Red Bay’s mayor had complete authority to terminate the position of city operations director and did not have to have the Council’s approval to do so, city attorney Roger Bedford advised the board Monday evening.
During final comments of an otherwise routine City Council meeting, Mayor Charlene Fancher sought to bring clarity to the situation regarding the September 18 termination Mike Shewbart from the position. At that meeting a motion to accept Shewbart’s firing died for lack of a second, leading to some confusion as to whether Shewbart was still technically employed.
However, any doubt as to the mayor’s authority over the operations director’s position was removed Monday when Bedford told the Council that state law gives Fancher the ability to hire and fire certain positions, and specifies which positions require the Council’s approval.
“The big distinction is that the Code of Alabama sets forth certain positions the Council is to be involved in,” Bedford told the Council. “It also sets forth what are called officers of the city, and the Council is to be involved in those as well. Everyone else is an employee of the city, and an employee works at the discretion of the mayor, like the CEO or president of a company. The only way the Council can change that is within certain limits. You cannot remove statutory authority from the mayor.”
An officer of the city is limited to the positions of city clerk, chief of police, fire chief, city attorney and city judge being the primary posts.
Bedford cited a Supreme Court ruling that specified the mayor’s powers to appoint employees, and also stated that a “City Council’s authority to adopt ordinances and resolutions in a legislative fashion is limited to ordinances and resolutions that are not inconsistent with existing state law. Thus the Council (in the legal case) did not have the authority to override state law to take general appointing authority from the mayor and assign the power to itself. And that’s the red-letter law in Alabama.”
Bedford told the Council changes could be made to the hiring and firing process, but within strict limitations.
“Some people have asked me, ‘what if we wanted to go through the process of creating a position through ordinance; would that alter it?’ You could, but there are guidelines under which you would have to do that,” Bedford said. “They’d have to have supervisory authority; they would have to be able to make decisions subject to the review of the mayor and council. But as that position (operations director) stands today, that position is an employee (of the city, and not an officer) and the fact that the Council, by resolution, supported the mayor’s recommendation of hiring an individual for a position does not raise it, the resolution does not raise it to the level of an ordinance. That’s two distinct, different things. In this case the law specifies that an ordinance is above or stronger or more noted than a resolution.”
Councilman Brad Bolton said it was his understanding that the Council was directly involved in appointing five positions under resolution and asked that Bedford come back to meet with the mayor and board to give the board more direction.
In prepared remarks prior to Bedford advising the Council, Fancher said she didn’t want to leave city residents hanging as to the status of the operation director’s position, and she wanted to move on with continuing the progress she and the Council have made in the 11 months since their swearing-in.
“This particular position did not require the vote of the Council due to the fact that this position is not under the sole authority of the City Council,” Fancher said. “The Code of Alabama sets forth guidelines as to the hiring process at the beginning of each new term after an election and sets the authority of the council to appoint particular positions, which are the city clerk, fire chief, police chief and city attorney. All positions currently held by employees prior to the election were rehired. All resignations and terminations of employees have been listed on the agenda without regard to authority.”
The mayor said she takes resignations and terminations of each employee seriously, and has sought to make every decision based upon what she believed was best for the city.
“The decisions I make on behalf of the City of Red Bay are for the best interest of our city,” Fancher said. “From day one of taking office and for the past 11 months I have put measures in place to afford the opportunity from each department director to communicate effectively. Effective communications honesty and trustworthiness are essential keys to a successful team and every CEO knows that. Every CEO of a successful organization, every mayor, every governor, every president has to have a team, a reliable team, to achieve progress.
“I took an oath to do my very best to bring progress and improve the way of life for the citizens of Red Bay. I am very blessed and thankful to this Council that we have made much progress in eleven months, and I look forward to achieving so much more through teamwork for the citizens of Red Bay in the years ahead.”
Fancher praised the employees of the city’s Street Department, noting that in the two weeks she had taken over responsibility of overseeing that department that the employees have been very supportive.
“I want to take this opportunity to commend the Street Department,” she said. “They have worked very hard in the past two weeks in this transition. They have stepped up to the plate and helped me on a daily basis. We’ve accomplished much in the last two weeks. I meet with them daily at 6:15 each morning and that’s what I plan to continue to do.”
At present there are no plans to fill the position of operations director.
“I don’t see, in the very near future, hiring someone for a replacement,” Fancher said. “Things are going quite well. I believe it’s my responsibility as mayor to be directly involved with each department on a day-to-day basis.”
She thanked the Council for the work that has been done in the past year and said she believes even better things are coming.
“I sincerely appreciate the progress that has been made these past 11 months,” she said. “A CEO is only as good as your team. We’re going to make a lot more progress these next three years.”
