Headline Surfer photos / John Hagood, shown above, was ousted Tuesday night as city manager after the issue of whether he should remain on the job was raised by New Smyrna Beach resident Bob Tolley, shown below. Hagood in rspons to a heated exchange from the dais with Tolley standing at the back of the packed commission meeting held up a copy of his severance agreement, which calls for him to receive more than $289,000 in salary and benefits.
NEW SMYRNA BEACH -- City Manager John Hagood was fired earlier tonight, but agreed to stay on until an interim is hired, in what was an emotionally-charged commission meeting that drew a hundred or so citizens, none more vocal than a resident who stood definantly in the back of the municipal chambers whjo jawed with the embattled administrator.
That resident was Bob Tolley, a self-described citizen watchdog and advocate for open government, which has been an ongoing source of consternation for the better part of the last decade.
Mayor Sally Mackay, along with Commissioners Randy Richenberg and Lynne Plaskett voted in favor of the ouster while Commissioners Jack Grasty and James Hathaway opposed it.
"John Hagood is not the kind of city manager I want on my watch," Plaskett insisted.
The mayor quickly added, "It is absolutely not personal."
Hathaway, onmthe shorend of the 3-2 majority edict to terminate, said he was disgusted by the ouster and pointed out the city's finances were thin already.
Though it wasn't announced publicly, Hagood's severance package, payable immediately once he's out of the job calls for $289,062 in salary and benefits.
Plaskett and Richenberg originally wanted Hagood out immediately with a full-paid leave of abscence until his planned Sept. 30 retirement, but Grasty and Hathaway were at last able to convince the majority to take up Hagood on his offer to stay on the job until and interim manager is hired.
Grasty was absolutely livid, his face and neck bright red, calling Hagood's removal "garbage" and pointing out an interim among the department heads would stretch management too thin.
The commission action was initiated after city resident Bob Tolley, a frequent critic of municipal government at city commission meetings, demanded the elected leaders take a stand either way on this night regarding Hagood's job movimng forward.
"Do you want this man as city manager or don't you," Tolley demanded, at one point rtaising his voice in calling Hagood "corrupt," even citing the definition of the word from a dictionary, though he said it did not include financial corruption.
Richenberg chided Hagood, saying he should have kept things "professional" with Tolley in thr days and weeks leading up to the public confrontation instead of getting personal. Hagood shot back in a tone of voice that conveyed his controlled anger that when he's called corrupt or anything of the sort iimpugning his personal integrity and professional career in public administration, "the gloves are going to come off."
Tolley told Headline Surfer he was incensed that city employees, whom he wouldn't name, provided personal information to a controversial political blog site, NSBShadow.com operated by Nahum Litt, a retired federal judge who lives just outside the city limits that embarrassed Tolley and his family. Tolley's finances were posted on the Web site Monday after the city agenda showed Tolley's request to be heard tonight.
Litt, often critical of municipal politicians, particularly Richenberg, whose wife is a city firefighter, and of Mackay, who has convinced her colleagues, mostly in the 3-2 split to provide taxpayer monies through the CRA and even line-items to promote pub crawls and the arts, seen as frivolous with ever-increasing costs to provide essential services such as city police and fire services.
With literally millions spent in the past 15 years in CRA funds for pub crawls and fesytivals on Flagler Avenue, with tens of thousands spent annually from tourism bed tax collections by the Southeast Volusia Advertising Authority for these same dozens of after-sundown alcohol-driven events, Tolley said he, too, has challened the status quo at City Hall - though not as personal as Litt's weekly log postings.
"When it became clear to me that Litt was playing multiple politrical factions against one another, and with Hagood continuing to take his cues from Mackay, Tolley said it bbecame clear to him right away that Litt and Hagood had gottn on the same page in a very personal way with financial information such as tax bills finding their way on to the Shadow, it was going to come to a head at the meeting.
"When they go after your family in such a vindictive and mean-spirited way on the Internet with no filters, no attribution to support outragous stuff that's online, it hurts your family - your reputation in a small town like this," Tolley, a semi-retired investor in utilities and a Vietnam War veteran, moved here from New York a decade ago and remarried. He has two grown sons, one of whom is a New York City firefighterwife stays out of the politics.