PEKIN, Ill. (WMBD) — In just under seven months changes are once again coming to the city of Pekin’s city manager.
On Monday, Council voted to fire Bruce Martson as interim city manager. He was appointed as interim city manager in October.
Mayor Mary Burress said that allegations were brought against Martson causing an investigation to launch on May 2.
“When the rest of the staff is coming to us with complaints, and not just us, HR. We have to protect every city employee and that’s what we did here tonight,” she said.
After over two hours of executive session to discuss the matter a motion was made by Karen Hohimer and seconded by John Abel to remove Martson as interim city manager with pending development and implementation of a performance improvement plan.
Hohimer, Abel. David Nutter and Burress voted to adopt the resolution. Becky Cloyd, Rick Hilst and Lloyd Orrick voted to reject the resolution.
Before voting against the resolution Hilst said, “I think there’s several people surrounding this decision that have other ulterior motives and I think it’s a political witch hunt.”
Orrick said he concurred with Hilst. Cloyd said after being on the council for two years she has been deeply ashamed and disappointed with the decision.
“It really wasn’t worthy of firing him or removing him from city manager. The action to terminate him did not equate with what he was accused of. To which I will add he did deny,” she said.
Prior to the executive session, Cloyd motioned to amend the approval of the agenda to move the executive session to an open meeting. It was seconded by Hilst. Cloyd, Hilst and Orrick voted to amend and Burress, Nutter, Hohimer and Abel voted against the amendment. This then led to Cloyd, Hilst and Orrick to vote against the agenda as well as the motion to go into executive session. Cloyd now plans to file a complaint with the Attorney General’s office.
Since the investigation, Seth Ranney has served as acting city manager and will do so until the regular council meeting on May 22 when another interim will be appointed.
WMBD has put in a FOIA request to learn more about these allegations.
