Greeneville City Manager Todd Smith has up to ten days to decide whether he will resign his position.
Tuesday afternoon before a packed board room at the GEA building, the City Council by a vote of 3-2 called for his resignation.
The vote followed a recommendation from Mayor Cal Doty announced last Friday that Smith be relieved of his duties.
Mayor Doty made a brief statement concerning his recommendation, followed a public comment period in which seven persons spoke.
SPEAKERS
Of those who addressed the City Council, three were employees of the Town of Greeneville voicing their support for Todd Smith, Media and Marketing specialist Christina Potts, Finance Director Lora Young and HR Director Patsy Fuller.
Two others spoke in favor of Smith, one against. One other citizen spoke but did not mention the resignation matter by name.
Following comments from the City Council members and Todd Smith himself, a motion by Matt Hensley with a second from Tim Ward resulted in a 2-2 vote after Ginny Kidwell and Tim Teague voted against the resignation. Mayor Doty then broke the tie with the deciding vote.
Town Attorney Ron Woods notified the board that Smith has ten days to announce whether he will indeed resign. If he does not resign within 10 days, the city council could choose to take further action on his termination during an open meeting at a later date.
TENSIONS HIGH
Tensions were noticeably high leading up to and during the meeting. One light moment happened several minutes before the meeting began. Mayor Doty had already entered the room and was doing his usual meet and greet with those already in attendance. After he returned to his seat, Todd Smith entered the room and took his seat along side the mayor as they spoke to each other as normal. But those who had arrived early quickly came somewhat to attention at that time. The mayor, noticing the church mouse like quietness, looked at the time on the wall and told the group , “folks it’s only eight minutes till, feel free to speak with each other”, which brought much needed and almost nervous laughter from the attendees.
SECURITY TIGHTER THAN NORMAL
In a typical City Council meeting , there is a police presence, but nothing to the level of Tuesday, when several officers either stood in or around the boardroom or outside the doors of the room.
There were no noticeable incidents other than a somewhat heated verbal exchange between council members Matt Hensley and Ginny Kidwell, when he scolder her for mentioning his place of work, MTAS, outside of his city council position. An MTAS consultant addressed the city council during a recent retreat on evaluating their city manager. Hensley says he a not a management consultant with MTAS and was upset with any speculation he was. This came as both sat on separate ends of the table. However, following a short break after the vote before the meeting resumed, the two were observed still involved in a more face to face and animated discussion no doubt about their differences of opinion.
WHERE’S TODD
When City Council reconvened to finish the items on the agenda, City Manager Todd Smith did not return. Following the vote against him, Smith told the board he expected to come to a decision soon on his future with the town moving forward.
OPENING COMMENTS FROM MAYOR DOTY
“When I ran for the mayor’s office in 2022, I ran on a simple idea, moving our community forward. That means improving relationships, breaking away from the mindset of “this is how we’ve always done it,” and looking for new innovative ways to make our town better. People responded to these ideas, or no concerns I heard most often was the need for a change in leadership at Town Hall.
Many voters asked me to take a serious look at our city manager’s office. In better than 40 years of business experience I believe I could help bring a new ideas and new ways of operating. In my first term I focused on learning, I spent time listening to our people, studying our practices, offering guidance where I could. We had some successes, but I continued to hear from both citizen and employees that a stronger direction was needed at the city manager level. One project that highlighted these concerns was the Depot Street project.
Over and over, I was asked, who’s in charge? After digging in I realized the answer was troubling, no one from the city with managing it. Instead the engineering company who designed the project was effectively running it. That lack of oversight caused real problems. For example, we had windows or lights that are down on Depot Street, and they’re taller than the 12 foot lights that we have around the rest of our town. When asked why there was no explanation, just that’s what they did. Two years after the grand opening of the project that is still unfinished, sidewalk concerns remain unresolved, and we have no designs or clear plan for the next steps.
Relationships are another area where we must do better. Our town cannot grow and then it’s isolation. We must work with the county and with the surrounding communities. In the past, we only went to county commission meetings where we wanted money, or funding. I started attending the meetings because we should be at the table all the time, building partnerships and all free to help, not just asking for help. These are just a few issues that I feel are holding us back. There are other activities the city council was asked to move forward on, but they remain unfinished. As Mayor and city council members, we are part time leaders, but our responsibilities are to provide direct and vision and accountability. What our community needs most is simple, ideas, best practices, innovation, and a commitment to doing things better. Expectations, accountability and transparency are not optional. They are the hallmarks of the strong, vibrant and healthy community.
That is the standard we must hold ourselves to, and the commitment I will continue to bring to you as your mayor.
This is why I’m asking, Mr. Smith to resign from his City Manager position.
TODD SMITH COMMENTS PRIOR TO THE VOTE
And over the last several weeks, I’ve got a lot of feedback from employees that concerns me. And that feedback is that the mayor is in departments, is talking to employees, is suggesting actions by employees, and even the times directing employees. And that concerns me. And if I could just read out of our charter, the city council in its members shall deal with the administrative services of the town only through the city manager, except for the purpose of inquiry. And neither the city council nor any member thereof shall give orders or instructions to any subordinates of the city manager. The city manager shall take instructions from the city council when they are sitting in a duly convened meeting of the city council. I should be judged by taking instruction from the city council when they are sitting in a duly convened meeting of the city council. That is how you judge the city manager. So I feel like there is a power play that’s going on in the town of Greenville, where the real issue is the city manager is being the city manager, or perhaps the mayor wants to be city manager as well, and that deeply, deeply concerns me. Now, let me talk about the real issue.
I’ve been told by the mayor and several employees and other people are being told that he doesn’t like me going out eat with a certain group a couple of times a month. I go out to eat for lunch every other week or so a couple times a month with the former mayor, WT Daniels. He told me he doesn’t like that, he’s told other employees he doesn’t like that. He’s been angry in telling me that. I think that’s the real reason we’re here, its personal. And we’re a growing community. We’re a community that’s seen unprecedented growth in our commercial side, on our residential side, and we’ve got challenges to keep up with services, infrastructure and schools. And it seems the big concern is who the city manager goes to lunch with every other week. And we’ve got bigger issues that this community deserves our focus on. So I don’t how this vote will go. This may be my last city council meeting. It’s been my greatest honor to serve the citizens here. When I get those phone calls from citizens and the a a problem, and that we can go take care of it, then they call back and say thank you. There’s no greater joy I get out of public service from doing that. And the opportunity to serve beside this great group of employees as public servants who come to work every day and their focus is on how do you make this community better? It’s been a high, high professional honor to serve the community. So I thank you, I appreciate it. And I leave, if I leave if it’s the will of city council with incredible memories. I feel like in the last 13 years this team has put transformative change in place in the town of Greeneville that we’ll see results for generations to come and it’s been a great honor to be part of that. Thank you.
