City Manager Julio Avael can't have it both ways.
He now wants us to believe that it's okay for one of his employees to confront a City Commissioner, threaten him with political ruin and ridicule him in the press. But when one of former Police Chief Ray Peterson's lieutenants wrote a controversial letter to the editor back in 1997, and then— as a "private citizen"— challenged Avael's claim that he had received dozens of complaints about that letter, Avael said this "proved" that Peterson couldn't control his troops and that he should be fired.
This concept of the boss being responsible for the actions of a "rogue" employee was, apparently, so important to Avael that he actually reprimanded Peterson for "allowing" the police lieutenant to write the letter. This concept was, apparently, so important to Avael that he made it Charge No. 1 in his "Blue Book" of charges against Chief Peterson.
Subsequently the police lieutenant was fired and Peterson was forced to retire.
Last week, City Commissioner Tom Oosterhoudt reported that Paul Clayton, a City contract employee who handles special projects for Avael, had called on him and accused him of not being a "team player." Reportedly, the meeting turned into a shouting match. Imagine that scene. A minor-level City employee going to the home of a City Commissioner and yelling at him!
"He seemed to be there representing Avael," Oosterhoudt said. "In fact, he spent much of the meeting defending the City Manager concerning the firing of Chief Peterson and charges that he may be building another Blue Book, this time against Police Chief Buz Dillon.
Then, last Friday, Clayton wrote a column in Celebrate, a local gay-oriented newspaper, criticizing Oosterhoudt. In that column, Clayton accused Oosterhoudt of not "getting his facts right" in a column the Commissioner regularly writes for Celebrate. Clayton also said that Oosterhoudt has demonstrated a "lack of understanding about how any government works."
Pretty strong criticism of a sitting Commissioner by a City employee, don't you think?
But Clayton now says he called on Oosterhoudt as a "private citizen." Of course, that's what Police Lieutenant Tom Chapp argued back in 1997. But that didn't wash with Avael. He held Peterson responsible for Chapp's actions.
Now, recall that Oosterhoudt was the leader of the movement to save Peterson's job back in 1997. And some say that this link to Peterson, one of the most popular police chiefs in the city's history, was one reason he was elected to the Commission last November.
And his election could have seemed "dangerous" to Avael. After all, Avael had lost his job as Lee County Administrator back in 1993 after getting sideways with too many County Commissioners.
So, based on Avael's past performance, it is not unreasonable to assume that he was not only "in" on Clayton's actions, but that he may have actually assigned Clayton to "monitor" Oosterhoudt and come up with ways to discredit him— to try to ensure that he will be a one-term Commissioner.
Clayton likes to talk about how much he knows about "how government works." If he's that knowledgeable, then he knows that there's a chain of command in government. That's why we don't think he did what he did on his own. We think he went to see Oosterhoudt as Avael's boy.
But even if Avael claims total ignorance of Clayton's actions, he is, by his own rules— the rules he applied to Chapp and Peterson— responsible. The "Clayton Incident" isn't about Clayton. It's about Avael's ability to manage his employees. Just as the "Chapp Case" wasn't about Chapp. It was, Avael said, about Peterson's ability to manage his employees.
Today, we become the second newspaper in town to call for the resignation— or the firing— of City Manager Julio Avael. Solares Hill, the Key West Citizen's alternative newspaper, called for that action last month. Solares Hill called Avael "the lead paranoid."
Now we'd like to see the City Commission take a vote— just to see how many more Commissioners Avael has to piss off before he's outta here. The "Clayton Incident" can be Charge No. 1 in the Blue Book of charges against him.