FORT PIERCE \u2013 Effective Saturday, there will be one attorney left in Fort Pierce\u2019s city legal office and she will be leaving in less than three weeks.<\/p>\n
And a prospective temporary city attorney, who was the chief legal counsel for St. Lucie County from 1985-2025, withdrew from consideration last week after apparently learning he would be taking over an office with no other legal staff.<\/p>\n
Those developments last week left the Fort Pierce City scrambling at a special meeting Monday morning to staff their legal office and begin recruitment of a new city attorney to succeed Sara Hedges.<\/p>\n
Their solution, again in a split vote, was to tap Assistant City Manager Camille Wallace to take a leave of absence from her post and become interim city attorney until a permanent city attorney is hired, probably by late 2026. Wallace was an assistant city attorney here for eight months before being named to fill an assistant city manager vacancy.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe confidence and professionalism is there,\u201d City Manager Richard Chess said of Wallace. \u201cShe\u2019s more than capable of doing that job. I say that with the highest level of confidence.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Chess, Wallace has said she is not interested in vying for the city attorney permanent position. But Chess cautioned commissioners against closing the door to Wallace applying in case she might change her mind after returning to that office.<\/p>\n
The commission voted to name Wallace as interim city attorney after Hedges\u2019 departure, with Commissioners Chris Dzadovsky, Arnold Gaines and Curtis Johnson Jr. in favor, and Mayor Linda Hudson and Commissioner Michael Broderick opposed.<\/p>\n
Hudson said she felt having the existing working relationship between an interim city attorney and the city manager \u2013 each a charter employee reporting directly to the commission \u2013 would not suggest independence between the two offices.<\/p>\n
Commissioners voted 2-3 in June against renewing Hedge\u2019s contract for another year, citing Hedge\u2019s handling of a wage garnishment issue involving another city department head and allegations by some that the city attorney\u2019s office was hard to work with.<\/p>\n
Hudson and Broderick also opposed not renewing Hedges\u2019 contract.<\/p>\n
Hedges, who was hired to the top attorney\u2019s job three years ago after serving as a deputy city attorney, will be leaving when her contract expires Sept. 10. Officials have said there are no provisions in her contract for severance benefits.<\/p>\n
It was unclear Monday whether Hedges\u2019 departure influenced either of the two other attorneys to leave.<\/p>\n
In an Aug. 10 resignation letter, then-Assistant City Attorney Felicia Holloman said her last day would be Aug. 21.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have another opportunity I wish to pursue, requiring immediate availability,\u201d Holloman said in a letter obtained by Hometown News under a public records request.<\/p>\n
Caroline Valentin\u2019s \u201ctemporary engagement\u201d as an assistant attorney is ending Aug. 31, according to another public record.<\/p>\n
Contentious moments marked Monday\u2019s special city commission meeting after Broderick claimed that \u201coutside influencers\u201d are involved in the city\u2019s legal upheaval.<\/p>\n
He predicted it will result in the demise of the King\u2019s Landing project and propel South Hutchinson Island\u2019s proposed Causeway Cove plan forward without city pushback. He alleged \u201cthere were private meetings last week\u201d and \u201cpuppet masters\u201d have pulled strings behind the scenes to favor developers.<\/p>\n
Broderick did not name specific people in his allegations, but all other commissioners and Chess denied any private dealings.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a self-inflicted wound,\u201d said Broderick. \u201cThe outside influencers are pleased. This is a field day for the developers and a bad situation for the city.\u201d<\/p>\n
At one point, Commissioner Chris Dzadovsky said he believed Broderick\u2019s allegations \u201care being directed at me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that this commission is being held up by developers is ludicrous,\u201d Dzadovsky said.<\/p>\n
In other action, Broderick was a lone no vote for hiring S. Renee Narlock & Associates, of Tallahasse, to conduct the search for the next permanent city attorney.<\/p>\n
Despite opposition expressed by one citizen Monday, a $30,950 contract was approved 5-1 to sign the contract with the firm that also handled the recent recruitment of Fort Pierce Police Chief David Smith.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT PIERCE \u2013 Effective Saturday, there will be one attorney left in Fort Pierce\u2019s city legal office and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172,563],"class_list":["post-380541","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\/380541","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=380541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}