JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Councilman Rory Diamond said that General Counsel Michael Fackler should step down from his position as general counsel for the city of Jacksonville.
This comes after the council voted Tuesday night to approve a resolution formally stating its “lack of confidence” in Fackler’s ability to remain independent and unbiased following the Meridian Waste contract controversy.
″Everybody likes Mr. Fackler,“ Diamond said. ”I’m sure he’s a very good lawyer, but he’s lost the trust and confidence of his most important client, the Jacksonville City Council.”
This all started in January after Mayor Donna Deegan vetoed the council’s bill that would have given trash hauler, Meridian Waste, a 29% financial increase. A short time later, the city council overrode the mayor’s veto.
Fackler later issued his opinion saying the council’s decision “...violated the separation of powers.”
RELATED | City council votes to overturn Mayor Deegan’s veto of 29% increase for waste hauler contract
“I believe that he’s the mayor’s lawyer, and that he’s doing whatever the mayor asked and not what the law requires or what city council might want,” Diamond said. “And you can’t have an office of general counsel that is just, essentially, the lap dog of the mayor. And so, I just can’t accept that.”
But not everyone agrees.
Councilman Matt Carlucci was among some council members who spoke out against the resolution. Carlucci sharply criticized Diamond’s call to resign.
“Michael Fackler does not need to resign,” Carlucci said. “And him calling on that, to me, is just politics.”
Carlucci said there have been cases where, though he hasn’t agreed with Fackler, he respected his decision.
“The first opinion that I went to him on had to do with the Laura Street trio, and that one is near and dear to my heart,” Carlucci said. “And he did not give me the opinion I wanted. So, I went to visit him, and I walked away and said, ‘he’s General Counsel, so I’ll have to try to go about getting done what needs to be done in a different way.”
Carlucci said he fears this could have a chilling effect on general counsels in the future.
“When you start playing this type of stuff with the General Counsel, if some reason he were to leave, who’d want to take his place?” Carlucci said. “Because they think, ‘well, as soon as I make an opinion or two that somebody doesn’t like, then I might find the same fate.‘”
According to city rules, either the mayor or the city council could remove the general counsel. The rules stipulate such removal “shall be only for misfeasance, malfeasance or criminal conduct”. The mayor would have to get at least 13 council members to agree. The council would need at least 15.
News4JAX asked Diamond if he sees this escalating beyond the resolution from Tuesday night.
“If Mr. Fackler decides not to resign, then I absolutely could see an actual binding move to remove him, but it’s going to take 15 to do it, and so we’ll see if the numbers are there,” Diamond said. “I think ultimately there will be.”
Responding to the councilman’s call to resign, Mayor Donna Deegan’s office said in a statement: “That is the type of politics we need to move on from for the benefit of our citizens and Consolidated Government.”
The statement went on to praise Fackler:
“Michael Fackler is a man of great integrity who has always called balls and strikes, which is what the City Council and I asked him to do. I haven’t always agreed with his decisions, but I respect them. The Office of General Counsel is the glue that holds our Consolidated Government together. It’s my hope that we can let the office do its job without involving politics moving forward.”
Fackler declined News4JAX’s request for an interview.
