Riviera Beach is moving on from City Manager Jonathan Evans for a second time, a move some in the city fear will blunt the transformative redevelopment that’s been taking place there.
“This is like Groundhog Day,” one resident, John Miller, said during a contentious, hours-long special City Council meeting on April 27. “What was it, seven years or eight years ago when this happened?”
Evans’ rollercoaster tenure — hired in 2017, fired six months into the job only to be paid a $190,000 settlement and re-hired in 2019 — is set to end when his contract expires on July 13. City Council members voted to have the city attorney work with Evans on a separation agreement they would take up at their next meeting on May 6.
The April 27 meeting was like many held in Riviera Beach — raucous, long and divisive, with residents streaming to the microphone to speak for and against the city manager. Things got so heated at one point Council Chairwoman Shirley Lanier called for a five-minute recess.
Throughout the meeting, the city manager’s tenure was whacked back and forth like a ball at a tennis match, leading a weary and confused Evans to ask at its end: “Do I come to work tomorrow?”
The answer was yes, but how many more days Evans will work for the city will be determined by that separation agreement.
“Clearly, the board has communicated its desires to effectively move on,” Evans said.
Evans’ role in Riviera Beach’s building boom
Despite being home to the Port of Palm Beach and despite its coastal location in the heart of Palm Beach County, Riviera Beach has long struggled with blight and poverty. Infrastructure projects and development were put off or choked by political infighting and sometimes by actual fighting.
Evans’ supporters credit him with convincing council members of the urgent need to update the city’s aging infrastructure and redevelop. Riviera Beach has been undergoing a redevelopment boom in the last several years, with nearly $2 billion in infrastructure and development projects either under construction or on the drawing board.
Those projects include a new police department headquarters, a new city hall, new fire stations, new recreational facilities, a new water treatment facility and numerous mixed-use projects in the city’s marina district.
“We finally have momentum,” fomer councilwoman Julie Botel said during the April 27 meeting. “We finally have continuity. And we finally have leadership that will move this city forward. Don’t take this progress backwards. Choose continuity over chaos.”
Changing council swings against Evans
That Botel was speaking from a podium during public comments and not from the dais underscored Evans’ fragile job status. Her successor, Glen Spiritis, did not share Evans’ vision for where the new police department headquarters should be located, and he joined with others in expressing frustration that an investigation into workplace complaints made by dozens of employees two years ago had not been completed.
That investigation was the cudgel Spiritis’ colleague, Bruce Guyton, used to hammer away at Evans. Guyton accused the city manager of not acting swiftly enough on those complaints and his colleagues on the council of covering for him.
“When he’s not treating employees correctly and they sue the city, it falls on our shoulder,” Guyton said. “We are responsible for everything. I’m not allowing him to do whatever he wants to do when he wants to do it how it wants to do it.”
It was Guyton who called for the special meeting to discuss Evans’ contract, and it was Guyton who made the motion to have the city manager’s tenure end when his contract ends.
Previous efforts to fire Evans had floundered as Botel, KaShamba Miller-Anderson and Lanier formed a wall of support on the five-member council.
But, with Spiritis succeeding Botel, he served as the swing vote, joining Guyton and another new council member, Fercella Davis-Panier, in backing Evans’ departure.
“I think it’s a big mistake,” said Miller-Anderson, who credited Evans with pushing the city forward.
Evans’ history with the city of Riviera Beach
There were many ribbon cuttings and press releases during Evans’ tenure, but there were troubles, too.
A block of council members ousted him in September of 2017 without giving specific reasons for doing so. Evans filed suit and was awarded a $190,000 settlement.
Voters swept out those who had supported Evans’ firing, and a new council re-hired him in May of 2019. Other difficulties would follow.
In December of 2023, then-Riviera Beach Mayor Ronnie Felder announced that he had launched an investigation “related to concerns about a hostile work environment, low morale among employees and potential irregularities in the hiring process.”
Felder said he was “forced” to launch an investigation “because employees kept coming to me.”
Felder’s investigative report included nearly three dozen employees complaining of a hostile work environment and retaliation across departments on Evans’ watch. The city manager’s supporters on the council, however, said Felder did not give managers who were the subject of complaints a chance to refute the allegations made against them.
Assistant City Manager Deirdre Jacobs said the report summary was “full of gossip, innuendos, lies and deceit. And it’s certainly not complete.”
Evans, however, would be suspended in September of 2024. Former city councilman and current mayor, Douglas Lawson, said: “Mr. Evans needs to take responsibility, point blank, period.”
The city’s aging water treatment facility jolted Evans’ tenure in January of 2024, when city council members were told that, seven months before, a fecal contaminant was found in the city’s drinking water. The belated notice enraged council members, led to state Department of Health fines and the eventual resignation of Utilities Director Michael Low, who had been lured out of retirement on Evans’ watch.
There was no indication Evans had a direct role in the belated notification, and his tenure survived it. But the employee complaints made to Felder would eventually be Evans’ undoing.
The city hired an attorney to get input from a half dozen managers who had been the subject of employees’ complaints. Delays in the completion of the attorney’s report angered Guyton, who said he wanted the whole thing wrapped up and released so employee complaints could be addressed.
One former employee, Aladia Franks, told council members that the backing Evans was getting from some residents overlooked what she and others experienced on his watch.
“It’s much deeper than (the city manager’s) resume, ” Franks said. “It’s the hurting people. I don’t hear many people talking about the hurting staff that has dedicated their whole lives to this city.”
Most of those who spoke at the April 27 spoke in favor of Evans, echoing Botel’s admonition that not extending his contract would threaten the city’s progress.
“One step forward, a hundred steps back,” resident Annette Dragon said. “We’re in the Dark Ages again in Riviera Beach.”
Guyton rejected that notion.
“Everybody is acting like the world is going to fall apart,” he said. “It’s not.”
One resident, Erika Davis, said she and others would not let Evans’ departure stand.
“We’re gonna fight some of this stuff,” she said. “We’re gonna bring Jonathan back. He’ll be back just like the last time. It took two years, but he came back and we’re gonna bring him back again.”
Wayne Washington is a journalist covering education and Riviera Beach development for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com. Help support our work; subscribe today.
Evans was initially hired by the city in 2017. He was fired six months into the job after some City Council members expressed unhappiness
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Will city manager’s exit sideline Riviera Beach’s redevelopment?
Reporting by Wayne Washington, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
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