By Skip Foster, Red Tape Florida
Two years ago, when Tallahassee wanted to make its Inspector General harder to fire, City officials said the requirement for a supermajority had to be placed in the City Charter and “could not be done in ordinance.”
So, it went in the Charter amendment.
And Tallahassee voters approved it.
Now City Hall wants to require the same four votes to remove recently hired City Manager Karen Jumonville — not through a Charter amendment, and not even through an ordinance.
Apparently, an employment contract will do. And it’s happening today, Sept. 8, with about 24 hours’ notice for the public.
There’s an old legal maxim that seems particularly appropriate here: Expressio unius est exclusio alterius.
For those of us who skipped Latin, it roughly means: The expression of one thing implies the exclusion of another.
It’s a principle that essentially says: If a governing document specifically imposes a requirement in one place but leaves it out somewhere else, there’s a pretty good reason to wonder whether the difference was intentional.
And Tallahassee has given us an unusually convenient case study.
At the April 24, 2024, City Commission meeting, Inspector General Dennis Sutton explained that a proposed Charter amendment would replace the IG’s status of “serving at the will of the commission” with specific protections governing his removal.
Then Sutton explained where the most significant protection had to reside:
“The most significant would have to be in charter and could not be done in ordinance.”
Got that?
An ordinance wasn’t enough.
So, the City went to the trouble of changing its Charter and asking Tallahassee voters to approve it. They did and it now resides in Section 32 of the Charter: “The inspector general may only be removed upon the affirmative vote of a two-thirds majority of the city commission.”
Now let’s check what those same governing documents say about the city manager.
Section 24 of the Charter says the city manager “shall hold office at the pleasure of the city commission.”
City Code §2-61, which is literally titled “Removal and suspension of city manager,” says:
“The city manager shall be removable by the city commission.”
That’s it.
No two-thirds requirement. No supermajority. No four votes.
But Jumonville’s proposed employment contract says she “may only be removed upon the affirmative vote of a two-thirds majority of the City Commission.”
And here’s where City Hall really steps on the rake.
The City’s own agenda item invokes the Inspector General as precedent, describing Jumonville’s proposed provision as “the same as the City’s Inspector General’s employment terms.”
Well, not quite.
The Inspector General’s four-vote protection isn’t simply an “employment term.” It’s in the City Charter. Tallahassee voters put it there.
Which leaves City Hall with a question that shouldn’t require much Latin:
If an ordinance wasn’t enough to create four-vote protection for the Inspector General, how is an employment contract enough to create it for the city manager?
And then, of course, there’s the politics.
Despite multiple political operatives telling Red Tape Florida that Mayor John Dailey’s favorability ratings have cratered, the mayor and the current commission majority are racing to beat the calendar before an election that could change the balance of power at City Hall.
We’ve seen this movie a few times lately: the attempted Phipps annexation, the bungled TMH-FSU deal and the decision to hire a permanent city manager rather than leave that decision to the commission that will govern after the election.
Some of those efforts didn’t make it across the finish line. The city manager hire did.
Jumonville was selected 3-2. Now those same three commissioners can approve a contract ensuring that a future three-commissioner majority can’t undo their choice.
That’s quite a trick.
None of this, standing alone, proves the contract provision is illegal. But the legal question and the political question have landed in pretty much the same place.
Two years ago, Tallahassee wanted to make an appointed official harder to fire. City Hall said the protection had to go in the Charter. The voters got a say.
This time, the voters get no say at all.
Oh, and one more thing.
When the City Commission voted in April 2024 to move forward with the Charter amendment giving the Inspector General supermajority protection, the vote was 4-1.
The lone “no” vote?
Mayor John Dailey.