Despite the recent resignation of Mayor Carla Filkins, there were more calls for the city manager, Marcus Peccia to resign.
People are speaking out about the city’s handling of recent issues, including the city manager’s performance, short term rentals and the recent PFAS contamination in the industrial park area.
“Mayor Filkins submitted her letter of resignation. it’s important that the city council act on that by accepting the resignation,” said City Attorney, Michael Homier.
Council member Stephen King was chosen as acting mayor, filling in for the mayor pro tem Tiya Schippers who could not be at the first meeting Schippers out of state recovering from an accident.
Their first order of business, voting to accept Mayor Carla Filkins’ resignation. The council also discussed appointing a new mayor in 30 days.
“That person appointed as mayor will serve the remainder of that term until the next general city election, which is in November of 2025. And so that person appointed could be a member of council,” said Homier.
If that happened a new person would have to be appointed to the council. People interested in the role need to apply before Thursday February 27th at 5 pm.
Then it was time for public comment, members in the crowd spilling outside of the chamber doors, there were so many some had to stand.
“The community’s upset. It resulted in the mayor resigning. If that’s not a crisis, I’m not sure what is,” said one resident.
“Though Carla was attacked both internally and in a wildfire of social media posts, she always soldiered on with dignity and grace until she couldn’t. From my observations, Carla was a model of selfless public service. Thank you, Carla,” said another resident.
Some came out in support of Filkins asking for the hateful rhetoric online to stop, while others felt that Filkins’ resignation was a good start to meaningful change.
“The current city manager has failed to protect the health, safety and well-being of the residents by failing to warn, failing to inform and failing to act on the fast contamination issue. As you may be well aware, prior to Mayor Filkins’ resignation. There was, documents being prepared to remove her from being the mayor as well. This is no different,” said a resident.
A recently formed Citizens Advisory Committee presented a report on a recent survey regarding the handling of pfas in the city.
“Question number four: Do you believe the city manager is addressing this issue appropriately? 88% of the respondents said no. Question number five: Would you like to see the city actively involved in testing for us? 92% said yes,” reported the citizens advisory member.
The city council also approved a public hearing to rezone ‘Orange Cadillac’, the Airbnb that was sued for operating illegally. Some spoke against the rezoning request while others supported it.
Peccia also gave an update on the PFAS situation and spoke about taking bids to build a water main for Marathon Drive.