NORTH MIAMI, Fla. – Following a 3-1 termination vote Tuesday night, it’s still unclear why a group of North Miami city councilmembers voted to fire City Manager Rasha Cameau. But Local 10 News has obtained a memo from the now-ousted top administrator that sheds light on her forced departure.
Residents packed Tuesday night’s special city council meeting in an attempt to save Cameau’s job. They credit her with cleaning house and turning the city around.
“You run (the city) like a banana republic,” resident Mary Brown told councilmembers.
Vice Mayor Mary Estimé-Irvin and councilmembers Pierre Frantz Charles and Kassandra Timothe were the deciding votes. Longtime Councilman Scott Galvin voted against firing Cameau.
Mayor Alix Desulme, who wasn’t present at the meeting, had previously expressed opposition to firing Cameau, calling the passage of a motion to consider her firing in April a “sad day” for the city.
Residents booed the council following the vote.
None of the councilmembers have elaborated on why they wanted Cameau out.
Residents point to Cameau declining councilmembers’ requests for unbudgeted money to spend, including for a festival, as she righted the city’s financial decline.
Local 10 News has learned that Cameau, seeing the writing on the wall, memorialized the signs in a memo, in which she described herself as “busy putting out fires.”
The memo is titled “Re: Events That Led Up to My Termination.”
She documented efforts to hold the public works director accountable for failures with a multi-million dollar water project, only to have councilmembers backdoor her to spare him, violating the city charter.
They got outsiders to intervene: one of them was a longtime city lobbyist who claimed people thought her actions were racially-motivated.
She wrote that she was told that “the word on the street is that I am firing Haitians and replacing them with ‘blans,’” the Creole term for non-Haitians.
Cameau is a Haitian-American.
Read the memo:
The council appointed Anna-Bo Emmanuel as interim city manager.
That raised even more questions. If councilmembers collaborated behind the scenes, it would violate Florida’s Sunshine Laws.
Following Tuesday night’s vote, Cameau told local media outlets, “I’ve been a public servant for over 20 years and I will be there to serve the public again.”
Cameau is expected to request a public hearing on her termination, which she is entitled to.
Residents are discussing recalls of the councilmembers, as well as lawsuits.