{"id":3594,"date":"2019-10-11T09:30:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-11T13:30:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=3594"},"modified":"2019-10-11T11:58:37","modified_gmt":"2019-10-11T15:58:37","slug":"lakeland-city-attorney-tim-mccausland-to-retirement-effective-immediately","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2019\/10\/11\/lakeland-city-attorney-tim-mccausland-to-retirement-effective-immediately\/","title":{"rendered":"Lakeland City Attorney Tim McCausland to Retire Effective Immediately"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following was received by email this morning from Kevin\nCook City of Lakeland Director of Communications <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Lakeland City Attorney Tim McCausland Booking Photo<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Related Story Lakeland\nCity Attorney Arrested in Sex Sting Bust<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

From Kevin Cook:<\/strong> The City of Lakeland has received a letter of retirement<\/a> from City Attorney Tim McCausland.  The letter<\/a> was delivered first thing this morning, effective immediately.  The letter is attached along with the email message sent by the City Manager to the Lakeland City Commission notifying them.  The City Attorney is an employee of the City Commission and once the City was made aware of the issue involving Mr. McCausland, the Commission asked for options for possible disciplinary procedures.  The procedure options were sent to the Lakeland City Commission yesterday at 12:15 pm.  The memo identifying the options are listed below.  Both email memos below were sent from Tony Delgado, City Manager to the Lakeland City Commission.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor & Commissioners,<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few of you individually have asked me directly what are\nthe parameters and responsibilities of the Commission as it relates to the\nincident that took place yesterday involving the City Attorney, Tim McCausland.\nAssistant City Attorney Palmer Davis and I have spent the morning researching\nthe responsibilities of your offices as it relates to the Charter. As you are\nalready aware, the City Commission is responsible for appointing and managing\noversight of the City Attorney and, pursuant to the City Charter, he holds the\noffice at the pleasure of the City Commission. The Charter does not specify any\nparticular process or procedure governing disciplinary action related to the\nCity Attorney. That being said, if the Commission is evaluating possible\nadministrative options, Palmer and I have taken the liberty of offering the\nfollowing information:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Any action taken by the Commission will require either a\nspecially called meeting of the Commission or noticed discussion on the agenda\nof a regularly scheduled meeting of the City Commission. The meeting would be\nsubject to the Sunshine Law. The meeting must be open to the public and\ncitizens will have access to any minutes and reports associated with the\nmeeting.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unlike many of the employees of the City, the City\nAttorney\u2019s position does not fall under Civil Service protections and thus the\npotential investigation and decisions on any disciplinary actions are the sole\nresponsibility of the commission. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Similar to the City Policy, the Commission has the authority\nto place both the City Attorney and City Manager on administrative leave\npending further evaluation of the issue and the collection of additional\ninformation and background data associated with the incident or allegations in\nquestion. Clearly, the Commission can also decide on a more significant\ndirection, up to and including termination, if the Commission as a body sees\nreason. Regardless of the proposed action, a meeting of the Commission must be\nscheduled in accordance with the Charter and Sunshine Law in order to decide on\nany proposed action.        <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 As you navigate through the issue at hand, Palmer and\nI are at your disposal to assist where required though no formal recommendation\nwill be offered on our part. If you have any questions please respond directly\nto me and not a \u201creply all\u201d email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you, Tony     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mayor & Commissioners,<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the City Commissions behalf, I have received the attached\nletter of Retirement from City Attorney Tim McCausland delivered this morning.\nThe attached correspondence identifies the retirement to be effective\nimmediately and City staff will begin initiating the process on the Commissions\nbehalf. In addition to administering the normal retirement processes, I will be\nreaching out to Mr. McCausland today to request that the City issued iPad be\nreturned per policy. The City does not dispose of City property in the manner\nhe has requested. Mr. McCausland\u2019s access to City property and the City network\nhas been terminated immediately per normal procedure.     <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I trust that the Commission, as the responsible\nadministrative authority on this issue, is in concurrence with the direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thank you for your support, Tony\n               <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following was received by email this morning from Kevin Cook City of Lakeland Director of Communications Related Story Lakeland City Attorney Arrested in Sex Sting Bust From Kevin Cook:… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3574,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[12,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3594"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3594\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3574"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}