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Delray commissioners kill change to city manager standard

By Palm Beach Business.com

DELRAY BEACH — Whoever is selected as Delray Beach’s next city manager will be able to enjoy a little more job security than he or she might otherwise have and to large extent, he or she can thank his or her immediate predecessor for that luxury.

David Harden.

Delray Beach city commissioners Tuesday evening approved four proposed charter revisions that will change significantly how the city is governed. City residents will have the final yea or nay during the March 13 municipal election. The proposed changes are the product of a charter review committee created by commissioners in the spring.

One proposal, however, to reduce the number of votes on the five-member commission needed to fire the city manager from four to three, was killed by a 3-2 vote. Opponents cited the likelihood that a slimmer margin to fire the manager would in effect politicize the office. The other factor was the job that Harden has done and the stability he has given the city over the course of 22 years as city manager. Harden is retiring early next year.

Commissioner Al Jacquet said the narrower margin could subject a city manager to the political winds of the moment and make him a scapegoat for unpopular commission decisions. The manager would have to focus as much energy on keeping his or her job as doing it.

“This would politicize the position of city manager, point blank,” Jacquet said. “This would hurt the city in the long run.”

Mayor Woodie McDuffie cited the continuity of vision and institutional knowledge that Harden has provided even as the composition of the city commission has changed over the years as one of the keys to Delray’s success. He said if the margin had been 3-2, Harden would have been in danger of losing his job several times over the years.

“I’m not just opposed to this,” McDuffie said. “I’m adamantly opposed.”

Commissioner Angeleta Gray joined Jacquet and McDuffie in voting to kill the proposed change.

Commissioners Tom Carney and Adam Frankel voted in favor of the proposal not necessarily because they agreed with it but to give voters the final say. Frankel said he was particularly swayed the 10-1 vote in favor by members of the charter review committee.

Former Mayor Tom Lynch said the city changed the charter in the 1990s to require four votes to fire the manager because of the revolving door the office had become in the 1980s when it went through nine or 10 city managers in the span of a decade.

“It did work,” Lynch said of the change. “We’ve had stability in the city of Delray Beach for 22 years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

The proposed changes would:

— Change the term in office for the mayor and commissioners from two years to three, eliminating the need for one municipal election every three years.  The six-year term limits now in the charter would remain in place with one exception.

— Allow a sitting city commissioner to run for mayor and serve two three-year terms in that office regardless of the amount of time he or she served on the commission. Potentially, someone could serve 12 consecutive years in office — six as a commissioner, six as mayor.

— Give commissioners the power to reduce the city manager’s salary, something that they can’t do now.

— Clean up grammatical errors in the charter, make the document clearer to read and clarify what would happen if a mayor- or commissioner-elect would die before taking office.