Resignation of Lisa Morrell, including a recap of the recent City Council meeting

The Palm Bay City Council met on Thursday, July 2nd, just before the 4th of July weekend. The meeting ran about 3 hours long as the Council had a lengthy agenda to tackle with a couple of rather controversial items.

Though the most heated moments of the meeting occurred towards the end, they were highly impactful. The first of these such moments was the vote on the “resignation” of City Manager Lisa Morell. Resignation is in quotations as several of the circumstances surrounding Ms. Morell leaving are in question. The agenda item to include approval of an amendment to Morell’s Employment agreement was unilaterally brought by Councilman Anderson.

Councilman Anderson vaguely cited having had “several issues with Ms. Morell during her tenure as City Manager.” He noted that the concerns were addressed with Ms. Morell in March 2020 but claimed that issues discussed were not resolved and he believed that “people’s issues were not being represented” by Ms. Morell. It was at that point that Councilman Anderson, Ms. Morell and the City Attorney negotiated and drafted the amendment.

Many citizens and a couple Councilmembers had an issue with the sudden and secretive way that Ms. Morell’s removal was presented to the Council and the public. Public commenters voiced to Councilman Anderson that this method of unilaterally drafting and having Ms. Morell sign the employment agreement amendment (a.k.a resignation) before the Council could discuss a resolution, was a violation of the city charter and sunshine laws, out of the City Attorney’s authority and amounted to blindsiding. Several went as far as to call the council corrupt.

Councilman Bailey was very vocal regarding his frustration that Councilman Anderson refused to present concrete evidence to the Council or public to support the position that Morell should be removed. The Mayor sided with Anderson citing that the reasons should not be made public at this point since the resignation was already signed by Morell. Claiming they should not now “demean her character”.

One member of the public stated:
• “…the process was wrong. There’s no way this should have been walked on. The public wasn’t officially notified until after Noon [the day of]” While another claimed:
• “…it doesn’t matter what anyone “thinks” on the resignation. It [the vote] should have been 5/5 because it wasn’t a vote to fire her. IT was a vote to accept her resignation”

Following the meeting, Candidate for Palm Bay City Council, Seat 2 – Donny Felix, spoke exclusively to PALM BAY LIVE during a special live recap of the proceedings where he stated “…it was quite a surprise to watch what transpired. I truly believe in the order of doing things in certain way and what should have happened, really, is to put a resolution out for a confidence vote by the Council; without necessarily going into the nitty gritty of [the issues with Morell], and vote on it. The public would feel more at ease if it were done in this manner. However, the Council was voted in to make tough decisions and it is their right to want to remove her. But, we have a brand-new Council coming in November, I think we’re going to be fine, as a city.”

In the end, when it became evident that Ms. Morell’s resignation was going to be approved many citizens asked that, at a minimum, the Council deferred the appointment of a new City Manager. This would allow new councilmembers (elected in November) to appoint the replacement. Ms. Suzanne Sherman (Deputy City Manager) will be “Acting City Manager” in the meantime.

The resignation of Ms. Morell was approved, with Councilman Bailey dissenting.

The beginning of the meeting was primarily focused generic housekeeping issues, then the council delved into the consent agenda.

First up was the vote to award a contract for the Parks & Recreation Departments, Mowing and City Parks maintenance work. While some Palm Bay citizens verbalized their thanks to the Council for awarding contract to a local business, others questioned the need to outsource the work when Palm Bay employs outdoor maintenance personnel that are capable of doing the work. The Ms. Sherman responded to the criticism by claiming outsourcing was more cost effective. This issue passed.

Next on the agenda was the appointment of two consultant engineering firms to work on city projects on a as needed basis. After undergoing a selection process, the top two chosen consultants were Wade Trim, Inc., Palm Bay, FL and Infrastructure Solution Services, LLC, Melbourne, FL.

However, there were several public comments in support of choosing a third consultant, Reese Engineering. Mr. Robert Reese as well as employees and supporters reminded the Council that it would come at no cost to have another on call consultant and it’s within their purview to do so since the charter requires a “minimum of 1, and a maximum of 3”. However, Utilities Director, Chris Little defended the decision two chose only 2 by saying that it’s easier and more efficient to work with one to two consultants at most.

The Council supported Mr. Little’s conclusion and the number of selected consultants was approved at 2.

The counsel then voted on the proposal of renaming Malabar Road after former Deputy Chief Lynne Nungesser. One citizen, Bill Batten, stated that while Deputy Chief Nungesser definitely deserves recognition, he was not in favor of renaming a road, citing the burden of address changes for citizen and businesses. He also recalled that years ago a city ordinance discouraging renaming of streets was enacted and he suggested that a future unnamed highway be named after the Deputy Chief instead. The Council argued that the ordinance in reference did not apply and the proposal passed.

Additionally, both the Ordinance 2020-42, amending the Fiscal Year 2019-2020 budget by appropriating and allocating certain monies (third budget amendment), first reading.

Consideration of utilizing a Florida Department of Environmental Protection grant to conduct an environmental feasibility study for Turkey Creek ($160,000) passed by Council vote while the release of reimbursable grant funding allocated to the Tourism Development Council for utilization towards other priorities was tabled until August.

The Frank Watanabe, Public Works Director – Stormwater Fund and Fiscal Year 2021 Rate of $131 passed with one Councilman dissenting.

A highly discussed issue, with many public comments, was the continued request by Thomas Rebman to the Council seeking formation of a round table style workshop or citizen’s advisory board to develop a plan to reduce homelessness around Palm Bay. Councilman Anderson is spearheading the development of this, claiming he met with “community faith leaders and city advocates to have preliminary discussions regarding emergency funding since the rent/mortgage moratorium will be ending in August”; but he was not prepared to discuss the plan in detail. It will be revisited next council meeting.