Bronson Town Councilman Berlon Weeks leaves a board meeting angered by what he called personal attacks by a fellow board member.
By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter
The resignation of Bronson Acting Clerk Melisa Thompson triggered angry outbursts between two council members Tuesday night and a promise by one to resign as the board argued about employee departures that threaten to disrupt city operations.
More importantly, with Thompson leaving on Sept. 29, just three months after Clerk Shirley Miller resigned on May 29, the council is faced with having no qualified administrators to run the town at the end of September and not much time to find a replacement for Thompson.
To make matters worse, the town’s utility clerk, Nikki Keller has been summoned to grand jury duty in Levy County and will be required to leave her post whenever the grand jury meets. As if that wasn’t enough, Public Works Director Curtis Stacy has no full-time employees at his disposal.
One of Stacy’s field maintenance men, Russell Mitchem was badly injured when he was rear-ended in a truck crash and hasn’t returned to duty, and the other maintenance man, Glen Smith, resigned citing the lack of a pay raise and the council’s disrespect for him as an employee.
Ironically the emergency meeting to figure out what to do about Thompson’s impending departure was called by Councilman Berlon Weeks who ended up walking out of the board meeting in anger complaining that he had been personally attacked by Councilman Aaron Edmondson and falsely accused of running off employees.
The council voted unanimously to contact the Florida League of Cities, if necessary temporary work agencies, to find a replacement clerk who has the skills to step into the administrative gap before Thompson leaves in two weeks and keep the town operating.
Council members also voted to give Stacy authority to hire a water and sewer utility employee to fill one of the two positions left open by Mitchem’s injury and Smith’s resignation.
No one was certain about how many employees have resigned in the past five years from the town’s staff, but it is known that former Clerk Kelli Brettel resigned in June of 2015, Clerk Pamela Whitehead resigned in May of 2018, Clerk Shirley Miller resigned in May of 2020 and Thompson, the deputy clerk who is serving in a dual role as acting clerk has resigned effective Sept. 29.
Former Public Works Director Erik Wise resigned about a year ago and Smith resigned a couple of months ago. Former Deputy Clerk Susie Robinson resigned not long after Miller came on board.
Considering the entire town staff consists of the clerk, deputy clerk, utility clerk, public works director, and two maintenance men, the town has sustained heavy employee losses since 2015.
Mayor Beatrice Roberts said the town is continuing to function.
“As far as businesswise, the office is running, we just can’t find employees,” she said.
Horrible Morale
Councilman Jason Hunt asked Thompson why she was leaving after allegations being hurled back and forth about Weeks having some role in all the employees’ resignations, an allegation he denied.
Thompson said she was leaving in part because it was difficult to have five bosses giving her different orders and she said the council also knew she was doing the job of clerk and deputy clerk for the past several months and ignored her comments at every council meeting to give her some help. She said there are also conflicts between the council and employees.
“I am leaving because since I’ve been here the last two years I have witnessed this bridge, this battle between the council and it is very difficult to have five different bosses telling you five different things,” she said. “I’m not saying everyone on the council – Mr. Aaron (Edmondson) is right, that he does not come in and tell me to do anything at all.”
Thompson said employees hear what is said by council members outside the council meetings, whether the council members realize it or not. She said employees actually hear what council members are saying about them. She said employees know there is animosity between council members and employees regardless of how hard they work or try to do their job. She said they can never appease all five council members.
“The morale is horrible. We do not have an HR (Human Resources) department. We don’t’ have anyone to protect employees for our rights when something goes wrong, whenever we have an issue,” she said. “I sat at this desk (at council meeting) and said I need help; I am only getting a 4 percent increase. Even when Shirley was here I said I am doing this, I am doing that, I’m doing way more than a deputy clerk does. I voiced my concern for two years and I’m sitting in the same place I was two years ago, and that is why I’m leaving. At some point, you realize that no matter how many times you bring it up, no matter how many times you voice your issue, if it doesn’t go along with whatever the grand scheme of things are at that given time, you’re irrelevant and you don’t matter, and that’s truly how I feel, that I don’t matter.”
