Lubbock City Council Votes to Terminate City Manager Dumbauld
Background on the ludicrous outbreak of adolescent melodrama that led to today’s vote.
The Lubbock City Council voted 4-3 to terminate City Manager Lee Ann Dumbauld, effective immediately.
The council’s decision Monday evening, July 15, came after nearly four hours of executive session with an outside attorney concluding a more than three-month-long council-led investigation into employee complaints against Councilman Victor Hernandez and counter-accusations that Dumbauld pressured an employee to make some of those complaints.
“This has been brewing for a long time and it is time for us as a council to pull together and put this behind us,” Mayor Glen Robertson said. “There’s no other way to put it. This is a vote. It’s been done. It’s final.”
Robertson and council members Karen Gibson and Floyd Price voted against Dumbauld’s termination. In favor were Victor Hernandez, Todd Klein, Jim Gerlt and Latrelle Joy.
Implications of the cost of the decision and its effect on city business were unclear as leaders prepare to move into the 2013-14 budget without the woman who has served as Lubbock’s “budget official” for eight years, Robertson said.
“This is tough and I don’t care if you voted in favor of this or if you voted for termination,” Robertson said. “It’s probably the toughest vote every council person up here had to make, so when it’s this tough of a decision and it’s personal — it is personal because you’re dealing with another person and it’s a person that we’ve all worked with. It makes it much more difficult.”
Dumbauld did not return to the council chambers for the council’s decision Monday evening. She had left City Hall by the meeting’s end and she did not return an A-J Media request for comment Monday evening.
Councilman Jim Gerlt declined to comment on his vote to terminate Dumbauld.
“Under advice of counsel, I need to refer you to our legal counsel,” he said. “I imagine you’re going to get the same answer from all other council members.”
Robertson said whether the firing was with or without cause, as well as the cost of Dumbauld’s termination, have yet to be determined.
“At this point the motion was to terminate effective immediately — that’s all I can tell you under advice of our attorneys,” Robertson said. “At this point, since we are talking about an employee and the termination of a high-ranking employee, that’s all I’m going to be able to say.”
Dumbauld’s salary was about $225,000 per year.
“I am sure our attorneys will continue talks,” Robertson said. “But at this point, the council is through with any action on this. We’re going to turn our focus to the future and put this behind us.”
The council will hold a special meeting at 3:30 p.m. Friday to consider naming an interim city manager.
“I’ve asked the city attorney to give me kind of broad language because I want to be able to discuss appointing an interim city manager, which we need to do as soon as possible,” Robertson said. “Then we also need to start discussing at length what process we’re going to go through to start the search for a new city manager.”