TREASURE ISLAND — The City Commission removed Tammy Vasquez as vice mayor Oct. 6, replacing her with Commissioner Arden Dickey in a 4-1 vote that Vasquez called retaliation for her complaint against City Manager Charlie Van Zant.
The move came at the end of the meeting, during commissioner comments, rather than as an item on the published agenda.
“I personally view the decision to remove me as vice mayor as retaliation for continuing to ask questions and demand transparency,” Vasquez wrote on Facebook the next day.
Vasquez, who represents District 1, filed a formal grievance against Van Zant on Aug. 5, citing concerns about his fiscal judgment, communication failures, inappropriate workplace conduct and leadership, and asked for an outside investigation. On Sept. 10, Mayor John Doctor and Commissioners Chris Clark and Dickey said their own reviews had cleared the city manager of wrongdoing.
At the Oct. 6 meeting, Clark moved that the commission “consider and act on a different vice mayor.” Dickey seconded.
“It appears to me, and I’m not going to get into whose fault it is, but we have a vice mayor and a city manager that cannot work together,” Clark said. Addressing Doctor, he added, “God forbid something happens to you, John. I don’t know how we run a city that way.”
Vasquez said that would not be a problem.
“There’s a certain level of professionalism that comes into it,” she said. “God forbid if something like that happens, I absolutely would do my duty as I’m sworn to do. That’s the one thing that I’ve always done, whether people agree with me or don’t agree with me.”
Dickey said he had weighed the issue before the meeting.
“Just in the past month I’ve seen a lot of behavior from the vice mayor that I would consider not appropriate for that position,” he said.
He said he looks for consistency, leadership, professionalism, sound judgment, factual statements and a willingness to work with the mayor, the other commissioners and the city manager in a vice mayor.
“Up to this point you have not shown a willingness to do that,” he told Vasquez.
Vasquez asked how Dickey happened to have notes in front of him if he hadn’t known the motion was coming. Dickey said he had notes, but not on the vice mayor question.
“I’ve never had a problem working with the mayor,” Vasquez said. “I think he and I have worked very well together for the last year and a half. But obviously if three of you don’t think I’ve done my job, then by all means do what you need to do.”
Clark then moved to elect Dickey vice mayor. The motion passed 4-1, with Vasquez dissenting.
Vasquez asked whether the matter should have been placed on an agenda so the public could comment. No one responded.
Scott McKinney, a resident, objected to the commission’s action.
“Some complaints that Tammy had were passed on for investigation,” he said. “If people aren’t allowed to put forth their concerns for proper investigation without retribution of losing a position like this, that is retaliation, and I just don’t agree with it.”
In her Facebook post, Vasquez wrote that the vote “didn’t happen in a vacuum.” She said an independent investigation should have been allowed to follow the facts, but that three commissioners “voted to stop the independent investigative process before witnesses could be interviewed, evidence examined, or findings issued.”
“And now those same three commissioners have voted to remove me as vice mayor,” she wrote. “That sequence of events matters.”
She said one of her original concerns involved the treatment of women in city leadership, and that the vote “certainly did nothing to alleviate those concerns.”
“This is about whether elected officials should be able to ask difficult questions about public money, management and accountability without fear of retaliation,” she wrote.
The commission, she said, did not take away “my seat, my voice, or my responsibility to the residents who elected me.”
“I was elected to represent District 1, protect taxpayer dollars, ask difficult questions and demand transparency and accountability,” she wrote. “A title doesn’t determine whether I do that.”