Everglades City mayor quits amid water woes

Sammy Hamilton, the boisterous mayor of Everglades City for more than two decades, has resigned.

Hamilton, was facing mounting pressure from the City Council to leave, caused in part by ongoing maintenance problems at the city’s water and wastewater treatment plants that could lead to crippling fines for the small city on the cusp of Everglades National Park.

In a five-page resignation letter that airs the mayor’s grievances against some city employees, council members and attorneys, Hamilton said he believed he had to either step down or see the city dissolve and be run by Collier County.

“I feel as though I am betraying the people I care about but my heart cannot watch this so I am stepping down,” he wrote.

Hamilton wrote that he was particularly upset that the City Council hired lawyer J. Christopher Lombardo and his firm to represent the city in its ongoing legal troubles at its sewage plant. The council hired the firm in a meeting it did not tell the mayor about, Hamilton claimed.

“The City Council is spending money like they won the lottery,” he wrote. “The City does not have the money they are spending. The ship is sinking and I cannot do anything to stop it.”

The city hired Lombardo after it was given 30 days to find new lawyers. The two representing the city in a case brought by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection had quit.

The department sued in 2015 after inspectors caught the wastewater treatment plant pumping sewage into nearby mangroves. The city had failed to complete court-ordered plant repairs.