ANN ARBOR, MI – Mayor Christopher Taylor and his allies were in the minority when City Council voted 7-4 to fire City Administrator Howard Lazarus Tuesday night, Feb. 18.

Afterward, they released strongly worded statements condemning council’s decision, which gives Lazarus $223,600 in severance pay, plus roughly $50,000 for unused leave time, according to Taylor.

“This action will waste more than $275,000 of taxpayer money and, as the council majority admits, is entirely without cause,” Taylor said, calling it “pure ego.”

“Mr. Lazarus has done nothing wrong. This is a political termination that is bad for Ann Arbor.”

Council Members Zachary Ackerman, Julie Grand and Chip Smith issued a three-page open letter to the community, saying their colleagues’ decision to fire Lazarus confirms a “pattern of inept leadership” and they want to “blow the whistle on the dysfunction of the current City Council.”

Tonight Ann Arbor City Council voted to fire our city administrator. Here are the thoughts that @votegrand and @A2Ackerman shared about this travesty pic.twitter.com/4pNdU7Z4nK — chip smith (@VoteChipSmith) February 19, 2020

“Put simply, the City Council majority didn’t like Mr. Lazarus,” they wrote. “They didn’t like that he pushed back when they pressured him to ignore city policy established through legislation passed in years prior.

“They didn’t like that he reminded them that their role is to set policy, not to micromanage and publicly berate public servants. They especially didn’t like him because, under their constant threats of termination encouraged by outside political influencers, he maintained his integrity and steadfastly followed the rules.”

Lazarus has been exactly what any community wants in a city administrator, they argued.

“And now our residents are paying $275,000 for Mr. Lazarus to not work,” they wrote. “This decision damages our community, flies in the face of our values, and takes valuable resources away from important priorities.”

Council members who favored firing Lazarus maintain a change in leadership is in the city’s best interest and that they tried to handle it respectfully.

Making it contentious will make it harder for the community to move forward, said Kathy Griswold, D-2nd Ward.

“Based on my experience, and I have been involved in buyouts in the past … I think this was handled very well, very respectfully, and I think it was a very generous offer,” she said.

The seven who voted to fire Lazarus effective Feb. 29 are Anne Bannister, Jack Eaton, Griswold, Jeff Hayner, Jane Lumm, Elizabeth Nelson and Ali Ramlawi.

Hayner said he didn’t support firing Lazarus, but he voted in favor so he could reserve the option of calling for reconsideration at the next meeting.

That may not be possible, since Lazarus has already signed the termination agreement.

Griswold said it’s childish for the mayor’s allies to suggest council is showing inept leadership.

“And I believe that if we had a stronger leader in our mayor, that we would have been able to overcome this,” she said of difficulties with Lazarus.

Given that Lazarus will stay on through next week, “I think that this was good,” Griswold said. “And he’s on record as being interested in leaving.”

Lazarus came to Ann Arbor in 2016 after spending eight years as public works director in Austin, Texas.

There’s been friction between Lazarus and council since the makeup of council changed in the November 2018 election, when Taylor and his allies lost majority control, and Lazarus cited that as a reason for seeking a new job last year.

While some council members have been concerned Lazarus is politically aligned with the mayor, Taylor said the truth is Lazarus’ approach has been to listen to everyone, learn all he can and follow the rules.

“This was his downfall,” Taylor said. “He insisted upon following council resolutions and community-generated plans approved in open session, rather than acceding to backroom demands. He insisted upon presenting projects supported by engineering principles and best practices, instead of letting council members redline plans.”

Lazarus also insisted that staff be free to do their jobs without aggressive micromanagement or political interference, Taylor said, arguing Lazarus is being forced out as a result of his integrity.

The council majority’s legacy now is the degradation of good government, Taylor said, suggesting it’s also sending an intimidating message to staff: “If you don’t do what we say behind closed doors, you’ll lose your job.”

Lumm, I-2nd Ward, offered a different take, saying council is doing what’s best for the city.

“I don’t think that the current relationships between ourselves and the city administrator are what they should be,” she said. “I’ve served on council a long time and with quite a few city administrators, and I have seen the evidence that council-administrator relationships are important to the effective functioning of city government.”

The separation agreement states Lazarus can’t make statements disparaging or reflecting negatively on the city, and the city, including council members, can’t make statements disparaging or reflecting negatively on Lazarus.

Given that, council members who fired Lazarus say they can’t say too much.

Taylor suggested Lazarus’ firing is bad timing, since the city’s human resources director and finance manager positions are vacant, the police chief is on leave, the public services administrator will soon retire, the city’s annual budget is being developed and the city is in negotiations for a cleanup of the Gelman dioxane plume.

“This last bit is particularly wrenching,” he said, noting Lazarus has experience with groundwater contamination and environmental cleanups.

Lazarus also was committed and well suited for helping the city tackle affordable housing, road design and safety, climate change and carbon-neutrality, Taylor said.

“The council majority’s campaign of backroom pressure has culminated tonight in a grave public error,” he concluded. “Ann Arbor, its residents and its reputation, will suffer from this deeply unwise decision for years to come.”

Ackerman, Grand and Smith said a “pressure campaign” on Lazarus and his staff has gone on outside of the spotlight of council meetings.

“In the conference rooms and private offices of City Hall, these threats were real, expressed freely to Mr. Lazarus, and purposely shared in front of his staff. It was important to these council members that staff know the council majority didn’t support their boss,” they wrote.

“This is not what Ann Arbor expects of their elected leaders. In fact, it’s not leadership at all.”

Bannister, D-1st Ward, said the mayor and his allies are putting forward “a completely different narrative” than what she and other council members are working under.

She said they haven’t yet decided if they’re going to issue a statement explaining things more.

“I think the role of us all here is to serve and represent the people, and our jobs should not be quite this difficult,” she said, adding there have been unnecessary obstacles to council doing its job.

“So, I gave it a lot of serious thought,” she said of firing Lazarus.

Hayner, D-1st Ward, said he’s disappointed. The city is making good progress on affordable housing and environmental issues and Lazarus has been part of that, he said.

“I know people had their problems with Howard, but we were in the middle of our evaluation process and I set my own goals to improve communications with him,” he said.

Hayner said it’s “a very serious matter to interrupt city staff like this” and he hopes other city employees who were working with Lazarus and residents on various projects “stay strong and keep moving in the right direction.”

If Hayner is able to call for reconsideration of the firing, he’ll need to convince one other colleague to change their vote, and Lazarus would have to agree to stay.

MORE FROM THE ANN ARBOR NEWS:

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