Motion to fire Milton city attorney fails, as fallout from city manager fiasco continues

A motion to terminate the contract of Milton City Attorney Alex Andrade failed to get any traction Tuesday at a special meeting called by Mayor Heather Lindsay.

Instead Mike Cusack, the council member who made the original motion, amended it to one that asked fellow board members to conclude that recent communications authored by Andrade were unprofessional. That motion failed by a 5-2 vote, with Cusack and Marilynn Farrow voting in support.

The relationship between Andrade, who is also a state representative, and Lindsay, who serves as an assistant city attorney for the city of Pensacola, has taken a nose dive in the last couple weeks as the city manager candidacy of Scott Collins went from being a sure thing to Collins deciding to get out of city government altogether.

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The two vehemently disagree over what developments caused Collins, who on July 11 was a unanimous City Council choice to succeed Randy Jorgenson as city manager, to that weekend drop out of the running. Andrade has expressed the belief that excessive public pressure led Collins to back away while Lindsay contends it was the behavior of city staff, particularly Andrade.

Following a recent meeting at which issues were aired surrounding the failed city manager negotiations, the mayor sent an email to Andrade chastising him for failing to take public responsibility for the breakdown in communications with Collins.

"What Scott told me on Monday left no room for doubt: your communication was a motivating factor in his email on Saturday ... There are choices you made that made this situation worse than it had to be," the email said. "You have spent considerable time and energy accusing council of violating a policy that does not apply, which further stoked mistrust among the council, and characterizing the public as being at fault."

Andrade fired back telling Lindsay she owed him a public apology for "flying off the handle" and blaming him "for the intentional acts of elected officials."

"Your erratic behavior is jeopardizing so many good things the city can achieve," Andrade said.

Andrade continued to insist in communications with the mayor that he had done nothing wrong in negotiating with Collins, and when Lindsay requested the city clerk call for special meeting "as requested by the city attorney," he again went on the offensive.

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"When did I call a special called meeting?" he asked City Clerk Dawn Molinero in an email. "Is the mayor lying again?"

He then told the mayor "if you really want to act this petty, the (meeting) description should be 'special meeting for mayor to publicly apologize and retract statements she made about the city attorney.'" He continued; "All I asked is if you wanted to call one, stop lying about me."

By the time Lindsay had gaveled in the meeting Tuesday night the title of the special called meeting had been whittled down to "attorney communications."

Speaking first at the meeting, Lindsay characterized Andrade's behavior in the last week as reacting badly to the "constructive criticism" she'd offered. She said she did not feel she could any longer have contact with the city attorney outside of the public forum of council meetings.

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Councilman Jeff Snow was fierce in his criticism of the mayor and her calling a special meeting to publicly criticize city staff.

"It's embarrassing. This meeting is embarrassing. Having this meeting to go after our city attorney is very embarrassing," he said.

Snow termed the email exchanges between Andrade and Lindsay as "two lawyers going on when neither of you wants to hear the other side."

Andrade defended himself by telling council members "I can't do my job if you're keeping information from me," which he maintains was done as the Collins negotiations moved forward.

"My job is to sincerely protect this city. That is my role," he said. "If you do not believe my actions are adequate, you are welcome to make that motion" to terminate the contract.

Stating "my concern is the city attorney is not acting as a professional," Cusack did make the motion to terminate the Andrade contract. The motion was followed by more than an hour of public comment with local residents taking both sides in the mayor/city attorney dispute.

The council, as deeply divided as the public, adjourned without taking definitive action. It did not address another recent communication from Andrade which requests that his hourly fee for serving as city attorney be raised from $200 an hour to $300 an hour.

This article originally appeared on Pensacola News Journal: Milton City Council divided over fate of City Attorney Alex Andrade