By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
Part 1
Williston City Hall is nearly always a quiet place. You could probably hear a pin drop most of the time.
All that serenity changed quickly on July 20 when a room full of senior staff members witnessed the second most powerful city administrator charge across a room at the city fire chief and face him nose to nose.
Deputy City Manager and Human Resource Director Deanna Nelson’s final day with the city is Sept. 12, but her legacy is etched in a scorching 4 ¼ page letter of resignation laced with allegations about how the city was mismanaged and how she got pushback whenever she tried to make changes.
The letter makes no direct mention of her aggressive behavior toward Fire Chief Lamar Stegall on July 20 nor does it apologize for the way she conducted herself as the second in command at City Hall.
Instead, she makes the claim that a hostile and retaliatory atmosphere existed in City Hall that forced her to resign. She says in her letter she was warned in advance by two city officials that she and City Manager Jackie Gorman were being set up to become angry and do something wrong.
One of those officials she quotes as warning she was going to be set up, Utilities Director Donald Barber, said he was trying to give her friendly advice that she should modify her behavior or she could get in trouble. He said he didn’t suggest she was being set up.
Gorman has resigned effective Sept. 16. Both Gorman and Nelson are working from home. Nelson alleged she was afraid to come back to work. City officials said it was her choice to work from home. She was given a laptop to perform her duties. The duties that couldn’t be done from home were assigned to other staff. They say her letter of resignation is full of inaccuracies and misstatements that distort the truth.
“This is exaggeration and half-truths,” said Council President Debra Jones.
Jones, Mayor Charles Goodman, City Police Chief Mike Rolls, Stegall, Public Works Director Jonathen Bishop, Utilities Director Donald Barber, and Deputy Police Chief Terry Bovaird granted a group interview to Spotlight to refute allegations in the letter of resignation. The actual incident where Nelson charged at Stegall and confronted him nose to nose was also discussed.
“Are You Talking to Me?”
The July 20th incident took place at a staff budget meeting attended by Gorman and Nelson and the city’s department heads. Stegall said there was a robust discussion between some of the other department heads and Gorman before the incident happened. As the conversation progressed, he said, it was becoming more heated. He said that was his impression.
“Ms. Nelson decided to explain to all of us how budgets work. She said you take a budget, it’s like a bucket – if you’ve got $10 in that bucket you can’t take $30 out. That’s what she said to everyone in the room,” Stegall said.
Jones, who wasn’t present but was given a detailed account of what happened by someone who witnessed the incident, said Nelson made the statement about the bucket, “loud and aggressively.”
“In a very condescending tone,” Stegall added.
“She was standing and everyone else was sitting,” Jones said.
“I can’t speak for the others career-wise, but I’ve been doing budgets for 25 years at the fire department and I don’t take kindly to being talked down to by anybody. I work with some great people in this city and will continue to do so, but at that point, I asked a question, and it was a simple question and my question was, have you ever done a budget before, and that’s when it started,” Stegall said.
“She grabbed her stuff and walked towards that door mumbling,” said
Rolls, who witnessed the incident.
“I said are you talking to me,” Stegall said. “She turned around, and charged across the room yelling, if you have something to say to me you say it. She threw her stuff down on the table and walked around.”
“You Come See Me
“All of the stuff went flying toward Latricia,” Jones said, referring to City Clerk Latricia Wright.
“She walked around an employee, got in my face, and said, “If you got something to say to me, you come see me,” Stegall said.
“At this time, Latricia covered her head,” Jones said
Rolls stood to intervene.
“I thought she was going to hit him, so I stood up. When she came around, I said, “That’s enough, that’s enough. By then she was in his face,” Rolls said.
Jones said the person who described what happened said Nelson was nose to nose with Stegall when she confronted him.
Stegall didn’t flinch or react to the aggression, according to Jones.
After the incident, Stegall left to report to the mayor, the elected official that oversees city police and fire departments. Mayor Charles Goodman advised that since Gorman was present to witness the incident, he wanted to give her 24 hours before doing anything. Gorman told department heads who witnessed the incident that she would handle it, Stegall said.
After meeting with Goodman, Stegall, and the mayor attended a budget meeting where Gorman and Nelson were present.
“When we were in that budget meeting, I let them know that I was recording that meeting because one of my chiefs had been verbally assaulted,” Goodman said. “I needed to know there was evidence if it occurred again. Ms. Nelson said, I do not give you consent to record this and I said, I said, you can leave. I’m recording this meeting. You don’t have to be recorded, but I’m recording this meeting for protection. She said nothing through the whole meeting,”
Stegall filed a complaint alleging a hostile work atmosphere. The city manager contacted a family law attorney from Ocala to mediate a solution, but the attorney never agreed to a date. Four or five weeks went by with no response, so the city set a date for the mediation session. The contract that the mediator produced said he would charge $2,000 regardless of whether the mediation session lasted 20 minutes or five hours. Jones felt the fee was a steep price.
From a legal standpoint, Gorman had the power as city manager to discipline or fire Nelson under her authority as manager, depending on how she viewed what happened. She witnessed the incident. She preferred to hire a mediator instead.
Warning Misinterpreted
As for Nelson’s claim that Utilities Director Donald Barber and Public Works Director Jonathen Bishop warned Nelson in advance that she and Gorman were being set up to do something that would result in a claim being filed against them, Barber clarified what he really told Nelson in their conversation.
“I would clarify that I did in fact warn her that her behavior was going to lead her to get in some trouble if she didn’t alter it,” Barber said. “How she interpreted that I don’t necessarily agree with. I was trying to give friendly advice,” Barber said.
He added that three weeks before the group interview with Spotlight, Nelson called him on the city’s in-house phone system. She asked if the call was on Ring, the software that records incoming calls at City Hall. Barber said he told her the call was on Ring. She told him she would rather not be recorded. She asked for his personal cell phone number. He gave it to her.
“Her question was should I be afraid, and I started laughing,” Barber said. “I said about what? She said, well, am I in any danger? I said no. She said, well, do you think they will try to do something? And I said who are they, and she said people across the street. I said absolutely not and I said besides that, if anyone across the street or anyone at City Hall heard a threat, we would call law enforcement and I said it’s a preposterous thing. She has been weeks trying to create a narrative,” Barber said.
Jones said she believes Nelson’s letter of resignation Nelson was laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against the city, but she said the city officials who participated in the group interview can refute anything she says.
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Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt September 1, 2022; Posted September 11, 2022
