends the contract before its Sept. 15 expiration.<\/p>\n
Hedges\u2019 tenure became an issue in May, following controversy over the handling of a wage garnishment for an unpaid credit card account owed by Johnna Morris, city finance director.<\/p>\n
Morris was originally suspended after the garnishment order was received and there were allegations that Hedges had ordered Morris to be terminated as a result. Internal city communications obtained by Hometown News have not substantiated that.<\/p>\n
City officials also have suggested there has been friction between Hedges and City Manager Richard Chess over Chess\u2019 wish to consult outside counsel in the matter and Hedges\u2019 claim that Chess was excluding her from staff employment issues.<\/p>\n
Both Hedges and Commissioner Broderick had suggested there could be other issues involved in the friction that city leaders don\u2019t want aired publicly. They did not elaborate on what those might be.<\/p>\n
The city may hire an outside recruiter to help with the attorney search and consult with the Florida League of Cities and the Florida Association of Counties for assistance.<\/p>\n
Monday\u2019s city commission meeting begins at 5:05 p.m. in the Fort Pierce City Hall commission chambers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE\u2013Mayor Linda Hudson Monday urged city staff to begin an immediate search for a successor to City…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":372731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-372730","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\/372730","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=372730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/372730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/372731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=372730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=372730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=372730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}