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Accused Of ‘Gross Negligence,’ Century Employee Defends Record Before Council
September 17, 2026
This week, the Century Town Council tabled action on firing a street department employee for “gross negligence” and “causing monetary and hardship with citizens”.
The town charter requires the mayor to hire, and fire, employees only after getting approval from the town council. And over recent years, there has been a lot of tension and even a stalemate between the mayor and council over hiring employees. The mayor can’t hire, or fire employees without council approval, even down to the lowest-level employee.
In 2024, voters were asked to change the charter to expand the mayor’s powers to make employment decisions for all employees, except the town clerk, town attorney and town manager. The charter amendment failed, with 62.09% voting against and 37.91% agreeing.
That left the town council responsible for hearing the request to terminate Ricardo Dortch, who was in attendance at the meeting.
An agenda item accused Dortch of three offenses and requested his termination:
- Driving a mower in reverse on Highway 4 to blow clippings off the roadway, followed by a citizen complaint that she nearly hit the employee.
- Directing mower debris towards homes and cars while mowing, leading to the town paying to replace a broken storm door and a broken vehicle passenger window.
- When directed to remove two specific water meters, the town alleged he removed the wrong meters, leaving a gas station without water for two days and “a gentleman in a wheelchair with dementia” without water for over 24 hours.
Dortch, who was hired in April 2025, chose to stand before the council and defend himself, saying the reverse lawnmower incident on Highway 4 actually involved a prison work release inmate that he was supervising. He said the broken windows were his fault.
“The window I won’t argue with,” he said. “That’s one window out of 450 windows in Century.”
Council member John Bass questioned if all accusations against Dortch had been properly documented and if he had been properly trained after any incident during his tenure. He also questioned why the council was not given more documentation.
“I don’t know that we necessarily need to get into the weeds and specifics for legal implications,” Town Manager Dave Murzin said. “I can certainly talk to people offline about that, but I would be hesitant to expound.”
“The employee was properly trained and instructed multiple times,” Murzin said.
“I want to make sure the employee was properly trained,” Bass said.
“I guarantee you I would not bring things before this council without executing those steps,” Murzin said.
“If we’d like to address that in some executive session where the newspapers and the public are not present, we would probably need to do that.”
Under Florida’s Sunshine Law, personnel files for public-sector employees are generally open to the public, with only a few statutory exemptions such as social security numbers and medical records.
Ultimately, council member Sparkie Harrison made a motion, which died for lack of a second, to terminate Dortch. A Bass motion passed to table action until the council’s next regular meeting on October 6 to allow time to review documentation. Harrison voted against the postponement.
Dortch will remain on paid administrative leave pending any further action at that meeting.
NorthEscambia.com photo, click to enlarge.
Comments
9 Responses to “Accused Of ‘Gross Negligence,’ Century Employee Defends Record Before Council”
He deserves to work in a better environment anyways.
This man is trying to make an honest living for his wife and 3 small children. I have a question how in the world are you suppose to cut grass I was always taught toward the road away from houses but I reckon that wasn’t good enough. This man has put up with other employees and bosses being disrespectful to him all the time. Really he’s too good to be working for the town of century
I don’t expect anything less from Century. Obviously, and over the years, it’s been a failure. I guess you can’t blame them for trying but this is another wrong turn.
I have a 4 year old who is severely traumatized because of a person mowing “directing debris” toward the road as we were passing. It slung up a rock that hit and shattered our rear window (sounded like an explosion) and then as glass was raining down on her, the rock hit her too!!!
I don’t care about a broken window. I’d rather break a little glass than break a human’s life.
Pass an ordinance that the town administrator hires and fires.
Reading the list of allegations answers a lot of questions about what Century considers to be a priority and how they are dealt with. Sounds like much ado about nothing. How does one mow Mr. Town Manager? Towards properties or traffic that may be going by? Would some of these same folks complaining be doing so if the grass had been left out on the roadway? City government has to be involved in what should have been handled by an employee and their first line supervisor–no wonder Century continues to make headlines for the wrong reasons.
Wow you can’t even get rid of poor performing employees. I wish I had a job like that, after the 3rd offense I would be in the unemployment line working any other job.
I have noticed that the mowers do not have or are not using rock guards or shields to keep forming slinging rocks etc.
Just saying
This set of procedures are going to cost the Town of Century one day. Florida is a right to work State. It should not be this difficult to hire and fire people.