On the eve of “Toy Story”’s 30th anniversary, Flagler Beach City Manager Dale Martin should not expect City Commissioner John Cunningham to break out the chummy Randy Newman song for his evaluation. Martin does not have a friend in Cunningham, the rookie commissioner who slapped Martin with the lowest annual evaluation score any manager has received in recent memory, including the short-tenured William Whitson.
Martin got a 1.32 out of 5 from Cunningham–who was elected last March–rating him “unsatisfactory,” itself an understatement compared to the bold-type phrases Cunningham used to summarize Martin’s performance: “poor management practices, lack of transparency, and limited accountability,” “ineffective oversight of city operations,” “inconsistent and questionable hiring and firing practices,” “limited understanding of how the city is perceived externally,” and “lack of leadership, accountability, and strategic oversight.”
“Without significant corrective action and stronger leadership presence,” Cunningham warns, ” continued performance at this level poses a risk to the city’s reputation, effectiveness, and long-term stability.”
Cunningham is seeing something his five colleagues do not. His comments find little to no echoes in any of the other evaluations, making the evaluation a particular outlier.
Compare it, for example, to Commissioner Eric Cooley’s sum-up. Cooley is the bluntest of the commissioners, and without his counterweight there anymore–Jane Mealy–he’s gotten more blunt. He summarized Martin’s year as one of “continued improvement,” with progress in “some areas.” His applause directly contradicts Cunningham’s boos: “Very impressed with the continued communication strengths. [Let’s] put them to work with county and multi-municipality interactions to get improvement there. I appreciate your focus keeping all of us elected on track throughout the year. I also appreciate your always timely responses to needs I might have. You are very engaged and it shows. [Let’s] leverage that and get you out of the office more with both the staff and the public. Thank you for your last year of service.”
Cooley rated him 3.75, up from 3.51.
Overall though Martin lost ground compared to last year’s evaluation, going from an average of 3.65 to 3.17, and leaving him barely meeting job expectations. If Cunningham’s evaluation is excluded, his average rises to 3.53, still a decline from last year. He is now meeting job standards (or better) for a bare majority of three of the five commissioners–not a secure position for a manager.
He gained ground with two commissioners, lost ground with two, three if Cunningham’s score is compared to Mealy’s last year (she’d given Martin a healthy 3.8), and stayed even with one (Mayor Patti King, who managed to repeat her 3.37 score down to fractions). Chances are he is not about to get the kind of 10 percent raise the Bunnell City Commission shamelessly awarded its manager, Alvin Jackson, last month.
Martin’s best score was a 4.04 out of 5, from Commissioner Scott Spradley, down from last year’s 4.45, but still in the “exceeds job standards” category, if barely. Spradley, now in his third year on the commission, contrasts sharply with Cunningham when he finds that “Dale brings a lot to the table with initiative skills and what I see as fair and capable management,” or that his “communication skills with other governmental units is excellent.” Spradley is more critical, as commissioners were last year, too, regarding Martin’s interactions with residents–or lack thereof.
Martin can be short or non-responsive and isn’t at ease either backslapping or shooting the breeze, preferring the grindstone instead. More responsiveness, Spradley suggests, “will pay great dividends to his professional status,” though from Commission Chair James Sherman’s vantage point, Martin has been doing just that in the past year while keeping the broader community informed with his Friday Notes, which are published online. (Martin has always been accessible to FlaglerLive, and his staff, the city clerk and her deputy especially, are almost immediately responsive to records requests.)
Sherman would rather not be asked about the manager’s effectiveness in leading his staff: “In the future, we may need to consider removing this from the City Manager’s performance evaluation,” Sherman writes. “As elected officials we are not to involve ourselves in the day-to-day operations of the city, which makes it hard to rate the city manager. I haven’t seen anything to sway my rating one way or the other.” Elected officials are barred from being involved in day-to-day management, or in interfering with the manager’s work with his staff.
Until last spring Martin’s toughest critic was Commissioner Rick Belhumeur, who’s in his ninth year on the commission. For Belhumeur, Martin barely met job standards last year, with a 3.19 rating. Not this year. Belhumeur rates him a 2.9: Improvement needed. His written comments had not been completed by the time the evaluations were included in the published agenda at the city’s website. He said he was completing those this evening.
Notably, Belhumeur’s lowest scores for Martin were in the very area Sherman said commissioners should not be addressing–internal management.
The mayor finds the manager “fair in all decisions and is always able to explain or defend his decisions with facts and appropriate details.”
Last year Martin summed up his evaluation as “tough love.” This year’s love is tougher. A self-evaluation from the manager may yet become part of the record before commissioners discuss the evaluations at Thursday evening’s meeting–a meeting leaden with weighty agenda items, including the annexation of Veranda Bay/Summertown, the sale of the city’s golf course, and the approval of a construction contract with the builder of the city’s wastewater plant, a $46.3 million bill.
The meeting will also consider merit pay increases for staffers, whose raises range between 2 and 5 percent, depending on their evaluations.
The detailed evaluations are below.
Are you kidding me says
What a joke. There’s no way Cunningham wrote that review. Have you ever listened to him, he can barely form a sentence. Not sure who wrote it, I’d guess either AI or his spouse.
Bo Peep says
Who didn’t know that?
Dusty says
John Cunningham is the only one that has has earned my vote.
