FERNANDINA BEACH, Fla. — At the end of Tuesday’s Fernandina Beach city commission meeting, commissioners chose to vote out Tammi Bach as the city’s attorney after being on the job for 17 years.

“After careful consideration of the city’s future needs, and due to my lack of confidence in trust in our current city attorney, I have decided to ask my fellow commissioners in the form of a motion, to pursue a new direction for legal representation,” Commissioner Tim Poynter said during the meeting. “This decision reflects my commitment to aligning our resources with evolving priorities and ensuring the best possible outcome for our community.”

Poynter further stated that he moves to terminate Bach’s employment agreement without cause by giving her 30 days advance written notice in accordance with a section of her contract. He also mentioned in the motion to instruct the City Manager Sarah Campbell and the city’s human resources director to “immediately begin the process to find a replacement and put the city attorney (Bach) on administrative leave during the 30-day notification period.”

Before the commissioners gave their vote, Commissioner Darron Ayscue made a comparison of what was proposed to be done to Bach, to the firing of Dale Martin, something he opposed. Martin was the city manager of Fernandina Beach from December 2015 to March 2023.

“I’ve said it openly and very publicly that I did not believe that that is how that should have happened,” he said. “It was wrong the way that it was done… I’ve said it many times. We should have handled that situation infinitely better than we did. And what we’re doing now is the exact same thing that happened with Dale Martin, exactly. You know, no workshop, no nothing, just terminate at the end of the meeting with no further discussion.”

Ayscue then voted no on the motion, saying it’s an “absolute mistake” how the commissioners didn’t learn “how to properly handle our charter officers and their employment.”

In response to Ayscue, Poyner said: “Just to bring this to a little clarity, we unfortunately do not get to discuss our feelings towards our fellow commissioners. This is the only format that we have. And to have workshops and that type of stuff is… I think disingenuous in itself.”

Ayscue was the only commissioner to vote no on Poynter’s motion, as the final vote was 4-1.

“I think the community and the city will do well to change and get the politics out the legal department,” Poynter said.