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Our View: Century Council Shouldn’t Be Firing Squad

The Century Town Council was forced to seat itself as a “firing squad” of sorts Thursday afternoon, terminating a lower level employee with an attendance problem.

The employee, even by his own accounts, was repeatedly late for work in the mornings and late returning from lunch, and numerous times over recent weeks he simply failed to show for work without calling his supervisors. The employee agreed with Mayor Freddie McCall that his termination after over four years of employment was justified after he had already received fair warnings and reprimands.

Under Century’s own employment rules and regulations, the mayor is the town’s top boss, but the mayor can’t fire an employee without a vote of the town council. And, under those same town rules, the Mayor can’t make his termination recommendation known until a special meeting of the firing squad — the town council — begins.

Florida’s Sunshine Laws stipulate that public notice be given prior to all special council meetings, which, of course, draws the local media. Now the afternoon show with the employee in the cross hairs of the firing squad has turned into a public spectacle.

We understand and appreciate that employment records in Florida, for the most part, are public record. The employee’s termination is, and should be, public record. But should a public circus be made over firing a town laborer?

We think not, and the council apparently agrees. The mayor and the council discussed Thursday afternoon the need to look at the employment regulations of nearby governmental bodies and find a model that allows for lower level employee terminations to take place without a full-blown public meeting. Employee files would remain, as required by law, public record, so everything would remain above board and still “in the sunshine” as required by the Sunshine Law.

Does the Escambia County Commission call a special meeting to terminate a janitor, a secretary or a dump truck driver? Does the City of Pensacola assemble a special council meeting to terminate a maintenance man or a receptionist? No….those terminations are handled in the chain of command in place in the city or county. And as Century’s top boss, we believe the mayor should be able to terminate a laborer for documented poor work attendance.

Employees that serve at the pleasure of the council and are hired by the council — department heads and the town clerk — should still face a termination hearing before the council if the need arises. And in the case of any alleged employee wrongdoing or mishandling of money or property, the council, and thus the media and the public, should be involved.

As for the employee terminated Thursday, he performed a quality job for the town at a very minimal salary for years, except for the recent attendance issues. The mayor says he’ll give the employee a positive review, and the employee had an amazingly positive attitude for someone who had just received his pink slip.

The name of the fired Century employee is public record, as are the names of the janitors, official personnel, laborers and other non-management employees that have been terminated in recent years by Escambia County or the City of Pensacola. The media and the public have the right to obtain those names and employee files.

But local media outlets, NorthEscambia.com included, did not report on the terminations of those low level Pensacola and Escambia County employees because their firings were in the course of ordinary business. So in this case, we choose not to report the name of a laborer so publicly lined up before a firing squad Thursday. If the town had not been forced, by its own regulations, to call a public meeting, we would not have been involved in this employee issue at all.

You, as a member of the public, have a right to make a public records request for the man’s name, or for that matter the name of the last secretarial employee terminated by the county. And we support your right.

Rest assured, we will always report on the termination of government employees accused of wrongdoing, or upper level employees, department heads or managers that are terminated by the board or council they serve.

We call for the Century Town Council, again as they expressed they already wish to do, to quickly revisit town employment regulations to avoid such public firing squads as assembled Thursday.

Pictured top: The Century Town Council sits as a “firing squad” during a special meeting to terminate an employee Thursday afternoon. Pictured inset: Mayor Freddie McCall address the council. NorthEscambia.com photos, click to enlarge.