If there is a move afoot to dismiss Saginaw City Manager Tim Morales, it’s news to the City Council members who possess hiring and firing authority.
At their March 6 meeting, seven of the nine members expressed their support for Morales, who joined the city administration in 2009 and has been manager since 2014. Councilwoman Monique Lamar Silvia did not speak to the matter during her turn at council remarks, and Michael Balls has announced he will be absent for a couple of months for health care reasons.
Four speakers offered support for Morales. They were Sheldon “Snap” Matthews from the County Board of Commissioners; Robert Bellman, who as county controller fills the same role as Morales; and business leaders Herb Spence and Peter Shaheen.
They were not specific, other than expressing sentiment that Morales’ detractors are unhappy regarding decisions on spending the $52 million infusion from ARPA, the federal American Rescue Plan Act, which aims to help in economic and social hardship caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Spence and Shaheen said Morales is the best city manager they have encountered over the past 25 years, with Shaheen including municipal executives he has dealt with across the nation.
Mayor Pro-Tem Annie Boensch and council members Priscilla Garcia, Michael Flores, George Copeland, Reggie Williams II and Bill Ostash all said at the table that they were surprised to hear from the speakers. Mayor Brenda Moore took a slightly different tack, saying she was aware of dissent among a group of citizens that she did not identify.
For his part, Morales told the council he was unaware of any negative rumblings until earlier the day of the meeting.
In Saginaw’s form of government since 1936, the manager is similar to a corporate CEO and the City Council functions akin to a board of directors. In another comparison, the manager is like a school superintendent and the Council is like a school board.
The manager is the only employee the Council may hire and fire. Morales hires department heads and reviews their hiring of rank-and-file employees.
Saginaw’s only prior manager to lose their job was Deborah Kimble, whose contract was not renewed during summer 2004 on a 5-4 vote that took place after midnight. Within days, then-Mayor Wilmer Jones Ham (now McZee) and then-Councilman Amos O’Neal (now state representative) offered to rescind their votes if Kimble would return, but she declined.
Edward H. Potthoff Jr., Saginaw’s longest-serving manager (1960-77) was not dismissed, but he was pushed out by a new majority of independents after the business-oriented United Saginaw Citizens lost its established “Saginaw Club majority” slate.
In other Council business on March 6, Guidehouse consultant David Sernick outlined monitoring of ARPA contracts, a source of grievances among some agency and program recipients. Members supported a Williams proposal for a six-month hold on spending or reallocating any remaining dollars until issues are ironed out with the current agencies. Flores attempted to reduce the waiting period to three months but was rejected.
You can watch a replay of Monday’s city council meeting on the city’s YouTube channel.
