Century Council To Review City Manager’s Job Performance At Workshop Meeting

August 9, 2021

The Century Town Council will a hold a special workshop meeting Thursday to evaluate the job performance of Interim Town Manager Vernon Prather.

In late June, the council was set to hold the performance review. but backed out of the schedule agenda item. Council members were to have submitted written evaluation forms to he town clerk, but all five failed to do so.

Prather was hired in December 2019, and his contract was extended for a year in December 2020. He is paid $1,200 a week ($40 per hour) to work 30 hours on a schedule of his choosing. He is also paid a $600 per month vehicle allowance, but receives no other benefits.

His contract specifies that the mayor and town council will meet with him “at least every three months for the purpose of defining goals and performance objective”. That has not taken place to date in 2021.

The city manager job performance evaluation workshop will be held at 5:30 p.m. Thursday at the Century Town Hall.

Pictured: Century Interim Town Manager Vernon Prather. NorthEscambia.com file photo, click to enlarge.

Comments

9 Responses to “Century Council To Review City Manager’s Job Performance At Workshop Meeting”

  1. Chris on August 10th, 2021 7:12 pm

    The town of Podunk never changes…

  2. Citizen on August 9th, 2021 7:47 pm

    Thanks Mr. Prather, you have excelled. I hope the council doesn’t cut off their noses to spite their faces.

    Mr. Lewis, I appreciate your comment but you give the electorate more credit than they deserve.

    Right now Mr. Prather is the glue holding getting the well water and the sewage plant up to par for not only the residents but the council themselves as well as the prison in unincorporated D5.

    He gets an A++

  3. Well on August 9th, 2021 1:24 pm

    Hope Mr. Prather didn’t start billing the wrong gas customer.
    He may not be the answer but he’s certainly a step in the right direction.

  4. Thank God I live in Byrneville on August 9th, 2021 1:04 pm

    Who said that there’s no good paying jobs in Century?! This guy is making some kind of money!!

  5. Bob on August 9th, 2021 9:32 am

    The clown show continues…

    What about the personal loans to the Town council???

  6. CJ Lewis on August 9th, 2021 9:03 am

    Here’s an “interesting” question for the Town Council to raise with the Town Attorney. What is the Town Council’s authority to hire a Town Manager? Town voters have never approved doing so. Century’s Town Charter is its constitution. Town voters have periodically approved amendments to the Charter most recently in 2014. The Town Charter’s Section 4.01. Mayor provides, “There shall be a mayor who shall be the chief executive of the town. He [or she] shall be responsible to the electorate for the administration of all town affairs placed in his charge or under this charter.” That’s what town voters voted for. I suspect that if she were asked, Attorney General Ashley Moody would issue an opinion that Century’s Town Council has no state law authority to do what town voters have not approved. If the Town Council believe it is better to have an executive Town Manager than an executive Mayor, the way to get there is simple. The Town Council should adopt an ordinance asking voters to amend the Charter substituting “Town Manager” for every place where it now reads “Mayor,” make the current Mayor a voting member of the Town Council, substitute “Mayor” for “President” and create a new position of “Deputy Mayor” substituting that term for “Vice-President.” Making the Mayor a voting member of the Town Council would also make the Mayor subject to recall from office by voters. The process to make the change anticipating voter approval would be a few months perhaps with an effective date of January 1, 2022. The Charter Review Committee could consider what other changes need to be made and those can be put on the November 2022 ballot. In Florida Attorney General Advisory Legal Opinion (AGO) 2003-47, Attorney General Charlie Crist addressed the issue of “Charter amendment reallocating mayor’s duties.” AGO 2003-47 is easy to find on the Internet or the Attorney General’s website. Attorney General Crist’s key sentence reads, “Thus, it is my opinion that the duties of the Mayor of the City of Belle Isle may be changed pursuant to a validly enacted charter amendment that, if adopted, will become effective during the mayor’s current term.” There are five municipalities in the two-county Pensacola Bay Area. The only one that works well is the City of Gulf Breeze. It has a leadership Mayor who leads the city council. It also has “professional” administration run by a City Manager. Century cannot remain as it is. Milton also has a Council-Manager form of government but it is dysfunctional largely because the Mayor is not a member of the city council.

  7. Shane on August 9th, 2021 9:02 am

    Thats like the fox guarding the hen house…..time ..past time to do the same on the council…losers all

  8. tg on August 9th, 2021 7:02 am

    Its plain to see Century is in a Do Nothing Zone.

  9. Anne on August 9th, 2021 5:51 am

    Laughed Out LOUD at this….
    From the article:
    “Council members were to have submitted written evaluation forms to he town clerk, but all five failed to do so.”

    WRONG person being “Evaluated” here folks, time to “Reevaluate the job performance of the Century City Council” by dumping the whole lot of them and the mayor.
    What a M-E-S-S……the comedy of errors continues on and on and on.