Withering Criticism of Flagler Beach City Manager Divides City Commission Over Claims of Toxicity

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Flagler Beach City Manager William Whitson got hit with yet another storm Thursday evening, this time from waves of witheringly critical residents, business owners and some members of his own commission who spoke of low morale, poor communications, lack of urgency on some projects, a “toxic work environment” and an instance of Whitson hanging up on a resident who was reporting a flooding issue. The criticism inevitably spread to commissioners by association.

It was not a good night for a manager who’s been lurching from crisis to crisis since summer, some of them of his own making, some of them not, and who’d hoped to show his mettle to the commission in the way he’d navigate the city out of Hurricanes Ian and Nicole’s shoals. Instead, what he got Thursday was a critical report card from constituents and in front of an overflow crowd and television cameras.

But his defenders rallied, namely Commissioners Jane Mealy, Ken Bryan and Deborah Phillips, who took particular issue with descriptions of toxicity at City Hall, since it also implicated them, and described an unchanged atmosphere of respect and praise even through disagreements, which they did not discount. “I was a little shocked by those comments also because I always thought that I was approachable and easy to talk to,” Bryan said. “I know that a lot of people don’t like me. That’s the way life is. But you know if I’m upsetting you in some way, you can always call me and say, you know, this is what’s going on.” Both said government moves slowly and has its own processes.

“For some reason, it just seemed to come out of nowhere, in my opinion, since Nicole,” Phillips said of the criticism. But she differentiated between that and lack of communications, which she said is still absent.

The discussion on toxicity was prompted by the longest public comment of the evening, near the beginning of the meeting, by Scott Fox, a former member of a city advisory committee and the owner of Tortugas, the restaurant on A1A. He said he spoke as a private citizen, though his remarks were also clearly intended as a marker ahead of the March 7 commission elections, when two seats are up: those of Bryan and Phillips. Fox made it explicit.

“Morale of the businesses, the citizens and the employees is the lowest I have ever seen in seven years of residence I’ve been here,” Fox told commissioners. “Citizens are intimidated by city leadership to speak publicly in comments,” Fox said. “Businesses are scared of retaliation and employees, particularly city employees, are scared to speak up for fear of their livelihoods. The same employees who have given their hearts and souls through all of the adversity the city has overcome. Nobody deserves to work or live in a toxic environment. The core of this city is resilience, and to overcome by working together as a team. History of the past 12 months have proven we have lost that unity. How do we recover it?”

Fox asked the commissioners to re-evaluate why they’re in their seats, to seek an anonymous employee evaluation, without consultants, and to solicit residents’ input even when it’s not what the commissioners want to hear. “I’m talking about the ones that are hurting or in need. The victims of these past two storms I’m sure would like to see some of you considering they haven’t seen much love lately.” He then indicted them directly: “Your body language, your tones, your disrespect is visible to all,” before describing the city’s poor communications as “the Achilles’ heel of this current leadership.”

Fox made no distinction between the city administration and the commission, instead adopting the approach that a distinction is irrelevant when one speaks for the other. But he wasn’t telling the commission anything new: commissioners themselves in their evaluation of Whitson had almost all criticized him for his poor communications, and some criticized him for an imperious, thin-skinned style.

“Lack of communication to residents, lack of communication to businesses, lack of communication with the county, and particularly lack of communication amongst our own leadership has been a pattern for over a year now,” Fox said. If we fail to communicate in day to day affairs, how can you as leaders expect us to have faith in the preparation of generational changes expected to begin in the next few years? The pier, A1A, dune restoration, hotel, parking, business development. Those items will affect our livelihoods, our investments and the future generations long after your tenure here is gone. Right now that faith is absent.” He outlined the past year’s many administrative failures and missteps, and a habit of deflecting blame. He closed with the March 7 reminder: “As citizens it is our responsibility to hold elected officials accountable for their actions and that begins starting tonight with both the incumbent and the future candidates.”

He was followed by Rick Belhumeur, the former two-term city commissioner who just announced another run, and who tends to speak in requiems even in good times. He piled on, complaining about a new Veterans Park monument that was not the agreed-upon plan, before other residents began a stream of complaint: about flooding and the stormwater system, including from a South Flagler resident made homeless by the flooding, about the bridge being kept open during storms, about lights on the Flagler Beach bridge that have been out for weeks, though it is the city’s responsibility to maintain them (in accordance with a contract with the Department of Transportation), and about lacking information. “There should be information out there for anybody that just Googled Flagler Beach to know what the situation is–what’s closed, what’s opened, what the dangers are, what the rules are,” Carol Fisher, a former business owner in town, said.

