Why Should Delaware Care?
Dover City Council voted to fire its top administrative employee Monday night, capping off the latest chapter of local government controversy in Delaware’s capital city. A public hearing about City Manager Dave Hugg’s removal brought to light disagreements between city departments and friction between city employees and elected officials.
The Dover City Council officially ousted Dave Hugg from his position as city manager Monday night, ending a standoff between elected officials and the top administrative employee in Delaware’s capital city.
Council members voted to fire Hugg nearly a month after Spotlight Delaware first reported about city council’s move to place Hugg on paid leave — and the long-simmering tensions between him and council members that had finally boiled over.
Elected officials pointed to responsibilities not being carried out in a timely manner, such as failing to communicate constituent concerns efficiently, and Hugg’s alleged violation of executive session privacy rules as reasons for his termination.
Five council members voted in favor of firing Hugg. One councilwoman, Donyale Hall, abstained from voting. Two councilmen — Andre Boggerty and Roy Sudler — did not attend Monday’s meeting.
Boggerty and Sudler did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s request for comment about why they were absent.
The vote came after a first-of-its-kind public hearing for the city of Dover. Hugg — and the lawyer he hired to represent him — conducted an hours-long, trial-like display to make the case that the former city manager should keep his job.
Anthony Delcollo, Hugg’s lawyer, made statements, provided documents and called in a list of witnesses that included state lawmakers and Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen to testify about Hugg’s character and job performance.
No council members spoke during the hearing, but Dover City Solicitor Dan Griffith interjected periodically to correct what he described as inaccuracies in Delcollo’s arguments.
“I want to express my very deep disappointment that allegations were made about my performance that I was never consulted about, I had no chance to defend against, and that resulted in council somehow being convinced that the only answer was to basically tell me where the door was,” Hugg said during his testimony.
In the motion made to remove Hugg from his position, Council President Fred Neil said his termination would be “effective immediately.”
Sharon Duca, the assistant city manager under Hugg, has been filling in for him since his leave began in early March. It is unclear whether Duca will be appointed the permanent city manager, or if the city will conduct an external search for a permanent replacement.
An unprecedented public hearing
Dover’s charter outlines that a city manager must be given a public hearing and a written statement of the reasons for their removal before the city council can take a vote to remove them from the position.
But a number of Dover leaders told Spotlight Delaware in the weeks leading up to Hugg’s hearing that they did not know what it would actually look like. Dover had never held this type of public hearing, they said.
At the hearing’s outset, Griffith, the city solicitor, read from a prepared statement. Hugg could have chosen not to have a hearing at all, or to have one behind closed doors, Griffith said. But Hugg elected to have the discussion be held publicly.
Griffith’s speech was consistent with sentiments that Delcollo, Hugg’s attorney, shared with Spotlight Delaware last month.
“As Mr. Hugg was not provided any information regarding purported wrongdoing or performance issues prior to being advised that the City felt it was time to move on from his employment, our client looks forward to the opportunity to present his position in this hearing,” Delcollo said at the time.
Laying out the arguments
The hearing was the first time the city council’s written statement of reasons for ousting Hugg was shared publicly — and the first time since he was placed on leave that Hugg defended his job performance. Delcollo used the document as a roadmap for his presentation, attempting to undercut council members’ reasoning along the way.
One of Delcollo’s main arguments was the statement contained a “glaring dearth of information.”
He said the letter lacked specific details, like when council members were claiming Hugg withheld information from them, or when he violated public meeting laws by disclosing information that had been discussed in executive session.
Delcollo also homed in on the 17 complaint letters about the People’s Church that Hugg allegedly never shared with city council. City officials cited those letters to Spotlight Delaware in March as a reason for Hugg’s removal.
Hugg testified that has never seen those complaint letters. He never would have kept vital information like that from city council, he said.
Delcollo also called five witnesses to answer questions about Hugg’s character and professional abilities. He read six letters from other witnesses also in support of Hugg.
Most of the witnesses were Kent County-area leaders who have worked with Hugg in various capacities, including Levy Court President Joanne Masten, State Rep. Bill Bush (D-Dover) and former State Parks Director Charles Salkin.
Dover Mayor Robin Christiansen also testified, along with Downtown Dover Partnership leaders Diane Laird and Ken Anderson, who work closely with the city government on its revitalization plan.
Delcollo brought Hugg up to the witness stand for about an hour of the hearing. Together they went through all the allegations included in the statement of reasons.
In addition to refuting the claim about the People’s Church letters, Delcollo and Hugg also rebuffed claims the former city manager fostered a hostile work environment, allowed for the misallocation of city funds and violated both executive session and HIPAA rules by disclosing sensitive information about a former city employee.
Hugg said he reviewed his city personnel file after being placed on leave. None of these allegations were listed there, leading him to believe that council members came up with the incidents when they decided they wanted him out.
He said he was called into a meeting on Feb. 9, in which Neilm the council president, and Council Members Boggerty and Gerald Rocha told him they wanted him to either retire, resign or be fired.
“It’s pretty obvious to me that there was an effort being made to push me out the door, get me to leave and claim it was my decision,” Hugg said.
Hugg added that he asked the city council members present at that meeting why they wanted him gone. They pointed to his age as the driving factor — Hugg is 83.
When casting his vote to remove Hugg, Neil denied the claim that age played a role. Neil himself is 92, he said from the dais, so “age was not a factor.”
How did we get here?
City council members provided limited insight into their reasons for ousting Hugg during Monday’s public hearing.
While Neil gave a brief statement arguing it was Hugg’s performance, not his age, that led to this decision, other council members said their votes were based on the arguments outlined in their statement of reasons.
Despite their vague explanations at Monday night’s vote, multiple city officials told Spotlight Delaware in mid-March that long-simmering tensions between Hugg and city council members boiled over in recent months, leading to council’s decision to remove him.
The officials — who spoke at the time on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations — said council members had grown tired of Hugg not properly communicating with them about relevant issues, leaving city council “blindsided” when matters were brought to their attention months later.
Two officials specifically referenced a recent controversy surrounding city council’s decision not to allocate money to the People’s Church homeless shelter as illustrative of the dynamic with Hugg.
The officials said Hugg failed to inform council members for months about a series of complaint letters the city received about the shelter, along with a threat of legal action from a neighboring resident.
Delcollo said during his closing statement that he took serious issue with city officials giving information to Spotlight Delaware about the reasons for Hugg’s removal before Hugg himself had been provided any explanation, and before the public hearing was conducted.
He said he would look into “why it seemed appropriate for whomever did provide those comments to opine publicly about a matter the hearing for which had not yet been conducted,” if “this matter has to proceed further.”
Delcollo did not respond to Spotlight Delaware’s comments following the hearing about what the “matter having to proceed further” might look like, and whether he plans to sue the city over Hugg’s firing.
Hugg served as the Dover City Manager for about four years, beginning in early 2022. He first joined the city’s planning department on a contracted basis in 2017, but ended up staying on and rising the ranks to the role of city manager over the next five years.
Before taking the contracted role with the city of Dover, Hugg served as Smyrna’s town manager for 14 years, and was said to be retiring when he stepped down from that position in late 2016, according to reporting from the Daily State News.
