College Park’s City Council abruptly fires city manager
The College Park City Council abruptly fired City Manager Lindell Miller during Monday night’s council meeting — the second time this year the council has ousted its city manager.
Council member Joe Carn made the motion to terminate Miller’s contract and name Michael Hicks, the city’s chief technology officer, as interim city manager, effective immediately.
It passed 3-1, with council member Roderick Gay opposed.
Miller said in a telephone interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that Carn and Council member Tracie Arnold were unhappy with her for refusing to allow the owner of an apartment complex to redevelop it without the proper permits.
Miller said she suspects that is the reason she was fired.
Carn did not respond to questions about the permit issue. When asked why Miller was fired, he referred the AJC to the statement he made during the meeting, which did not directly address the issue.
“I do believe that a lot of what has been going on regarding our conduct, regarding the management of this city, is in my opinion unsustainable and unacceptable,” Carn said during the meeting. “Ladies and gentlemen, as a governing body, I charge us all to commit to right this ship and to continue to move forward in decency, in transparency and in order.”
The property, formerly known as Chelsea Gardens, was condemned earlier this year, displacing residents.
According to Miller, the city realized last week that the owner was doing two phases of work on the property without construction permits and issued stop-work orders for both phases.
Miller said the property owner then got a permit for one of the two phases, and that stop-work order was lifted. On Friday, Miller said Carn told her that a previous arrangement had been made for the property owner to do the work without permits.
Miller said she refused to lift the second stop-work order and asked the city attorney to inform council members that permits were needed for the project.
“I said this is not policy,” Miller said, adding: “The city attorney sent them a letter and said you all have to follow the procedures.”
Miller replaced former City Manager Emmanuel Adediran after the City Council fired him in May. Last month, Miller drew criticism when video footage surfaced of her on stage at a city festival urging people to vote for Councilman Gay, who won reelection.
Mayor Bianca Motley Broom has said Miller’s endorsement of Gay was a violation of a section in the employee handbook prohibiting staff from taking part in local politics.
Before the council meeting on Monday, a ribbon cutting was held for the redeveloped apartment complex “without even doing the Phase 2,” Miller said. The complex has been renamed The Ivy at College Park.
Miller said Arnold called her multiple times Monday, telling her to attend the ribbon cutting.
“I told her I couldn’t go. I couldn’t support it,” Miller said, adding: “I didn’t go, and then I was terminated Monday night.”
Arnold and City Attorney Winston Denmark did not respond to requests for comment made by phone and email. The owner of the apartment complex could not be reached for comment.
During Monday’s council meeting, Councilman Gay chastised his colleagues for voting to fire Miller, who he said had been “standing up against a slumlord because he won’t pull permits. He don’t even want to pay his fair share.”
“You’re mad at her because she’s standing up for character, because she won’t go and use her office of city manager so that y’all can justify what y’all got going on,” Gay added. “But you want to sit up here like you’re just so innocent.”
Miller, in the interview on Tuesday, said she served the city and its staff well during her short tenure.
“I went in and I gave them processes and systems that they hadn’t had in 20 years,” she said. “I gave them checks and balances, and I served them like no other city manager.”
College Park Mayor Pro Tem Jamelle McKenzie said she doesn’t know why Carn moved to oust Miller. She said she joined in the vote because she thinks Hicks is more qualified for the role.
“I didn’t have anything against Ms. Miller,” McKenzie said. “I thought she was doing a good job. But I also think that we need to have people — when they mentioned Michael Hicks, that was my first choice.”
The contentious meeting was further punctuated by arguments about a controversial proposal to more than double council members’ salaries — on top of giving them an additional $2,750 per month for housing and vehicle allowances. Both proposals were removed from the agenda Monday evening.
The pay-raise proposal would have raised annual council salaries to $58,000, from $24,215.
The other item on Monday’s agenda called for giving each council member a $2,000 monthly housing allowance and $750 monthly “vehicle allowance.”
Motley Broom said during the meeting that the council can’t legally raise salaries at this time because it can’t be done between the beginning of qualification for the most recent election and the swearing in of the winners on Jan. 1, among other reasons.
“We all know better,” Motley Broom said.
At Monday’s meeting, Gay said the proposed legislation would have changed the council positions from part time to full time, “because all my colleagues are working over 40 hours.”
The agenda for Monday’s meeting said all four Council members had sponsored the proposed increases in compensation, but McKenzie said Tuesday she did not.
She said Gay removed it from the agenda after Denmark, the city attorney, said Monday it was “problematic.”
“We can talk about it being illegal,” McKenzie said. “It’s not illegal unless we vote on it.”
About the Author
Reed Williams is an enterprise reporter on the Local team at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
