Keystone Vice Mayor Wants City Manager Ousted
The Council Has A History Of Tumultuous Dealings With City Employees
Charlie Van Zant became the city manager of Keystone Heights in January 2024. He inherited an organization devastated by petty arguments and mismanagement from the city council, especially former Mayor Karen Lake.
On Tuesday, May 6th, the Keystone Heights City Council continued its long-standing tradition of taking an oddly aggressive posture toward its own City Manager. During a discussion about adding new positions to the city staff to run the city and provide assistance to residents, Vice Mayor Christine Thompson made a motion to terminate Van Zant’s employment.
The motion was met by confusion from the other council members. Thompson’s initial explanation didn’t offer any clarification, as she stated that Van Zant should be fired with cause because he didn’t return a request for a meeting about the city’s budget.
Council member Tony Brown seconded Thompson’s motion “for discussion only” and was the only other council member to express any concerns about Van Zant. The issue, it appears, surrounds Van Zant's plans to create new jobs within the city.
Van Zant believes new positions are needed to ensure the level of service to the town’s residents meets the standards set by the council. Keystone Heights currently has a reserve fund that could fund the government for three years. Van Zant wants to dip into those funds to get the people in place he believes are needed to run the city.
In lieu of permanent positions, Van Zant has hired temporary workers to fill the void while he works on long-term solutions with the council. Thompson and Brown expressed concerns about how these temporary positions were advertised and filled, intimating but not outright accusing Van Zant of not following proper processes. Brown also expressed concern over what the temporary employees were being paid, as he didn’t believe a clerk “working the front desk” warranted more than $15 per hour.
Ultimately, the motion to remove Van Zant failed by a 4-1 margin, and the discussion about new jobs was tabled until the June council meeting. Van Zant stated he would continue to work with the council to ensure they were comfortable with his plans.
Later in the meeting, Vice Mayor Thompson was called out by a speaker from the Keystone Heights Heritage Commission. The speaker took the Vice Mayor to task for allegations she previously made about Commission members’ treatment of city employees.
The next Keystone Heights City Council meeting is scheduled for June 3rd at 6pm.
From an outside lookin' in with no dog in the hunt.................. seems a well "different" way to run a city- to vest the power in one person to create and staff brand new positions. It would seem to me it would be better for the manager to recommend the creation of new positions but require regular council vote to actually create them.