Archer needs a new city manager.
The city commission is holding a meeting Monday to address the city’s next steps toward finding a new city manager.
Commissioner Fletcher Hope said in a previous meeting that creating a job description and providing it to the public for commentary should be a high priority. Monday's meeting begins at 6. p.m. in Archer City Hall at 16870 SW 134th Ave.
On Sept. 19, Commissioner Joan White motioned to immediately terminate the contract of then-City Manager Charles "Tony" Hammond for misconduct. The motion passed three to one.
During the meeting, White said she previously served with one of Archer’s best city managers: “I can also say now I’ve served under the worst.”
Hammond says one of the commissioners was against him from the beginning but decided not to “name names.” White cited misconduct as the umbrella term for the laundry list of allegations made against the former city manager.
“I have no earthly idea what the hell she's talking about,” Hammond said. “I don't know what misconduct she's talking about… that blew my mind.”
He worked for Archer as city manager since 2018 with 13 years of previous city manager experience. Hammond sent an email to the city commission that same day announcing his plans to step down the following year.
His retirement came sooner than expected.
“I had no inclination that that's what was going to happen that night,” Hammond said.
Members of the community circulated a post on private Facebook groups that outlined an email sent to city commissioners titled “How Far is the City Manager Allowed to Go.” The post lists concerns that many citizens also brought up in a barrage of criticism against the city manager in previous meetings.
Some of the items on the nine-point list are selling guns out of city hall, presenting a “ridiculous” budget and lying about a citizen volunteer who helped reconfigure the city’s budget.
Karen Fiore, a rates and economic analysis manager for Gainesville Regional Utilities, previously worked as a budget analyst for the city of Gainesville. She started attending the meetings after she learned about a local construction company’s plan to develop a concrete mixing plant in Archer.
“During those meetings I started to witness how poorly the manager was performing,” Fiore said, “So then I got more interested.”
With 25 years of finance experience, she was compelled by concerned citizens to dive deeper into Archer’s accounting. She began looking at financial statements and budgets from previous years.
“I discovered that nothing matched,” said Fiore, “There was errors in their calculations.”
She went to the city commission on Sept. 16 with her concerns.
According to Fiore’s research, Hammond increased his cost of living and travel expenses in the budget without notifying the commission; he did not record revenues from the state correctly, and he lied about Archer’s reported income and expenses, known as actuals, being up to date. And Fiore says, Hammond created an annual budget that placed Archer in deficit, which means the town was spending more than it was collecting in taxes and other revenues.
“This type of behavior was very upsetting as a resident,” she said, “And so I took it upon myself to put a budget together.”
Fiore offered her services to the commission for free. On Sept. 16, the commission accepted her offer and adopted her budget.
“I was very irritated with it,” Hammond said. “I took my budget, and I threw it away.”
Hammond said he never dealt directly with the day-to-day management of the city's finances and instead delegated it to another employee. Still, he said he had “no idea what (Fiore) was talking about.”
He said that last September the city implemented a new accounting software. An Archer city employee alerted Hammond to issues they faced while using the software, which went unresolved for months.
“It kept getting worse and it kept getting worse,” Hammond said. Although he could not pinpoint the problems, he said the system’s issues affected the reports he and his staff produced.
“It just never would work the way we needed it to work,” he said. “The bottom line is I was in charge of the city, and it doesn't roll downhill it rolls uphill and you know? It was my responsibility.”
As for the guns, Hammond said he was not selling firearms out of city hall, but he was transferring guns with a Federal Firearms License.
“Some people would buy a gun, and they would send it to me and I would simply give it to them,” Hammond said. A Federal Firearms License allows a person to buy, sell or manufacture firearms as well as transfer ownership from firearm sellers to buyers.
“They would come to City Hall to pick them up,” Hammond said, “but I wasn’t selling guns.”
The citizen’s email sent to the city commission asked, “At what point does it stop being new to the job/ not knowing any better and move into complicit knowledge and enabling of his corruption?”
Bill Lewandowski, who is an involved citizen of Archer, said he holds the city commission’s “feet to the fire.”
“You can delegate authority,” Lewandowski said, “but you can't delegate responsibility.”
Lewandowski said he expects the commission to write a detailed job description along with actionable and measurable goals for city manager candidates. He also strongly suggests that the commission perform a credit check on all incoming candidates.
Fiore said she wants the city commission to find someone who follows best financial and leadership practices.
“I would want the commission to do their research,” Fiore said, “to make sure that whoever they're going to hire next has a true track record of performing properly, interacting with the citizens properly and being very transparent.”
Hammond said he isn't holding a grudge about his time in Archer.
“I don't have any ill feelings with the with the city,” Hammond said. “I may have some ill feelings with a certain individual, but I don't have any ill feelings with city. That was a great place.”