City Manager Offered Chance to Voluntarily Resign

After an executive session following Monday night's Johns Creek City Council meeting, the council reconvened to announce that City Manager John Kachmar would be resigning his post.

According to a statement posted on the city's website, "The City Council voted 4-2 to authorize the mayor and city attorneys to negotiate his "voluntary resignation."

The city has proposed a six-month severance package at the time a new city manager is hired but no later than March 1, whichever comes first.

The resignation comes on the heals of an Oct. 7, 2013 incident involving a verbal altercation with Jerry Bush, a Johns Creek resident. 

Kelly Stewart and Cori Davenport voted against giving Kachmar any form of severance package.

"The City of Johns Creek should not have to pay for that," said Stewart who said a six-month severance would be roughly $138,000. "It's a very black and white issue for me. Why should he be rewarded for this? He doesn't deserve an easy way out."

But Mayor Bodker and Council members Lenny Zaprowski, Brad Raffensperger and Ivan Figueroa looked at the option as the best for the city.

'We didn't have a lot of good options," said Raffensperger. "There were only three options: 1, continue his employment, 2, work out some time of settlement and close the chapter, or 3, choose an out-right termination."

Raffensperger said the choice to terminate without severance pay was not a good option as it would drag out the process with greater financial exposure to the city.

"There was really only one good choice," said Raffensperger. "This option allowed us to have closure, to put a lot of issues behind. It was a positive move over a very negative situation."

But Stewart doesn't see that as a good enough reason.

"The argument for giving him severance pay was that we don't want a long drawn out court case. We don't want the city to have a black eye," said Stewart.

"They didn't think of that when they voted to have the mayor investigated."

Kachmar has yet to accept the severance pay offer, he and his attorney are in settlement discussions with two attorneys who are representing the city.

Editor's note: Patch attempted to reach Mr. Kachmar for his comments for this story but we were not able to reach him by deadline for this story.

Read also:

No Charges Brought in Kachmar Dispute With Resident

Kachmar to Receive Written Reprimand for incident

Mayor Bodker Calls for City Manager's Resignation

City Manager Responds to Call for His Resignation

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