Ark Valley News - Park City mayor to council: Morons

Park City mayor to council: Morons
By Taylor Messick
Last Updated: October 28, 2021

A hot topic at the Oct. 12 Park City council meeting brought tension to the surface and boiled over in public.

Governing body members who are normally composed and professional exchanged jabs over an amendment to the city administrator's contract.

The final item on the evening's council agenda was an amendment that included three changes. One of those was a 5 percent reduction to the city administrator's salary, bringing the amount down to $140,000.

The amendment also removed an automatic 4.25 percent cost-of-living increase in the administrator's salary next year. Finally, the amendment removed the requirement of the city administrator to live in the city limits.

The salary changes were seen as punishment for City Administrator Sean Fox for not living in the city, as required by his original contract.

When the city started looking to replace Jack Whitson as city administrator in 2019, Mayor Ray Mann was adamant that the city needed to open up a nationwide candidate search. He also pushed to remove the residency requirement for the position.

Mann pointed out at the time that none of the city's department heads lived in town — and that "all of them bleed Park City." Mann stated that he prefers the city administrator to live in town — but he thought flexibility in the hiring process was vital to getting the best possible candidate for the city. However, he stated that he believed the right candidate would do a great job for the city regardless of where they live. He talked about the then unannounced administrator's personal situation.

"This gentleman owns 28 acres of land in unincorporated Sedgwick County," said Mann. "It's 11 miles away and his dream was to build a house there and get this job. Kudos to him — he has already put a contract on a house here in town and he's moving here. But I saw the deflation in his spirit when I told him. I felt like if he wouldn't move here, we would just be looking for the next candidate and we wouldn't get the best person for the job."

Fox's employment agreement was approved by the council on Feb. 26, 2019. He is a Wichita native and was working as the director of special projects for the city of Mesquite, Texas. He has served as the town manager in Sunnyvale, Texas, and as city manager and economic development director in Pantego, Texas.

Some longtime Park City residents expressed strong opposition to removing the residency requirement in 2020. Council member Tom Jones suggested putting the issue on the ballot for voters at the time. About half the council was still opposed to removing the residency requirement, including council member George Capps.

Capps said he had mixed emotions about the issue but had heard from a few residents who were opposed to the idea. He said some of those residents think it makes the city look bad if all the department heads live outside the city. Some feel that it does not make the city seem like an attractive place for new residents if they find out the employees don't live there.

"We built this city and now we're being told that we're not good enough for people to live in," said Capps. "I had a residency requirement. When I was chief of police, I had to live here. I had people come to my house and I dealt with it. … I had people threaten to kill me and my family but I lived here and saw my way through it."

Mann requested that the council reconsider removing the residency requirement again in January 2020, stating that he made a promise to Fox that he would try again one year after the hiring. No motion was made on the item and no action was taken. Mann said at the time that he did not feel there was enough support from the council to remove the residency requirement.

On Oct. 12, the item came up again. The council took a pair of executive sessions for 15 and 20 minutes after some brief discussion. After returning from those executive sessions, city attorney Doug Mosier stated that it was his opinion that any action taken on this item would not matter.

Mosier said that the city doesn't have an ordinance expressing a residency requirement for the administrator. He said all the city has to go off of is the contract. After an Oct. 4 special city council meeting, an amended contract removing the residency requirement was presented to Fox and he signed it. Mosier said that already makes the agreement legally binding.

Park City resident and city council candidate Kyle Nordick said he attended a Sedgwick County Commission meeting in May and heard Fox state his residency was near 63rd Street South and Hydraulic. He isn't impressed with the way the city has handled the situation.

"I later found out that many (governing body members) already knew of his plan to build and reside there while also knowing about his purchase of a property at 1224 E. 61st Street North — well within the city limits," said Nordick. "The latter property is now being used as a pawn in a game of the definition of residency, like many politicians before him have done."

Capps said that no formal action was taken at the Oct. 4 special council meeting regarding this topic. He was furious to hear Mosier's opinion that the contract amendment is already legally binding and said the wool was pulled over his eyes.

"When you look at the special meeting, it said this was for discussion," said Capps. "There was nothing in there about taking action. Yet, they took action. It wasn't on there and to me, that's deception."

Council members George Glover and Melvin Kerr also expressed opposition to removing the residency requirement. Capps said he doesn't care if the amendment is legally binding, he believes the way it was done was wrong and dishonest.

Mosier said that Capps was free to move to terminate his employment if he thought he had deceived him.

Mann responded to Capps' anger with more anger. He stood up and tossed a set of keys to Fox, stating his resignation and telling council president John Lehnherr that he is now the mayor. Mann left the meeting and didn't return.

"Sean, here are my keys," said Mann, whose term as mayor is expiring in January. "I'm out. This is my resignation. (John is) the mayor now. I can't work with morons that can't think straight."

Capps told Mann to "be careful" who he was calling a moron and Mann responded: "I just did."

Capps called for Mann to come back to the council chambers and Mann kept walking away.

Capps shouted: "That's it, walk away. That's what you always do."

Mann responded by shouting: "You are tearing the city apart."

Capps said: "No, you are."

Lehnherr banged the gavel and called for order as Mann left for good. Council member Brandi Baily had motioned to approve the contract amendment but retracted her motion. She stated that the intent of putting the item on the Oct. 12 agenda was transparency to the public. No further action was taken on the contract amendment after Mosier stated that doing so wouldn't make a difference.

Council member Ben Sauceda said he believes there is a middle ground that can be found in this situation. He said he does not believe that terminating the city administrator should be the only option. He said there are other ways the city can penalize the administrator for not meeting the residency requirement.

"Every single person should be a man or a woman of their word," said Sauceda. "We should expect that of each other. But we also have to understand that sometimes, all parties haven't always been that way in this case. … But it's not one person's sole fault."

Capps asked if Lehnherr needed to be sworn in as mayor at the end of the meeting. Mosier said he did not believe that Mann resigned as mayor. Lehnherr said he didn't want to jump to conclusions. He said they needed to "let things cool down before ironing things out."