After Deputy City Manager Jane Shang left El Paso City Government with eleven months paid leave that made her eligible for a hefty retirement package, she got a job as the City Manager of Deltona, Florida.
She got canned from that job on January 28, 2020.
From the Daytona Beach News Journal:
Jane Shang, the embattled city manager of Deltona, is out.
The City Commission voted unanimously Tuesday night to accept her resignation, but not before listening to residents air their grievances about Shang, who didn’t attend the meeting, her severance package, her performance and the commission’s performance.
. . .
The concern about a lack of communication from Shang isn’t a new one.
Former commissioner Brian Soukup, who ultimately resigned in large part due to issues with Shang, wrote in an op-ed column published in The News-Journal in October 2016 that he questioned whether the information he was receiving from the city manager and then-city attorney Becky Vose was “complete or honest.”
Here’s some of what Commissioner Soukup said in his op-ed column:
Several months ago , I began to question whether information I was getting from both our city manager and city attorney was complete or honest.
This doubt caused me to ask more questions which did not reflect more answers, only more questions.
Eventually, I requested public records, and in these documents I discovered that my fears were founded.
Over the course of several weeks, I uncovered, among other things , that our city manger paid out an employee in the amount of several thousand dollars more than had been confirmed.
I also found out that a compensation study revealed 50 percent of our employees were paid more than their pay grades. However, that information was withheld, and subsequently we approved a plan to bring all employees up to pay grade and then approve a 3 percent across the board raise.
That was almost a $500,000 item, which will continue to have budget impacts year after year, an item based on half-truths and information designed to manipulate the decisions of the Deltona City Commission.
Earlier this month I learned that we had not been made aware of an incident regarding our wastewater treatment facility, while other government agencies involved had informed their elected body months ago. I learned of the incident from a citizen who had obtained the information through a public records request.
What I see as deliberate deception, repeated over and over, becomes a pattern — a pattern that should not and cannot be tolerated in a government that claims to have accountability as one of its core values.
Remember that when former City Manager Joyce Wilson gave Ms. Shang that sweetheart retirement package, El Chuqueño speculated it was granted out of fear of a Federal Whistleblower lawsuit.
El Chuqueño can only speculate now that Ms. Chang picked up her management style from El Paso’s former City Manager.
After all, the apple doesn’t fall far from the horse.
If you recall, Ms Wilson refused to provide any information as to Shang’s leave with pay, on the grounds that it was “a personnel matter.” A convenient way for just about anything that City management wishes not to talk about to be kept secret.
Ms. Wilson poisoned the well for the whole city manager concept here, though you can bet that Paul and Woody still love her. Ditto her CFO consort, Ms. Fuzzy Math, who seems to be following form at EPISD these days. We need a return to a strong mayor city government so we can fire his ass every four years if he screws us over.