BEACON PHOTO/PAT HATFIELD
Willing to serve, if called — Lake Helen City Administrator Don Findell listens to praise from Mayor Joan Duffy at the Aug. 25 City Commission meeting. When Duffy ran for mayor last year, she opposed the city-administrator position and Findell's salary. Duffy accepted his resignation, but has since changed her mind about his value to the city. Others want the city-administrator position removed from the city charter, and say Findell's salary and benefits are too much expense for Lake Helen.
By Pat Hatfield
posted Aug 27, 2008 - 2:40:47pm
Peace in the seemingly quiet town of Lake Helen took a blow Aug. 25, when city commissioners came together for a meeting postponed from Aug. 21, due to Tropical Storm Fay.
This night, Lake Helen was no Mayberry.
Words and fur began to fly when Vice Mayor Buddy Snowden brought up the matter of a memorandum from City Administrator Don Findell. Earlier that day, Findell had offered to withdraw a resignation he submitted earlier.
A group of residents started a movement to oust him last year, saying the city couldn't afford the $130,000 a year Lake Helen pays Findell in salary and benefits. The group collected 700 signatures.
The movement is credited with replacing Findell supporter Mayor Mark Shuttleworth with Mayor Joan Duffy last fall.
In February, Findell tendered his letter of resignation, after negotiating with Mayor Duffy. He would work on a part-time basis, from either City Hall or his home, until Nov. 28.
Findell said he thought it was for the best, when he submitted the resignation.
At the Aug. 25 meeting, Vice Mayor Snowden said he wanted to put an item on the agenda, to discuss Findell's offer.
Findell had been asked by various people about staying, his correspondence stated.
Snowden said of Findell, "I have continued to rely on his expertise and knowledgeability," and said it would be hard to replace the city administrator with even two people.
Commissioner Ann Robbins said the correspondence was not in her box when she came by City Hall at 9 a.m. Monday.
She replied to Snowden's praise of Findell, saying, at each of the two meetings per month over the past seven months, "I think you have reiterated the same fact 14 times."
Findell said Tropical Storm Fay prevented him from submitting the correspondence before Monday morning.
Commissioner Alan Cooke said although he had earlier supported elimination of Findell's position, he had also come to appreciate the city administrator.
Cooke noted the long hours Findell put in during Tropical Storm Fay. Though Findell is supposed to be a part-time employee at this point, "He has been here whenever we needed him."
Mayor Duffy agreed. She said, "I have changed my mind." After working with Findell since her election last November, she has come to appreciate him, and would vote to retain Findell.
Commissioner Lou Benton said when he tried to bring up the matter of replacing Findell at a previous meeting, he had been slapped down.
Some residents and the City Commission were divided into pro- and anti-Findell forces, each side suspicious of the other.
Vice Mayor Snowden said a political action group called Lake Helen Citizens Awareness Group had been acting in a "sneaky manner" to ensure Findell's removal. Commissioner Robbins is named as a director of the group, Snowden said.
On the Florida Department of State Web site http://sunbiz.org, Robbins and her husband, Ed, are both listed as officers/directors of the action group.
Commissioner Robbins said she resigned from the group, and is no longer affiliated with it.
Lake Helen ad hoc cemetery committee chairman and Lake Helen volunteer Ed Blackman said he is a member of the group.
"Let's be open on both sides," he said — he wanted just to get information in front of the community. "There's nothing secret; there's nothing clandestine."
Mayor Duffy said members of the political group seem to think she, Cooke and Snowden were meeting in secret last week, and postponed the commission meeting because of a political agenda — wanting to get Findell's offer on record.
When it comes to scheduling or canceling city meetings, "I am the sole decision-maker," she said, and neither Snowden nor Cooke had anything to do with her decision, which was made on the basis of the weather forecast.
Vernon Burton, who is seeking Cooke's Zone 2 seat in the November election, said the mayor and city commissioners shouldn't make accusations against residents, and should be more respectful of others.
Mayor Duffy said there was no attempt to sneak in a decision at the Aug. 25 meeting. The matter was not being put to a vote that night.
She and Snowden apologized for any offense their comments might have caused.
Findell's offer was put on the agenda for 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 18.
Cooke and Blackman cross swords over fence
Disagreements between Cooke and Blackman continued. Next, it was over the fence at the local cemetery.
Blackman said Cooke exceeded his authority by ordering a stop-work order on the fence. Cooke said he didn't act on his own. He understood City Clerk Nancy Wilson called other City Commission members, and no one objected to the stop-work order.
Benton said he got no call; no one else seemed to remember one, either.
The two men disagreed on how the mostly iron fence, obtained a couple of years ago, should be painted, and whether concrete footers should be used.
The two men yelled at each other a couple of times during the exchange.
Cooke thought painting the fence before it was put in place would save time and money. Blackman said protective paint would be chipped by the time the fence was placed, and it would have to be re-painted.
Blackman said the commission had to make a decision. It was either him or Cooke, Blackman said.
Cooke's fellow commissioners voted to have Blackman and his fellow volunteers complete the job.
Charter review another matter
Commissioners set a special meeting at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 16, at City Hall, at 327 S. Lakeview Drive, to look at amendments to the Lake Helen City Charter proposed by the Lake Helen Charter Review Committee.
Local real estate broker Susan Callahan said Findell's offer to remain was brought up at the Aug. 25 meeting in attempt to trump efforts to delete his position from the charter, and because her group has been collecting signatures on a petition seeking to delete the section of the city charter authorizing both city administrator and city attorney as charter officers of the city.
Ken McIntosh is Lake Helen's city attorney.
The petition was filed with the city and the state a week ago, Callahan said, and about 150 signatures had been obtained.
City Clerk Nancy Wilson said she had received the paperwork. She noted that an amendment removing the two positions as charter positions, if passed, would not eliminate the two jobs. That would be a separate issue.
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Small cities have outlived their usefulness? I don't get it.
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