The election Tuesday of Terry Evers and Julian Mullis puts the jobs of Thomas and Cavallaro in jeopardy. <\/P>
\n

Both Evers and Mullis have said they believe Thomas and Cavallaro are responsible for severe financial problems facing the city.<\/P>
\n

Evers retained his commission seat against Mark Seigler with 57 percent of the vote, 256 votes to 190. Seigler decided not to run for re-election as mayor so he could seek a seat on the City Commission.<\/P>
\n

In the race for mayor, Mullis, a former commissioner, defeated Commissioner Jerry Woods with 58 percent of the vote, 260 votes to 191.<\/P>
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Mulberry voters also defeated a proposed change in the city charter that might have given Thomas a measure of job security. The proposal would have required a supermajority vote \u2014 four of the five commissioners \u2014 to fire the city manager.<\/P>
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Fifty-five percent of the city\u2019s voters rejected the plan. It failed 240 votes to 200.<\/P>
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The new commission won\u2019t be sworn in until May.<\/P>
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The mayor doesn\u2019t get to cast a vote in City Commission decisions unless there is a tie. With one more commission seat still to be decided in a special election in June, there will be a period when only four members are on the commission, making tie votes a distinct possibility. <\/P>
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The city has projected a deficit of $1 million by the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30, although Thomas says he\u2019s taken care of the problem.<\/P>
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The million dollar deficit weighed heavily on the voters, the candidates said.<\/P>
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\u201cThe citizens of Mulberry were fed up,\u201d Evers said.<\/P>
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Woods said the city\u2019s financial problems became a huge issue. \u201cI\u2019m certain it had everything to do with the election results.\u201d<\/P>
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After the results were posted at the Mulberry Civic Center, Woods hugged Mullis. <\/P>
\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for him,\u201d Woods said,<\/P>
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Mullis said the disclosure of the financial mess was \u201cthe final straw for a lot of people.\u201d<\/P>
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\u201cThe spending went on and on and on,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople have had enough of it.\u201d <\/P>
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Mullis said that as mayor he wants to make sure people can speak freely at the meetings.<\/P>
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\u201cI\u2019m going to be light on the gavel,\u201d he said.<\/P>
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Seigler was sometimes heavy on the gavel as some city meetings threatened to sink into chaos. <\/P>
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Seigler said he wanted to congratulate Evers.<\/P>
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\u201cI hope they have the best interest of Mulberry at heart and will continue to move the city more toward professionalism,\u201d Seigler said.<\/P><\/DIV><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Rick RousosThe Ledger Published: Tuesday, April 7, 2009 at 1:56 p.m.   MULBERRY | City Manager Frank Thomas and Mulberry Public Safety Director Larry Cavallaro may want to update their resumes.   The election Tuesday of Terry Evers and Julian Mullis puts the jobs of Thomas and Cavallaro in jeopardy. Both Evers and Mullis… More \u00bbEvers and Mullis Win Election in Mulberry<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ourbigclan.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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