A longstanding rift between the mayor and City Council members has widened after the council took power away from the mayor and gave it to the city administrator.
The move is the latest in an often-acrimonious struggle for political control of city government.Four council members walked out of a recent meeting after a dispute with the mayor over an ordinance that would limit his authority to hire and fire city employees.
At a meeting Tuesday, the council passed that ordinance and another one that removes all mayoral authority over city employees.
Mayor Richard Jackson said he is now nothing more than a public relations man. The City Council made vacationing City Administrator Pearce Shelton chief executive officer of the city.
Also Tuesday, Fire Chief Tracy Bessinger gave his resignation to the council, a month after former Fire Chief Rob Herndon and former Capt. Harlow Pickett were rehired. Six months before, Herndon and Pickett resigned during a controversy involving Internet pornography and the fire department.
Jackson said the council agenda was the first official notice he'd had that Bessinger had quit.
No reason was given, though Jackson said after the meeting "the fire department is in such turmoil it would make you sick."
"No one will let me do my duty, and now it's not my duty," he said.
The ordinance making Shelton the head of the city narrowly passed 3-2.