Quincy manager fired after suing commissioners, testifying to grand jury about 122% pay hike
A political mess in Quincy, with the city manager suing city commissioners and a grand jury looking into a big pay raise commissioners voted to give themselves, got even uglier Tuesday night.
Quincy city commissioners voted to fire City Manager Jack McLean Jr., giving him 30 days notice as required by his contract. It happened one day after McLean took the drastic step of suing the commission in a dispute over Police Department hiring and a week after he testified before a grand jury at the Gadsden County Courthouse.
Mayor Ronte Harris moved to oust the city manager, though he didn’t give a public explanation. Instead, he simply read portions of the contract pertaining to termination.
“It’s in the contract,” Harris said.
The move came after City Attorney Gary Roberts cautioned commissioners that the move could be seen as retaliatory given McLean’s lawsuit and grand jury testimony. City Commissioner Freida Bass-Prieto expressed alarm about his firing.
“I just think this could be a very, very costly adventure for the city of Quincy,” she said. “And I don’t know where the commission is going to get the money from.”
It was actually the second time McLean, a former Tallahassee city commissioner and mayor, was fired from the post. Quincy commissioners also terminated him in 2014, which resulted in litigation and a settlement, though he was rehired in 2019.
McLean filed a lawsuit Monday alleging that commissioners violated the city charter’s non-interference clause when they voted to block him and a new police chief, Timothy Ashley, from hiring additional officers.
The complaint, which asked a judge to force the commission to rescind its vote, says the manager alone is in charge of such day-to-day activities.
“Without this honorable court’s intervention, the police department cannot efficiently and timely bring on staff and reorganize the command staff to address and combat youth/juvenile crime,” the complaint says. “The motion cripples the police department’s ability to fight crime.”
City commissioners voted 3-2 on Nov. 9 to “freeze all hiring and all raises unless approved by the commission” for certain employees. McLean said the move would “restrain” him from hiring command staff and sworn officers during an uptick in homicides.
That vote happened a day after McLean hired Ashley, a former Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office captain and Florida Highway Patrol major, to head up the Police Department. It also came just hours after McLean testified behind closed doors before a grand jury at the Gadsden County Courthouse.
McLean, who served on the Tallahassee City Commission 1984-92, said in an interview before his firing that he couldn’t discuss his testimony before the grand jury.
He did say City Attorney Gary Roberts informed him and city commissioners that the grand jury was meeting about pay raises commissioners gave themselves in their new budget.
“The grand jury is meeting on their own initiative — I didn’t have anything to do with this — but they were meeting about the commissioners’ salaries,” McLean said. “That’s never been my issue.”
In late September, commissioners voted 3-2 to increase their pay from $16,700 to $37,000 as part of their 2022 budget — a step that sparked outrage from some constituents. The pay hike amounts to an increase of about 122%.
Mayor Harris and Commissioners Keith Dowdell and Anessa Canidate voted for the raises, with Bass-Prieto and Commissioner Angela Sapp voting no. The three commissioners who voted for the raises are the same three who fired him Tuesday and who hired him two years ago in another 3-2 vote.
McLean, who sent out a news release about his lawsuit after he filed it, acknowledged in a Monday interview that he could face repercussions from his employers, the commissioners.
“My rights as a city manager are in doubt,” he told the Democrat. “It is my only remedy” outside violating the city’s own rules.
City commissioners plan to meet in closed session to discuss McLean’s lawsuit. Harris, Dowdell and Canidate did not return phone calls for this story.
State Attorney Jack Campbell confirmed that a grand jury is meeting in Gadsden County, but he said he couldn’t discuss it: “What happens in the grand jury is by law secret until or unless they release an indictment or information.”
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or follow @JeffBurlew on Twitter.
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Quincy manager Jack McLean fired after suing commissioners, testimony
