Toccoa City Commissioners Fire City Manager

Toccoa City Commissioners fire City Manager Mike Jackson and are looking to the past for his replacement.

At a special called meeting this morning, city commissioners unanimously voted to terminate Jackson as city manager and announced the commission would vote on hiring former Toccoa City Manager, and current Franklin County Manager, Billy Morse, at the city commission’s regularly scheduled September 23 meeting, to replace Jackson as city manager.

Jackson first became interim Toccoa City Manager in August 2011.  He was hired to the City Manager’s position permanently on January 1, 2012.

Toccoa Mayor David Austin said the commission’s goal was to eventually bring someone in for the long term

“The goal, his (Jackson’s) goal, our goal, was to bring somebody in that would be on a permanent basis for a long term,” said Austin.  “We determined that Billy Morse, who had been the city manager here, would be the ideal candidate instead of bringing someone in and training them, here is someone who has already done the job, so we determined we would hire him.  Since Mr. Jackson had an indefinite contract, we asked him to resign, which he did not wish to do.  He chose to be terminated.”

Austin said Jackson’s termination was not a performance issue.

He added that Jackson provided what the city needed when he was hired just over two years ago.