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Armando Martinez
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FLAGLERLIVE
November 9, 2012
Bunnell Manager Martinez’s Pay Raise Blocked As a Commissioner Calls Him “Overpaid”
In October 2009, the Bunnell City Commission hired Armando Martinez as its city manager for
$90,000. He’s now making $102,400, but says he’s never gotten a raise since he became
manager. Thursday evening, he was up for a merit pay increase that would have brought his
salary to $104,470, a 16 percent increase from his base pay.
A 2-2 vote of the commission meant that the motion to give him the 2 percent merit increase
failed. “I tell him all the time that Mr. Martinez is overpaid,” Commissioner John Rogers said,
siding with Commissioner Elbert Tucker in opposing the merit increase.
Mayor Catherine Robinson and Commissioner Daisy Henry voted for the raise, but it wasn’t
enough: a tie vote means a failed motion. Vice Mayor Jenny Crain-Brady was absent: had she
not been, she likely would have voted to support the raise, as she has been a staunch supporter of
Martinez in the past. It’s quite possible that commissioners favoring the raise will bring up the
matter again at a subsequent meeting, when they’re assured of a majority.
But the discussion over Martinez’s pay—the latest in a series of such discussions in the last few
years—again laid bare a fault line on the commission that opposes Tucker and Rogers against the
remainder of the commission, and that points to how Martinez’s fate hangs in the balance, with
elections coming early next year, when three seats are up—Tucker’s, Henry’s and Robinson’s.
One of the leading candidates for the election, Bill Baxley, was in the audience Thursday
evening, as he has been at most meetings since well before running for a commission seat at the
previous election and failing to win a seat by 19 votes. He’s not been a fan of Martinez’s, and
spoke skeptically of the merit raise Thursday evening.
“If my memory serves me correctly, I would almost be positive that I heard Mr. Martinez say
he’d be willing to recuse himself from it,” Baxley said of the merit raise, referring to a previous
meeting’s discussion.
“Yes,” Martinez said. “What happens was, when the issue came and was brought up by Mr.
Tucker, about my name being on the list, what I said was, if my name being on the list would
exclude you from approving the merit list, then go ahead and move it off the list but I think the
board chose to pass it as was, with my name still on the list.”
The difference between Martinez’s base pay, when he was originally hired, and its current status
bears explaining.
His original $90,000 salary was for his duties as city manager. But he was also given the title of
public safety director. Before becoming manager, Martinez was briefly Bunnell’s police chief.
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