After months of conflict simmering just below the surface, at last night’s Seal Beach City Council meeting, Councilmember Gary Miller openly and unequivocally called for the termination of City Manager David Carmany’s employment. In bringing to an end an emotional monologue of about 10-15 minutes, Miller said “I am calling for a new direction and a new city manager.”

According to Miller’s comments at the meeting, he has been trying for months, without success, to have a performance appraisal of Carmany. Miller said Carmany had “filibustered” and manipulated agendas to deny Miller time to present his concerns about Carmany’s performance.

Miller has been gradually more public in his condemnation of Carmany and last night used his “council comments” section on the agenda to launch his attack on Carmany. Although Miller’s frustration with Carmany is no surprise to city council watchers in Seal Beach, we don’t remember another time when Miller has so directly and publically called for Carmany to be replaced.

Carmany was not the only subject of sharp criticism from Councilmember Miller last night. He had pointed comments for each of his fellow councilmember’s. In a recent council meeting, Miller was chastised for requesting a performance appraisal of Carmany and last night Miller took the other council members to task for not supporting the request for a hearing on Carmany’s performance.

A closely related issue on which Miller attacked the other councilmember’s was the process for putting items on the council’s agenda. Under current procedures, the Mayor has the authority to direct staff to put an item on a future agenda. This is important because state law—dubbed the Brown Act—prevents councilmember’s from taking any action on an item unless it is on the agenda. In a recent meeting, city staff proposed a change in those procedures where a majority vote of the council would be required to set an item for a future agenda. But that was not adopted by the council.

Miller indicated that since he was prohibited from discussing performance issues during public session, his only recourse was in closed session. But, Miller said he had not been able to get an adequate hearing on his grievances against Carmany in a closed session. Miller emphasized his point by displaying stacks of material he had not been able to present on Carmany’s performance.

Before the 7:00 PM public session of the City Council, there was a closed session. The performance appraisal of Carmany was listed on the agenda for the closed session. But, at the beginning of the public session, City Attorney Quinn M. Barrow reported the closed session had been recessed until after the public session and apparently no other reportable action was taken.

After Miller finished his speech, Carmany did not react and no further action was taken. None of the other councilmember’s expressed support for Miller’s position. Thus, it appears unlikely that Miller can rally at least two other councilmember’s to support his idea of terminating Carmany’s employment.

However, neither is it likely that Miller will back down. At least part of Miller’s issues with Carmany are pretty personal to Miller. As he has done in previous meetings, Miller cited unfounded personal attacks on his character by Carmany. Miller threatened other, unspecified actions—“outside this council” if he was denied a hearing for his concerns with Carmany. In referring to Miller’s documentation of these issues, he indicated that if the other councilmember’s don’t think there is any need to review Carmany’s performance, then it must mean the documentation can be made public because there is no significant performance issues in the documentation.