Jon Johnson File Photo/Gila Herald: Pima Town Manager Sean Lewis, right, congratulates Vice-Mayor Dale Rogers, left, and Mayor C.B. Fletcher on their re-appointment to their positions in 2019. The town manager works at the pleasure of the council and Rogers will likely be the swing vote whether to retain Lewis or fire him during a special meeting Thursday night.
By Jon Johnson
PIMA – Like a broken record, the seemingly endless infighting of the Pima Town Council over whether Pima Town Manager Sean Lewis should continue in his position will be debated at a special meeting Thursday night.
The meeting will take place at Pima Town Hall, starting at 7 p.m.
The decision to hold the special meeting came from an ongoing debate over Lewis’ job. At the town’s Tuesday night meeting, during an annual town audit presentation from Jim Usevitch of Colby & Powell, council member Lucas Hoopes made a motion to terminate Lewis for misusing town resources – an issue that Pima Mayor C.B. Fletcher said had already been settled. Councilmember Sherrill Teeter seconded Hoopes’ motion, but then Fletcher called for the meeting to move into executive session.
After roughly an hour in an executive session that reportedly involved a lot of yelling, the council reconvened and Hoopes agreed to drop his motion as long as the council takes up the issue during a special meeting Thursday night.
“This is getting ridiculous,” Lewis told the Gila Herald. “This has been going on for six months.”
In May, the council addressed an issue regarding undocumented credit card charges from Lewis and voted 3-2 to retain Lewis as town manager and assign the mayor to be in charge of doling out disciplinary action. The motion was made by council member Debbie Barr and seconded by Vice-Mayor Dale Rogers.
Mayor Fletcher then asked for a vote, in which Barr and Fletcher voted in the affirmative while council members Sherrill Teeter and Lucas Hoopes voted against. In a video of the vote taken by the Gila Herald, Vice-Mayor Rogers can be seen and heard quietly voting against the motion. However, Mayor Fletcher believed he had heard Rogers vote for the motion and announced it had carried by a 3-2 vote. At that time, nobody corrected the mayor, and it went into the meeting’s minutes as having carried by a 3-2 vote even though it appears to might have been 3-2 against.
According to Lewis, both Fletcher and Barr – who were sitting on either side of Rogers – believed they heard Rogers answer in the affirmative to the motion and suggest he may have voted twice.
The following day, Rogers reportedly told council members, the mayor, and Lewis that he had voted against the motion. Lewis told the Gila Herald that when he spoke to Rogers he told him if he really wanted him gone he would help the council amend the minutes to reflect his vote. However, without an additional vote by the council to terminate, amending the minutes would only mean there would be no disciplinary action from the mayor as no other motion was made during the meeting except to adjourn. That means, the council would have come out of the executive session and taken no action against Lewis.
During the audit report to the council at its Tuesday night meeting, Usevitch informed the council that the town was in better shape than it was the previous year and that the previous year was better than the year prior. However, Usevitch noted the issue with the missing receipts and said there were $5,245 of personal charges made utilizing town resources. Those charges include any missing receipts Lewis didn’t save and when Lewis utilized a town credit card in an emergency fashion when his son was hospitalized and he flew to be with him. During that incident, Lewis’ bank canceled his credit card believing that the charges being made were fraudulent. Lewis advised that he paid the town back for the personal charges he incurred over the trip within two weeks of making them due to the snafu with the bank.
Lewis has also repaid the balance of the $5,245, which included any purchase he made using the town’s resources that he couldn’t provide receipts for.
“A lot of it was just pure laziness on my part,” Lewis previously said. He gave an example of when he and the mayor and vice-mayor attended an annual conference for the League of Arizona Cities and Towns and the receipts for the hotel for the group and some meal receipts were not properly documented.
Lewis has publicly stated his desire to keep his position for the continued betterment of the community. He has previously been headhunted by other municipalities and organizations but has chosen to stay in Pima.
“I love this job,” Lewis said. “I love what I do. I love who I work with and everything else. The thought of me doing something else just doesn’t make sense to me. I’m afraid it might be that time. I don’t know.”
In addition to his duties as town manager, Lewis has been a hands-on employee in a number of facets, including keeping the sewer operations running smoothly, performing building permit inspections, and even digging graves out at the Pima Cemetery due to loss of labor because of the pandemic. Lewis has also been a leading force for positive change in Pima, through cleaning up dilapidated properties, creating new business opportunities with private/public sector involvement, including the purchase of the old Graco lot and construction of what is now known as the Optimal Health Centre building along U.S. Highway 70, and the creation of an industrial zone near the rodeo grounds.
Under Lewis’ tenure, Pima has also thrived financially. Revenue at the pool has increased fourfold and sewer fund collections have increased from a net $70,000 a year loss to a $54,000 a year profit by Lewis’ move to work with the Graham County Electric Cooperative to include the sewer in its utility bill service.
“They (council members) don’t care about that, they care about whether I turned in my receipts,” Lewis said. “It’s asinine. It is absolutely crazy.”
Lewis began his tenure at Pima in 2004 as a heavy equipment operator in the Public Works division and was soon trained and certified in dealing with the swimming pool and the town’s sewer system.
During his nine-year stay in Public Works, he also became the Planning and Zoning administrator.
Lewis took a sojourn to be a heavy equipment operator for Freeport McMoRan Inc. for four years, but returned to the town in late 2016 as the Planning and Zoning administrator and then back into Public Works, handling the sewer, the pool, highways, streets, parks, and more.
When the position of town manager opened, Lewis was placed as the interim manager and after a search was selected to officially become the town manager on July 1, 2017, and recently earned a degree from Arizona State University in government management.
“I have said from day one that I screwed up on some of the accounting principles and documentation,” Lewis said. “That’s all been corrected; that’s all been fixed since the end of February . . . I want it to be fair. I want the entire financial standing of the audit to be known. I want everybody to know that we’re much better financially than we were four years ago and that we’re getting more work done than ever.”
With Mayor Fletcher and Barr steadfast behind him and Teeter and Hoopes just as determined to see him go, the decision to retain or terminate Lewis will likely rest on the vote of Vice-Mayor Dale Rogers.
On Thursday morning, the Graham County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Vance Bryce wrote a letter of support for Lewis.
“I am writing in support of Sean Lewis. I urge you to retain him as the Pima Town Manager. With new policies and procedures in place, the Council has given him clearer expectations and the tools to succeed. As you know, Sean works very hard for the town of Pima and the wider community. His sweat equity is immeasurable. The Council could never compensate him for the many hours he has given.
“I have made several serious mistakes in my life. My most experienced leaders at church, school, and work have shown their leadership by using my mistakes and helping me turn them into lessons and policies—ladder rungs helping me to become better and more proficient. In many cases, I didn’t have the tools to be a successful employee until my leaders gave me the opportunity to make big mistakes and come back better, stronger, and successful.”
“Sean Lewis is a huge asset to the town of Pima. He has put in years of hard work, ideas, service, and he is full of integrity. You owe him a chance to prove that he can do better. Please be an excellent leader by giving him the tools to become better and continue to serve our community.”
Sincerely,
Vance Bryce
Central resident
