Lake Park Town Manager Maria Davis resigns, avoids termination

LAKE PARK, Fla. - Town leaders held an emergency meeting in Lake Park Monday evening -- not to determine if Town Manger Maria Davis should be let go -- but how she would be terminated, and how much money she should be paid as she headed out the door.

“It has become obvious to me that Maria Davis must go,” said Vice Mayor Kendall Rumsey.

There were tense and awkward moments during the meeting as commissioners debated whether they should fire Davis or let her voluntarily resign -- all while Davis listened in and her attorney stood by in a packed room full of local residents.

At least one commissioner had been pushing for the town manager’s resignation for weeks now.

Back in June, the Contact 5 Investigators broke news the town paid $2.4 million under Davis’s leadership to buy less than an acre of property off Federal Highway to expand the marina.

After that report, county commissioners started asking questions and the county’s inspector general began investigating and found the land was bought for 283 percent above the market value and that the property was never appraised first. Town officials said county officials negotiated the deal.

Davis has also come under fire recently by some fellow commissioners after discovering the town hired one of her close friends back in 2007 to revise the town’s employee handbook.

The county’s ethics commission found there wasn’t enough evidence to launch an official investigation, but it was enough for some commissioners to call for change.

Davis agreed to voluntarily resign with three months pay and benefits to the disappointment of some Lake Park taxpayers.

“They chose to accept a voluntary resignation costing us $52,000 more dollars, it's a joke, it’s a shame,” said resident Jim Lloyd.

But town leaders said it was time to move forward and time to start searching for a new town manager.

“We felt that the voluntary resignation was in the best interest of the town so that we could move forward and start to heal the divides between the commission, the staff, and the residents,” said commissioner Tim Stevens.

Maria Davis has denied any wrong doing in the past and would not comment after Monday's meeting.

The town manager's last day is Tuesday.