Then it was commissioners’ and Whitson’s turn. Bryan, the city commissioner, said he was unaware of a “toxic environment” at the city, and that anyone can talk to him or other city commissioners. He did not bring up Whitson’s hang-up on a resident. “But a toxic environment. I mean, I’m very bothered to hear about that. And I think that it’s incumbent on all of us as commissioners to find out where that might be generated from,” he said. “A lack of communication? I agree.”

Commissioner Jane Mealy was taken back by the characterization of a toxic environment. “I’m not sure why I’ve not gotten that explanation as to somebody who I thought was a friend, all of a sudden thinks I’m the worst person in the world,” Mealy said. “I’m still the same person I’ve been since I got on this commission, I’m the same person I’ve been my life actually. So I don’t know why, I have not yet to have it explained to me. If we don’t agree, somebody can get up here and say something. And we may not agree with it. That doesn’t mean we didn’t hear you. It doesn’t mean that we think you’re a terrible person. You have your opinion. We have ours. We have procedures that we like to–not like to, have to, follow.”

She added, referring to Whitson (whose name at one point she could not remember, saying “whatever his name is” instead): “As far as the toxic environment in the workplace, a few of us sat through a recent staff meeting. And this man almost cried at the end of the meeting because he was praising the staff so strongly. ‘I love this team’ is I think a direct quote. And it was said with so much emotion.”

But neither she nor Bryan squared the seeming contradiction between their description of Whitson as an engaged and emotional champion of city and staff with the way he’d behaved toward a resident.

“I called the city manager the day of the storm and said, You promised to be out here,” Susan Price of South Daytona Avenue told commissioners. “I was told he had more important things to do. And he hung up the phone. Okay? This is unacceptable. completely unacceptable.”

Whitson issued what he described as an apology even as he framed it in what has become a standard form of public non-apologies: casting doubt on the complainant’s sense of having been offended. “For the record, I would like to publicly apologize to Ms. Price,” he said, two and a half hours after price spoke and after she’d left the room (and only after Commissioner James Sherman asked for an explanation of the hang -up: none of the other commissioners had until that point).

Whitson said he’d been out surveying damage. “I was in the middle of the disaster,” he said, “and I did not have time to talk to her about her one singular concern at that time. So if she took offense to that, I’m sorry. But I was really in the middle of 50 things at that time. And I just did not have time to speak to her at that time. And if I offended her, then I’m sorry. And I’ll own it. That is not normally the way I communicate with citizens and residents.”

That part of the discussion had been an interlude between broader discussions on storm recovery and residents’ complaints regarding that. Phillips and Sherman questioned whether and how the city was staying on top of drainage issues. “What we’re doing is we’re taking all complaints from the storm and making a list,” Whitson said, with follow-ups planned. Meanwhile he said the city has been enacting a “technical memo” to address what it could. ”It’s going to take a long time to fix because it’s a very complicated system. And again, we’re in the process of assessing it technically. And we’ll be following up on what some of the things are that we can do.” He said he will develop a “regular maintenance program” that will be contracted out.

Commissioner Eric Cooley wasn’t convinced, saying the commission had long ago made those aims part of its budget. But Cooley had built his own list of grievances, among them the missing lights on the bridge, poor communications, commission direction the manager wasn’t following, and that “the sense of urgency gets heavily cranked up on the items that we budgeted, and said we are going to do this year.”

Cooley, too, discounted the reference to a “toxic environment,” but read city emails, such as one from the fire chief and Whitson’s agreement, forbidding employees from speaking with commissioners on “operational issues.”

“So I do not want anyone pushing out a message that that’s happening,” Cooley said of employees communicating with commissioners, “because I will categorically disagree with you. And I also have the documentation showing where the employees were emailed themselves saying don’t talk to commissioners.” He said “dozens” of employees are being stonewalled.

Whitson for his part blamed the storms for work delays on numerous matters, leading Mayor Suzie Johnston to come as close as anyone did that night to ask how many people it takes to change a light bulb when she was asking about bridge lights. “In the meantime, can we just change the bulb until we get someone that’s certified?” Whitson said no, since it’s actually not a light bulb issue so much as an electrical issue. The lights are still out.

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