The Canton City Council voted 5-1 Thursday to put City Manager Scott Wood on probation and reassess his performance in six months.
The decision came in a meeting called to address council concerns about the way Wood has handled himself and city business in recent months. The council did not give a specific reason why Wood is being put on probation.
Wood, who is paid $150,000 a year and has worked for Canton about three years, could not be reached for comment after the vote, but before the meeting he said he expected to be terminated because of "philosophical differences" between him and the council since the election of two new council members in November.
He said he didn't think the council vote was directly linked to a March 15 traffic stop in which a Canton police officer pulled Wood over for speeding and crossing the middle line. The officer did not ticket him and turned off the microphone of the squad car video recording after being told he was city manager.
The officer who pulled Wood over March 15, Daniel Henley, resigned Tuesday without explanation after five years on the force. Canton police Chief Todd VandeZande said Henley had not been back to work since news of the traffic stop surfaced last week.
Henley could not be reached for comment.
The day after the traffic stop Wood summoned VandeZande to his office at City Hall for a brief meeting in which Wood advised him of the traffic stop but didn’t ask for any favors or complain about his treatment by the officer. “I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what his motivation was,” VandeZande said about the meeting with Woods.
VandeZande said he gave Henley “verbal counseling” after the incident because he violated department policy by turning off the microphone. He said he didn’t believe the officer was trying to hide anything, and that he had made the right decision not giving Wood a ticket.
“He turned off the microphone because he knew he wasn’t going to give him a ticket and he thought he was done,” VandeZande said.
The incident prompted City Councilman John Beresford to request Thursday’s meeting to consider disciplining or firing Wood. Beresford said the traffic stop is the latest in a number of incidents of "bad PR from the media" over the past year or so connected to Wood and the running of the city.
Canton police Chief Jeff Lance resigned in January after a report criticized his department’s initial handling of the search and investigation of missing 7-year-old Jorelys Rivera, who was later found dead.
Wood, who has hiring and firing authority over the city’s departments and police, initially supported the chief until the report, requested by the City Council, determined that the department mishandled the case.
Last month community service worker Bill Bradley confronted the City Council in an open meeting and accused Wood of mishandling his complaint that he was subjected to inappropriate and sexually suggestive remarks from Canton Public Works Director Dave Cangemi.
Wood gave Cangemi a letter of reprimand, but Bradley told the council Wood should have handed out harsher discipline.
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