John Cunningham Wants Flagler Beach City Manager Dale Martin on Probation Until Next Evaluation

Flagler Beach City Commissioner John Cunningham wants to place City Manager Dale Martin on probation and stop the automatic renewal of his contract due this month,  pending Martin’s evaluation in August. 

“I’d like to see, recommend, that put him on probation until his evaluations come out, whenever that happens, before the budget,” Cunningham said at the end of last Thursday’s meeting. He made a motion to prevent the automatic renewal of the contract. He did not get a second. The motion died.  

The commission awarded Martin a three-year contract that then automatically renews every May in one-year increments, “unless either party gives written notice to the other at least sixty (60) days prior to the otherwise scheduled termination of the Initial Term or Renewal Term that he or it, as the case may be, does not intend the Term of employment to continue beyond such anniversary.” There is no contractual clause permitting a probationary period. 

Cunningham said he will submit an agenda item, as commissioners are entitled to do, to discuss the non-automatic renewal at the commission’s May 28 meeting. It is unclear how Martin could work without a contract or how a probationary period would work, now that he is approaching his third anniversary, largely with positive evaluations. 

Still, despite the other commissioners’ hesitancy, the discussion will be yet another moment of vulnerability for Martin, especially after his firing last week of Fire Chief Stephen Cox based on mass resignations and an employee revolt at the fire department that no one outside the department had seen coming, Martin included. 

Cunningham has been displeased with Martin almost since his election 14 months ago and let it be known in his first evaluation of the city manager, where he called him “unsatisfactory” and said he “does not meet the expectations of effective municipal leadership.” Then-commissioner Rick Belhumeur, also a Martin critic, had not been as severe but concluded that Martin needed improvement. 

Belhumeur lost the March election. He was replaced by R.J. Santore, who was the leading vote-getter in the election, had been critical of many decisions on Martin’s watch, including the pending sale of the city’s golf club and two major annexations, and had been perceived as a Cunningham ally. Since his election, Santore displayed more independence, his criticism generally taking a more thoughtful approach than Cunningham’s curt declarations. 

If Cunningham expected a second from Santore for his motion, the silence was telling, as is the lack of appetite on the commission for another managerial upheaval, even from James Sherman, who had at times been the closest to wavering on Martin. Sherman’s evaluation did not waver. It was not stellar, but it was a solid 3.6 out of a possible 5. 

“This takes a little bit more to me, a little bit more preparation, discussion,” Sherman said of Cunningham’s motion. “I have had to terminate a city manager up here, and we know what that looks like.” He was not opposed to having the matter discussed as an agenda item in two weeks, giving Cunningham the opening he wanted. “I’d rather have more discussion where I’m prepared and really weigh out everything with what that looks like at a meeting before we were to go forward with something like this,” he said. “I’m not opposed to having the conversation, but I just don’t think I’m prepared to make that type of decision this evening.”

“If there’s not a second, that takes care of itself right there,” Commissioner Scott Spradley, who has been supportive of Martin, said. To him, the lack of a second negated the need to further discuss the issue–and to let the contract renew. Spradley is a lawyer.

“I’m not for or against the auto renewal part if we wanted to be more methodical,”  Commission Chair Eric Cooley said. “I know there are municipalities out there that don’t do auto renewals. They make that decision. They continue it. It’s just more of an  administrative step, so it could be something that we could talk about, as far as, like, should you take the auto renewal away and then make it a manual decision versus just having a discussion where, if the city manager is doing a good job, having an upcoming termination at the end of that contract period, it’s all just how you want to word it, really.”

The May 28 discussion will clarify the commission’s intention–and inevitably force its hand, as commissioners will signal where they stand on renewing or not renewing Martin’s contract. 

Martin began as city manager on July 29, 2023 for a base salary of $156,000, rising to $165,000 that October. Last November, he got a raise to $171,620. He just led the commission in a goal-setting session and is in the midst of budget preparations for the coming fiscal year, along with the hiring process for a new fire chief.