Stacy voiced similar concerns. He is the surviving town employee from the past five years.
“Employees feel they can’t talk to council. They’re being attacked. They’re scared to say how they feel and that’s sad,” Stacy said. “When you have an employee who feels their job is going to be threatened if they don’t do certain things; I’ve dealt with some disheartening things since I’ve been here. It’s hard when you hear the person that’s over you, the supervisor of the office, tell you the first thing they want to do is get rid of you.”
Stacy said if an employee wants to talk to someone in town government about an issue, there’s no one that can help them deal with it, and he said, “…it’s an issue.” He said the work climate in town government never changes.
“I been here with Kelli (Brettel), I’ve been here with Pam (Whitehead), I been here with Shirley (Miller); I been here with all the clerks that have been here and the way things have been done, you just can’t do things that way and expect good things to come of it,” Stacy said.
Stacy got into a confrontation with Weeks at one point in the meeting. Stacy said if the town has a city manager and the problems aren’t fixed, who will tell the city manager what to do.
Weeks, who lobbied to hire a city manager, responded that the “city manager will tell the city manager what to do.”
Stacy gave a warning to Weeks to stay clear of him if he hasn’t done anything wrong
“I’m going to say this; do not come at me again, if I haven’t done anything,” Stacy said before walking to his seat.
Spotlight Founder Linda Cooper warned the council that future employees may be wary of going to work for Bronson if the town’s work climate isn’t fixed.
“If you don’t get this mess cleaned up nobody’s going to come to work for you; nobody’s going to give up their job to come work with you guys if you don’t get it fixed,” Cooper said. “Whether it’s a manager or whatever, the word is out. I’ve been watching this since Kelli (Brettel) was here. I would never work for any of you at all and I can do some of this, but I would never come here to work because I know what’s here. You think everybody out there doesn’t know about this, you’re in for a long haul and you need to get it cleaned up or you’re in a lot of trouble.”
Bad Work Atmosphere
Edmondson told the council that the work climate in town hall has to change to protect employees from cursing and being talked about badly.
“Every time you’re on the council, we had this problem,” Edmondson added, looking at Weeks.
“The way we talk to people, the way we treat people, we treat them like they are nobody. We talk to them any kind of way, cuss at them, do all kinds of stuff to employees,” Edmondson said. “We demand respect but then we don’t give respect. I don’t care who it is, you can have the lowest job there is, but still, it’s a job. We got to respect what they do in their jobs. I don’t want to point fingers at nobody but if the shoe fits, wear it. We treat people all kinds of ways, we talk to them all kinds of ways; we get mad; we get upset. That’s why we can’t keep nobody. We need to treat people like they’re somebody, like they’re human beings.”
Weeks said he was tired of being the whipping post for all types of allegations.
Edmondson said he would not repeat what a former clerk told him about Weeks.
Doing Nothing, Hiring Anybody
Weeks said has tried to do what is right for the town when the remainder of the council wasn’t interested in doing anything.
“I’ve tried to listen. I’ve tried to help the town and two months ago we got problems with the building department because the land development department regulations weren’t fixed the last time. We got a comprehensive plan that was started and we got rid of the clerk and never finished it. It’s snowballing to the point where we are now; policies don’t get followed, nothing gets done correctly,” Weeks said. “We keep replacing our clerks. This lady (Melisa Thompson) should have been given a raise, but I’m one council member; there are four of you. You can do it at any time. You could have paved Pine Lane Terrace at any time over the last seven years but I had to be called every racist name that could possibly come up so that I would make the motion to pave the street with asphalt millage.”
Weeks added: Let me tell you I have donated myself and my time and numerous hours of effort to help this town to where it wants to be, but you don’t want it to be. You want to stay right here. You want to keep hiring everybody and their mother to do the job when we could hire good people to begin with. If we had just gave Kelli Brettel $5 an hour (more) we’d be in good shape right now but we never gave nobody a raise; now we’re giving everybody a raise. It’s disgusting. You’ll have my resignation.”
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Emergency Meeting Town of Bronson September 15, 2020; Posted September 15, 2020
