Hallandale Beach has a tradition of paying a city manager who doesn't show up for work; so now that commissioners have fired Mike Good, it's fitting that they should give him one more giant paycheck on his way out the door.
Yesterday, the commission moved to give Good a severance package that includes health benefits and education costs that, combined with other sweeteners, comes to roughly a million dollars, according to calculations by Commissioner Keith London, Good's most forceful critic.
It came after Mayor Joy Cooper brought in an employment attorney who told commissioners that failing to give Good what he wanted might result in a lawsuit the city was unlikely to win.
London says he's "livid" about his fellow commissioners'
unwillingness to challenge that assessment. "I bet I can find a lawyer who will tell us that we'd have a 90 percent of winning that lawsuit," says London.
In a civil case, the central question would be whether Good held up his end of his employment contract; if not, then the city had cause for firing him, freeing itself from financial obligations toward Good that are contained in the contract.
"Nobody is disputing that [Good] didn't show up for work more than 50 percent of the time," says London. "If that's not cause, I don't know what is."
