Members of the Stuart City Commission are considering firing City Manager Michael Mortell, yet are refusing to give a reason why.<\/p>\n
In a commission meeting on Monday, Commissioner Sean Reed called for Mortell\u2019s resignation, and then made a motion to remove him from office and appoint someone else in the interim. Reed offered no explanation why, except to say he wanted to help pick the next city manager.<\/p>\n
Mortell has been the city manager of Stuart for two years. Mortell said he was expecting a conversation about his contract and seemed caught off guard by the calls to resign.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to tell you I truly am surprised at the approach we\u2019re taking tonight, just because I have been available and no one\u2019s called me to discuss terminating me once, or to tell me why they were terminating me, or to even tell me which thing I did wrong in my job,\u201d Mortell said during the meeting. \u201cIf you\u2019re inclined to go down that path, I\u2019m obviously not going anywhere, I\u2019ve lived here my whole life, we\u2019ve obviously been working professionally the last two or three weeks, I would ask that this be put on another agenda item for a more formal proceeding so that it can actually be noticed properly, under the state law as it relates to due process.\u201d<\/p>\n
The mayor and commissioners spoke up both in favor of firing Mortell and defending his position, with several residents concerned about the lack of cause for his firing.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe has specific responsibility. Is the implication that he has failed to fulfill some of these responsibilities in Section 3.05,\u201d Mayor Campbell Rich said during the meeting. \u201cYou got to stop worrying about sparing his feelings, we\u2019re taking his job away from him. We need to know how he has failed, if he has failed.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI just think that we need to pull back and think about this. We\u2019re at the end of the year, we\u2019re starting a new budget. Whether or not Mike stays on, we\u2019re talking anywhere upwards of probably $275,000 or more plus other benefits for a new person,\u201d Commissioner Eula Clarke said during the meeting. \u201cThis tactic of \u2018meeting by ambush\u2019 is very striking to me. I will not be in favor of any termination of Mr. Mortell in this manner, especially at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
In response, Vice Mayor Christopher Collins said \u201cout of respect for Mike\u201d he would \u201crather not open up everything and try to litigate his faults,\u201d but is backing Reed\u2019s efforts to oust him.<\/p>\n
Commissioner Laura Giobbi also argued that the details of the city manager\u2019s performance should be kept private. From her first day as a commissioner in 2024, she said, there have been issues with Mortell of misrepresentation and trust. She declined to elaborate during the meeting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI will agree with the people who spoke for Mr. Mortell. He has a plethora of knowledge, he\u2019s been a city manager, he\u2019s been a city commissioner, city attorney, and he\u2019s done his job well,\u201d Giobbi said during the meeting. \u201cI\u2019m a new commissioner, and I don\u2019t want to go into the weeds, but from day one, there was a level of misrepresentation and trust, so for me, that\u2019s an issue. I don\u2019t really want to go further than that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission is expected to vote on Mortell\u2019s future at a meeting on Oct. 27.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Members of the Stuart City Commission are considering firing City Manager Michael Mortell, yet are refusing to give…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8598,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[171,173,172],"class_list":{"0":"post-8597","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-port-st-lucie","8":"tag-port-st-lucie","9":"tag-port-st-lucie-headlines","10":"tag-port-st-lucie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8597","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=8597"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8597\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}