North Port public works director heading to Port Orange
What Scandal? ….
NORTH PORT – Public works director Branford Adumuah will resign from his city job later this month, taking his talents to Florida’s east coast to a new but similar position.
Adumuah, a North Port employee since 2004, will become the public works director for Port Orange, according to his resignation letter. His last day of work will be March 13, and his resignation will be effective March 20.
Adumuah began his career with the city as its assistant public works director, spokesman Josh Taylor said. He was promoted to public works director in 2006.
In his resignation letter to City Manager Jonathan Lewis, Adumuah listed achievements of the department while under his leadership. Among them were achieving national accreditation, repaving hundreds of miles of road and improving public works’ organization and management structure.
“I leave with the strongest sense of satisfaction and pride …,” he wrote.
Adumuah’s resignation comes just five months after North Port acknowledged that public works employees had engaged in department-wide cheating on exams required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Five low-level supervisors in the department would later be fired for lying during an investigation into the scandal.
But in his resignation letter, Adumuah stated he was not leaving as a result of the scandal.
“My decision to resign was made at personal and professional level and not at the behest or direction of anyone or the consequence of any event,” he wrote.
Adumuah began his career with the city as its assistant public works director, spokesman Josh Taylor said. He was promoted to public works director in 2006.
In his resignation letter to City Manager Jonathan Lewis, Adumuah listed achievements of the department while under his leadership. Among them were achieving national accreditation, repaving hundreds of miles of road and improving public works’ organization and management structure.
“I leave with the strongest sense of satisfaction and pride …,” he wrote.
Adumuah’s resignation comes just five months after North Port acknowledged that public works employees had engaged in department-wide cheating on exams required by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Five low-level supervisors in the department would later be fired for lying during an investigation into the scandal.
But in his resignation letter, Adumuah stated he was not leaving as a result of the scandal.
“My decision to resign was made at personal and professional level and not at the behest or direction of anyone or the consequence of any event,” he wrote.
Wow I googled North Port and scandal and followed the trail. Now firefighters and other supervisors are under investigation. Why would he even mention the scandal in his resignation? This is incredible. How does port orange find these candidates? Do they not have google on their computers? Was Mr. Silvey a candidate? Hmmmmmmm!
Was Mr. Silvey a candidate? Now that is a good one. Not even that dottering old fool Harden would consider that idiot Silvey for the top slot.
A continued pattern of hiring managers with questionable past performance and scandals despite performing background checks ?
Remember Tiny Yarborough ?
This guy is doomed from the get go.
^^ Floki gets “Post of the Month Award”
Hang on to your hats…we’re in for a bumpy ride.
I’m looking into my crystal ball and see lawsuits looming ahead.
This guy must be desperate to get out of his job before he too gets canned. If he was the Public Works Director of Northport you can’ t tell me he didn’t know what was going on within his department….maybe they were afraid to fire him right away because of possible lawsuits.Why else would he be foolish enough to come to work for Port Orange? Maybe he didn’t want to become a MIT,,,,like the last bunch we hired without due diligence. Now we are again stuck with someone trailing bad baggage behind him. Whatever happened to promotion from within??? Good work sticking it to us Mr. Harden.
That makes one public works director with scandalous baggage and a public utilities director who was forced to resign from his last job in a row compliments of FCCMA Lifesaver Award Candidate and semi retired pre Alzheimer’s sufferer David Harden who apparently fell and he can’t get up.
Is he perhaps related to Lou Gossett, Jr.? Sure looks like him.
Not sure as to Lou Gossett Jr. but my impression of his photo is not one of a business portrait.
Appears to me to be one of arrogance.
Are you all serious? Please stop being ignorant. Mr. Adumuah is a well respected, competent, and dedicated individual you will ever. His reputation and integrity is solid. He has worked in many cities and no questions about his character. Wait till see his world and his character. We love him here and very sad to see him leave. We will miss him! It is your gain!
Hey what did you say Willis?
Hey folks do not talk before you get all the facts. I live here in Port Orange but I have family in North Port,Sarasota County and visit from time to time. From what I know and hear and see when I visit North Port Mr. Adumuah is the deal. All cities have issues and that inlcudes ours here in Port Orange. In 9 years Mr. Adumuah helped to transform the roads, drainage, bridges and more. The employees, residents, and City Commision love and respect him. He is a great talent, professional, ethical, and dedicated. His customer service is first class. Go to the North Port Public Works site. Far better than what we have here. He was not desperate to leave. Nobody asked him to leave. You as taxpayesr should be thankful he chose us. I am told he received many job offers from California to New York to even Canada but chose to come here because his wife’s family leave in Daytona. He has worked in many cities without any questions to his competence or integrity. Port Orange will be his fourth city in a more than 25 years of public service. North Port’s loss is our gain as somebody said.
You mentioned that his wife’s family leave in Daytona. If her family is going to leave Daytona why does she want to move here?
The wife’s sister lives there. Mr. Adumuah, his wife and two kids will live in Port Orange. He is a good, professional, and honest man. Responsive with excellent customer service. You should be happy he is coming. He will need your help to fix the problems you all have there. He had other options but chose to come to Port Orange.
