Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Parkland to consider firing city manager
The Parkland city manager, who has clashed with commissioners over development, could lose his job this week.
At the request of the mayor, the city commission will discuss today whether to fire City Manager Bob Payton.
“I have not been successful in getting all five commissioners to agree on major issues," acknowledged City Manager Bob Payton, who has been Parkland’s manager since June 2017. He earns $184,824.
Among the sources of con-
tention: whether the city should create a plan for 800 acres that could be annexed into the city and whether the city ought to pursue a “Mizner-like” environment to bring in office space and retail to create a “more diversified tax base.”
It wasn’t the first time there’s been talk about Payton’s departure.
Last year, after a commissioner, in support of Payton, said he needed a better vision for the city’s future development and more workshops, and the mayor shot the request down, Payton suggested he should resign.
“Can we have a conversation on replacing me?” Payton asked city commissioners in January 2018, weeks before the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the city. “Because I would like to not be here.”
His request did not make traction, but now it’s the mayor who has put the item on an agenda for discussion.
Mayor Christine Hunschofsky could not be reached for comment Monday.
Payton said he is still showing up “enthusiastically” for work and spent Monday pursuing his idea to buy a water plant so the city didn’t have to contract for water from Coconut Creek.
“There is no animosity, nothing but gratitude,” he said.
Prior to Parkland, Payton was the city manager in Miramar from 2001 to 2013.