JimboXYZ says
The last guy they crapped on in Flagler Beach dealt with Storm damage & Bidenomics of inflation. Martin, he inherited the news that the Pier was going to be closed & rebuilt. Somehow Margaritaville was built in that chaos. As it stands Margaritaville jnew they were opening as the pier was being closed, demolished & rebuilt. Margaritaville is the lead for atracting tourism dollars in that sense.
Does it help any that Marineland filed for bankruptcy ? Then bought recently, but that doesn’t cure the fact that the 2 biggest attractions for Flagler Beach & Flagler county are inoperational due to storms or simply lack of tourism for visitors ? And now they’re being sued by the St Augustine catfish that was arrested in front of the Funky Pelican.
Just a reminder Martin comes from Nassau County, Fernandina Beach. They have a smaller port there, they have Amelia Island, they have RYAM (a large saw mill), Rayonier HQ & Smurfit-West Rock (a large packaging plant) there that has a plant on the Island/Peninsula. Yulee is a little bigger than Bunnell. Not making excuses for the Martin, but Flagler Beach vs Fernandina Beach, 2 different animals for being the city manager of either. Nassau county thrives off Jacksonville commuters for a closer proximity. Every one of those employers is far more successful than Marineland & whatever Flagler County has that is remotely close enough to Flagler Beach. That’s not to belittle Flagler County or any individual city that is local. There just really isn’t much on A1A from Matanzas to Volusia County line for a comparison. Not only does Martin face that, the last City Manager faces that. There’s turning something around & then there’s having very little to get off the ground & build up into a thriving beach town.
Throw in the fact Boston Whaler is leaving by next summer and that’s another 300 paychecks that won’t be crossing the bridge into Flagler Beach to spend money on the weekends or whatever the holiday is that month ?
Donny Moisao says
I hope my brother Bryan Moisao gets his facilities director job back! ! After being hired and receiving high score on his evaluation after a few months was illegitimately let go because he was bringing things to light after trying to talk with the city manager about issues found with a certain department that was handed over to my brother to oversee on top of what he was originally hired for as a Facilities Director. After approaching the city manager with issues my brother had found. The city manager told my brother to sweep what he had found under the rug and to let it go. Knowing the issues found were crucial to the city my brother Bryan Moisao went to HR who told him to create a report of his findings. Once he did those reports and transferred over to HR they were pulled by the city manager. Once my brother knew this had happened he escalated as a whistleblower to notify commissioners. This then triggered the city manager without being present to fire my brother on his evaluation day which he received a high score for his work. All who know my brother know that he takes his job with responsibility and seriousness. Furthermore, all other city officials were telling my brother that they were happy with how much he was tackling in the city’s benefit as the new Facilities Director. I hope someone will do what’s right by my brother, Bryan Moisao. I ask that all Flagler Beach residents pay attention to this story and let your city officials know you also want what’s best for the City of Flagler Beach and to hire my brother back.
Thank you Flagler Live for reporting this story and hope you will continue to follow up on this story.
Kp says
Martin has to go. Employees won’t speak out of fear. He will not allow the citizens to meet with him,and has his own agenda to turn out beautiful city into Fernandina.
Various grants have not been applied for due to him.
Managing staff is very important and he rules with indifference and very condescending.
Wake up !!!!
Skibum says
Hmmm, this makes me wonder how the Flagler Beach police chief rated Sgt. Yelvington in his job review???
The brainiac Sgt. Yelvington, a seasoned Flagler Beach PD supervisor who’s job responsibilities include making sure subordinate police officers use good judgement, make good arrests and proper decisions, himself proved incapable of meeting that minimum standard when he made an unconstitutional arrest of a person who was merely exercising his constitutional rights on the sidewalk in front of the Pelican restaurant.
Apparently Yelvington is so highly regarded in good ‘ole Flagler Beach that he didn’t lose his sergeant stripes over his illegal arrest, so he is left to continue giving subordinate officers the wisdom of his “supervision and guidance”.
I, for one, would just love to see his lates evaluation to see all of the wonderful praise he must be getting, seen through rose colored lenses… LOL.
Le C says
Are they stating that he was a privileged D. E. I. hire?
Savannah Moisao says
Glad some eyes are being opened finally against Dale Martin. He’s a poor excuse for Flagler Beach’s City Manager and needs to go. My husband, Bryan Moisao, worked under him as Facilities/Engineering Director and received high evaluation scores for work he’d done in his first (almost) 6 months for Flagler Beach, getting jobs tackled that weren’t being completed prior. He’s a very hardworking, determined man, and the community and several Commissioners saw it and acknowledged it too. Dale however found “fault” in my husband going above and beyond, even when he noticed HR issues and the City Manager ignored, Bryan Moisao addressed his concern with those above him because he cares about Flagler Beach Community and raised awareness in the attempt to gain Commissioners attention. What did the City Manager, Dale Martin then do? He had other personnel , when he took personal vacation nonetheless, tell Bryan he was being “let go”and no longer needed. Right with his final evaluation of high scores, 96% mind you, just a few days shy of his 6 month completion of probation period as Facilities Director. My husband, Bryan has been present & speaking up at commission meetings to raise awareness to everyone also, about Dale Martin’s tatics and I only hope and pray more eyes are opened to see the truth and maybe get my husband, Bryan Moisao his job back. It’s incredible how abused the City Manager has taken his title. Flagler Beach needs to do better