BELIZE CITY, Thurs. Oct. 3, 2019– The lawsuit for wrongful termination that was filed against Mayor Bernard Wagner and the Belize City Council by the former Belize City Administrator, Candice Miller, got underway in the Supreme Court of Justice Courtenay Abel this week.
Final arguments were made by the two sides today and Justice Abel has indicated that he will issue his ruling tomorrow, Friday, at 2:00 p.m.
Miller is seeking damages for wrongful termination in the region of half a million dollars, while the Belize City Council has counter-sued Miller for one million dollars that it lost due to her alleged dereliction of duty.
Miller, who was given a new 4-year contract (the City Council’s life is only 3 years) by the former Belize City Mayor Darrell Bradley just before the City Council elections, was terminated a few weeks after the People’s United Party (PUP) took over City Hall last year, following the March municipal elections.
By a unanimous vote, the City Council voted to terminate Miller. Prior to her termination, Miller was suspended for one month with her full salary. The City Council terminated Miller for dereliction of duty, which hinged on three principal grounds.
According to claims made by the present City Council, Miller had failed to do the necessary follow-up with a court judgment involving one of the city’s sanitation companies, Belize Waste Control Ltd., and that cost the council one million dollars, which it is attempting to recover in a separate lawsuit against Miller.
The second reason advanced for terminating her, according to the present City Council, is that Miller had failed to follow up on a $20,000 interest free loan that was given to Enrique Carballo, the chairman of the Mayors Association.
Miller did not follow up on the loan and as a consequence, Carballo’s loan remained unpaid for about one year.
The other issue that the City Council advanced as gross dereliction of duty was a payment of around $59,000 to Gilly Franklin for work that he did for the council. Franklin was paid the money without his work being vetted.
In her lawsuit, Miller is seeking damages of around a half a million dollars. She is being represented by attorney Magali Perdomo, while Mayor Wagner and the Belize City Council are being represented by attorney Anthony Sylvestre.
Several employees of the City Council took the witness stand in the case and gave testimony on behalf of the defendant, including the present City Administrator, Stephanie Lindo-Garbutt. Jules Vasquez, 7News director, gave testimony on behalf of the claimant in respect of an interview the Mayor gave to Vasquez’s station. The claimant, Candice Miller, and Mayor Bernard Wagner, were the primary witnesses to give evidence at the hearing.
After giving his evidence, Mayor Bernard Wagner was cross-examined at length by Perdomo, who tried to establish that her client was wrongfully dismissed.
Perdomo suggested that Miller had written a demand letter to Carballo for his delinquent loan, but Mayor Wagner pointed out to her that what she wrote Carballo was not a demand letter, and in any case, six months had already passed before Miller wrote Carballo about his loan.
“Is that the way to handle the people of Belize City’s money? The City Council is not a lending institution and Carballo is not even an employee of the Belize City Council”, Mayor Wagner pointed out.
In her closing arguments, Perdomo argued that the City Council has a Legal Department that should have looked after the Waste Control judgment.
Sylvestre argued in his final submission that Miller, as the City Administrator who had the day-to-day administration of the council, was supposed to look after the best interests of the council and should have made sure that the necessary court papers were filed on time.