You are one racist so and so. Grow up!
Due to the intense level of negativity, Port Orange is going to have a hard time hiring anyone without any problems in their career. Its your own fault. Enjoy the bed you made . . .
Sorry fella, but there are some of us that would like to raise the bar with our administrative management and break the cycle of FCCMA, MIT, Lifesaver hack recycling.
A little more transparency in the selection process and a lot more due diligence and introspection from our elected officials would go a long way to break the cycle of malfeasance, incompetence, and spurious baggage in building a cutting edge management team.
Unfortunately the council has chosen to abdicate their responsibility to a doddering old interim city manager who himself is entrenched in the FCCMA Florida League of Cities culture and paradigm of regressive politically motivated management. This almost ensures us the procurement of another incompetent permanent city manager to assume the helm of a preselected FCCMA retread team ready to do the bidding of the special interest political power brokers.
The citizens of Port Orange were hoping that Bob Ford, Scott Stiltner, and Drew Bastian would exert their political force to change this outdated paradigm after being elected by their constituency and begin a new chapter of open and transparent governance.
I would say to the tea party activists, “Houston we have a problem”.
So you all in Port Orange know there was no scandal. 5 supervisors in a department of 136 provided answers in an open book FEMA test. When it was reported Adumuah called for an outside iinvestigation. He fired the 5 supervisors and moved to reorganized the Operations Division where the wrongdoing occurred.
Seems kind of harsh for circulating a cheat manual. Who provided the five supervisors with the FEMA cheat manual in the first place? Who coordinated the FEMA training? Did the long term director or risk manager have take any responsibility in coordinating this training? My understanding is that all new hires are responsible for taking these on line tests whether they are engaged in the administration of FEMA activities or not based upon a blanket requirement from FEMA. The answer manual is something that you would have to obtain as a manager overseeing the testing activities in your organization from FEMA. Who disseminated these answer manuals to these five supervisors from within the public works organization? Where these supervisors responsible for the coordination and proctoring of this training? Was the testing done on an individual basis or did this take place in a group environment? Where did these five supervisors fall in the chain of command relative to the director? Did these supervisors receive sufficient training to oversee the proctoring of these examinations? Were they issued the answer manuals through directorial authority or did they obtain them without authorization? These are all valid question to be asked in an honest, healthy, and transparent organization because in many cases when top administrators are trying to take the heat off themselves, they will spend tax payer money on consultants to validate their own mythology to shift responsibility to some scapegoats instead of handling thing professionally in house.
Port Orange has a continuing history of using consultants for validating and perpetuating a malfeasant mythology and to find scapegoats to sacrifice for the sins of the power brokers as opposed to holistic problem solving. Any new administrator is subject to the suspicions and trepidations of all true stakeholders in this community and will have to pass the litmus test of these long term stakeholders instead of receiving instant validation from some new poster that declares them the next best thing since sliced bread.
Don, those are great questions. I am told you should ask Mr. Adumuah when he arrives. My sources say he is transparent, open and honest. He took full responsibility.The investigation was not done by a consultant but a well respected Police detective contracted and empowered by the City Manager. The 5 supervisors reported to the Operations Manager who reported to the Director. The conclusion of the report was that the 5 organized and provided the answers because it was taking too long for employees to pass and work needed to be done in the field. Nobody else above the 5 knew anything about it. Mr. Adumuah provided all employees with copies of the report. Mr. Adumuah immediately asked for an independent investigation when it all started, but the City Manager a rookie (first job as a City Manager) had refused his request many times. Actually Mr. Adumuah started his own investigations but was told by the City Manager to stop immediately. He was not to do an investigation based upon a newspaper article. Obviously Mr. Adumuah was not happy.
If Mr. Adumuah is all that Mr. Brandon Allen portrays him to be why in the hell would he want to be associated with the terribly troubled city of Port Orange, who has a Mayor that runs the city like his own personal plantation,and a council who don’t want “low income housing ” in their community. I don’t think it has anything to do with his in-laws living in this area and ALL to do with the need of a high paying job for however long it lasts.
You can ask him when he arrives. He loves questions like that. But I will tell you that what drives him is taking on challenges (where everybody says it cannot be done) and overcoming it. He likes making a difference. He did it in North Port and other cities he worked. Never motivated by money. If it were money he could have accepted an offer from California. This is my last post
And an “interim City Manager” at that.
Now whoever is selected for the permanent job is stuck with the choices made by him. He takes his huge interim salary and goes back home. He has no ties to Port Orange. Very flawed process in place.
Hey this is the process that our illustrious elected officials mindlessly set in motion. When they question from the Dias capital budgets that they approve and regularly demonstrate that they sign off on things and make decisions about things they do not understand and forget they have done shortly thereafter what do you expect? All David Harden and Gravel Gertie need to do is hire a consultant to come before council with some validating psychobabble and they will approve whatever they are bamboozled into approving by the city manager, the administrative services director, and the mayor. As they say, ignorance is bliss. Lets have another workshop on this.