FORT PIERCE \u2013 Salary terms are set to be negotiated with former St. Lucie County attorney Daniel S. McIntyre selected Monday to serve as interim Fort Pierce city attorney when incumbent Sara Hedges is scheduled to end her tenure Sept. 15.<\/p>\n
A last-minute motion from Commissioner Michael Broderick to keep Hedges on board until Dec. 31 failed Monday night, getting support only from Mayor Linda Hudson who temporarily relinquished the mayor\u2019s gavel to second and vote for Broderick\u2019s motion.<\/p>\n
However, the motion failed on a 2-3 vote, with Commissioners Chris Dzadovsky, Arnold Gaines and Curtis Johnson Jr. saying they would continue supporting seeking new leadership in the city attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Hedges had been an assistant city attorney before being tapped to head the legal team in September 2023.<\/p>\n
Her 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. City officials also had suggested friction existed 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
McIntyre has 43 years of local government law experience, serving three years as assistant Marin County attorney from 1982-85, then the chief legal counsel for St. Lucie County from 1985-2025. He has a bachelor\u2019s degree from University of Miami and a law degree from Wake Forest School of Law.<\/p>\n
City officials said McIntyre has stepped in multiple times over the years to act as Fort Pierce interim city attorney when a vacancy has occurred<\/p>\n
Broderick Monday proposed extending Hedges\u2019 engagement through year\u2019s end, saying the city faces several thorny development issues that would profit by having Hedges\u2019 institutional experience available.<\/p>\n
But once Broderick\u2019s motion failed, Mayor Hudson agreed to support McIntyre\u2019s appointment, with only Broderick voting no.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Human Resources Department had also offered the name of John J. Anastasio, one-time counsel for former Port Saint Lucie Mayor JoAnn Faiella, as another possible choice for the interim appointment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 Salary terms are set to be negotiated with former St. Lucie County attorney Daniel S.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":374213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-374212","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\/374212","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=374212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/374213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}