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Clearwater’s City Council appointed former Mayor Brian Aungst Sr. to lead the city Monday after Frank Hibbard unceremoniously quit in the middle of a budget meeting a week earlier.
Aungst, who was Clearwater's mayor from 1999 to 2005, won the council’s support in part by committing not to seek reelection next year and by agreeing to a set of ethics rules when it comes to the city’s dealings with his son Brian Aungst Jr. — a local attorney who works with developers on real estate projects.
The vote to install Aungst was unanimous, though there was a sentiment before the vote — from the council and from the public — that Kathleen Beckman, vice mayor and councilor for Seat 3, be named to the position. But the council’s desire that whoever replace Hibbard agree not to run for reelection next year caused her to step back and vote in favor of Aungst.
The reason for Monday’s meeting, which some citizens criticized for happening at 1:30 p.m. when many residents were still at work, was to replace Hibbard — who resigned in the middle of a budget meeting March 20, moments after announcing to everyone gathered and watching online that he wasn’t a quitter.
Hibbard cited frustration with his colleagues’ plan to allocate $90 million for a new city hall and municipal services building, an expenditure he said would plunge the city into debt at a time when it's already spending $84 million on the Imagine Clearwater project.
He continued the criticism in his resignation letter.
“Being like other cities is not the goal; being better and more efficient is,” Hibbard wrote. “Government is going to have to learn to be more creative in finding solutions for difficult challenges, that require finite resources. I hope that you will look outside the box and remember one of our greatest strengths has been our fiscal health.”
Hibbard has been a resident of Clearwater since 1979. He previously served on Clearwater City Council from 2002 to 2012, including two terms as mayor from 2005 to 2012. He was reelected to the position in 2020.
Beckman, who led Monday’s meeting, seemed to take umbrage with the accusations Hibbard made as he abandoned the position voters entrusted him with. From the dais she acknowledged city staff and council colleagues who have an “extreme focus on cost management.”
Among recent accomplishments she cited are a reduction to energy costs and ensuring the city has adequate reserves, all while cutting the millage rate last year and taking on fixing city sidewalks and other repairs.
“I wholeheartedly expect that the city and this council will continue to be focused on cost efficiencies and saving initiatives that will provide even more opportunities to lower costs to residents and enable excellence in city services,” she says. “Expect to see a balanced improvement budget as has been delivered in the past.”
The choice of Aungst to return to a position he held almost two decades earlier was made to bring an experienced hand to help council until a new mayor can be chosen in 2024.
While the public was divided between Aungst and Beckman, many in the Aungst camp cited his agreement not to seek reelection. This, the argument went, gives residents the opportunity to choose new leadership next year. That was a feeling shared by the council.
Beckman, from her position on the dais, admitted that while she hadn’t decided whether to run for mayor yet, the possibility existed, and she did not want to be handcuffed.
“It's important to me to continue to serve residents,” she says. “And I do plan to run again for another four years. I have not made up my mind yet whether or not (for) the mayor's position or the council position. But I would not want to be put into a position of accepting (the job of) interim mayor and then agreeing not to run.”
Before the council vote, David Margolis, Clearwater’s city attorney, told members that he had spoken with both Aungst Sr. and his son about the ethics and optics of having a prominent development attorney presenting cases to a government board led by his father.
Margolis assured council members that both men agreed in writing that the mayor would recuse himself from hearings on projects that involved his son’s law firm, Macfarlane Ferguson & McMullen, nor to advocate behind the scenes. Aungst Jr. also agreed not to present cases before council while his father is in office nor to participate in the 2024 election.
Both men fully agreed to the parameters without any debate and were supportive of both following state law and, Margolis says, “ensuring that the optics meet the public standard.”
“I certainly felt much better after having those conversations with them,” Margolis told the council. “As I've said, I'm completely neutral on the vacancy, other than the fact that I want the council to know that if you do go in this direction, I have taken the steps to protect each of you from what would happen and to protect the public.”
Aungst retired in 2018 as director of state government affairs for Charter Communications. According to his profile on LinkedIn, he led efforts that brought $750 million of economic redevelopment to the city during his tenure.
As for his commitment not to run for reelection, while in writing it is not legally binding. “I will point out,” Margolis says, “that would be on the honor system.”
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