PALATKA, Fla. — The Palatka city manager was once again the topic of a city commission meeting Monday. The Palatka mayor and city commissioners called a special commission meeting Monday morning to discuss City Manager Troy Bell's employment and the amount of time he takes off.
Some of the commissioners and the mayor were concerned about who was approving his time off. According to Bell's contract, he gets 20 days of vacation time a year. He has taken 15 of those days since he was hired in February 2024. The city's human resources manager has been approving his requests.
The city commission was split on this issue. Commissioner Rufus Borom said he did not think this was a big deal and the commission should just follow protocol.
"How does a subordinate get to tell their superior that they can take time off or not?" Borom asked during the meeting.
The word 'absenteeism' was used during the meeting. Bell took offense to the word and said a false narrative was created about how he was taking time off.
"I think the more important question is, were we following the protocol that has been used for all previous city managers? And in fact, we were. That came out in this meeting," Bell said.
Bell said this issue has been blown out of proportion. He said he tried to be open with commissioners when he was hired about the fact that his family is still living up north and he wanted to visit them as much as he could. He added they will be moving down to Florida soon.
"I think that I'm being asked to give explanations about personal aspects of my life because of the assumption by some is that there must be something illicit that I'm doing. And that's just not the fact, that's not the case," Bell explained.
Commissioners ultimately decided they will be the ones to approve his time off since protocol states a supervisor should approve time off requests. Mayor Robbi Correa said she just want to make sure protocols were in place and they were being followed.
Commissioners also called the meeting to discuss Bell's employment. His probationary period ends on Aug. 7, 2024. Commissioner Justin Campbell wanted to discuss Bell's strategic goals for the city. Commissioners decided to discuss this later in July.
Commissioner Tommie McCaskill brought up concerns from some city employees about the work environment under Bell. She would not go into detail about those claims, but the commission passed an emergency motion to open an independent investigation. Bell said there were questions about his management.
"All staff should feel valued, all staff should feel important. But realize in order for us to achieve better than we have before, there's going to be change and any times there's change, there's resistance to that change," Bell said.
Commissioners plan to discuss the investigation with their outside counsel to determine the best way to move forward.