What is going on in Crystal River?

I don't talk about the cities too often, but when something big is happening, it gets my attention.

That is the case here. Over the last weekend, I was told that there is movement behind the scenes to remove Audra Curts as the city manager of Crystal River. Obviously, that got my attention... so off to do what I do best... research.

A few records requests later and a picture is coming together. The full picture won't be here today as it goes pretty deep and more records to get, but I can give the surface stuff and fill in the rest later.

This all started back in July at the Budget Workshop on July 31, 2025. There, Council member Chris Ensing inquired about a performance evaluation for Ms Curts. There was also discussion to set a special meeting for this on August 25, 2025 at 5pm. Video is not available for that meeting, so I could not get the full discussion, but here are the minutes.

That meeting in August did not take place for some reason. I do not see anywhere in the minutes in the following meeting that this item was pulled from consideration, but, as you will see, there was no plan in place for this review yet.

Fast forward to the September 8th meeting and the evaluation comes up again. Mr Batsel addresses it and basically says that he is working with HR to create the form and will be emailing it out to council members shortly.

That email goes out to council members for review on September 10th.

At the meeting on October 13, the evaluation came up again for discussion.

The discussion then centered on a timeline to get the evaluation forms turned in. Mr Ensing brought up the idea of setting a date to get all of them turned in at the same time. Ms Satchell mentioned she had just gotten hers and it will take a bit of time to get it done. Ms Frink also suggested setting a firm date. Ms Satchell said she would have it by the next meeting. Mr Ensing and Ms Frink kept hammering the point that they wanted to set a deadline... the discussion would slow a bit... and then they are back again with the deadline. They appear really antsy to get these evaluations turned in and the process going.

As you will see later, Mr Ensing signed his on October 3rd. Ms Frink signed hers on October 5th. They were already completed by this meeting.

The exchange is really interesting. Worth the 4 min watch.

They decided on a October 20 deadline at noon.

Later in the meeting, under her agenda, Ms Satchell asked about the evaluation process and how many past evaluations have gone through this process. Mr Ensing mentioned that he brought up the evaluation as a new council member and referenced that it is part of Ms Curts' contract. Ms Satchell asked if this was the first time utilizing this process for a city manager review. Mr Batsel said that it was and that he worked with HR to create it. Ms Satchell reiterated she will have it done Monday.

Two citizens got up and questioned the process regarding the evaluation. Mr Batsel admitted it was a bit scattered as it was their first time doing this.

I get wanting to do the evaluations, but why the rush to do it so quickly?

The answer: They (Ms Frink and Mr Ensing) are eager to fire her as you will see in a bit.

As part of this process, Ms Curts had to do a self evaluation. She turned this in on October 2nd.

The evaluation forms are too long to post here (7-8+ pages), but I will link them for you.

Ms Curts' self evaluation

Ms Frink's evaluation of Ms Curts

Mr Ensing's evaluation of Ms Curts

Mr Holmes' evaluation of Ms Curts

Ms Satchell's evaluation of Ms Curts

Interesting observation... No review from Mayor Joe Meek. The Chronicle did report that Mayor Meek, Ms Curts and Mr Batsel met on Friday morning to discuss her employment and that later she took a personal day for the rest of the day.

If he has a vote in terminating her (he does), why is he also not required to submit a review? Seems odd. Maybe he does it later, but with the meeting coming Monday and his not currently not included in the agenda packet with the others, is it fair to Ms Curts to see it for the first time at the meeting? Worth a question.

One thing I noticed in her self review, Ms Curts critiques herself. She mentions several places that she needs to improve. Things like staff building/development, acknowledged trust issues when she promoted another staff member, improvement on looking for creative revenue sources, a fractured relationship with one council member that she needs to continue to work on, and so on.

She references a lot of issues she inherited from the fallout of former city manager Mr Baber and acknowledged that she could do better in trying to shape the organization following those issues.

She seemed to be very fair in her assessment and open to things she could work on. It certainly was not a "look at how awesome I am" type of self evaluation.

One thing that stands out a bit.

Interesting. Honestly, I have not had time to go back and watch every council meeting, but it is interesting that she is telling her bosses that there is a problem in the way THEY approach staff issues.

Seems to me that the underlying implication here is that council members are meddling with staff.

This is potentially referenced in the September 8, 2025 meeting by Mr Holmes when he brings up issues regarding Charter Sections 3.08c, 3.09 and 6.04, which largely relate to council actions regarding staff.

Here are the sections of the City Charter. I have highlighted the relevant sections.

Umm.. Those are pretty big things to bring up in a council meeting as they all apply to behaviors of council members. This to me shows that Mr Holmes believes there are potential issues with council members doing things they should not be doing, otherwise, why bring it up at a meeting? Just an annual reminder? Nope, not buying it.

Of note... this has not yet come back to a meeting, but there was a public records request looking for cell phone text messages. Not sure if it is related, but the timing suggests that it is. I did not see any response email to this, but will follow up on it.

Next are the council member reviews. These are interesting. You have two that are very positive (Satchell and Holmes). Then you have two that are very harsh (Frink and Ensing).

There are 9 evaluation questions and the council members were asked to rate each section 1 to 5, with 5 being "Exceeds Expectations" and 1 being "Does not Meet Expectations".

The 9 categories are:

1) MANAGEMENT OF THE ORGANIZATION
2) EXECUTION OF POLICY
3) FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT
4) RELATIONS WITH THE COUNCIL
5) COMMUNITY RELATIONS AND ENGAGEMENT
6) COMMUNICATIONS
7) LEADERSHIP
8) PROFESSIONALISM
9) VISION, INITIATIVE, PLAN EXECUTION

Ms Frink gave Ms Curts an overall rating of 1.11... Giving her all 1's except for "Financial Management" which she gave her a 2... keep in mind Ms Curts is a CPA.

Mr Ensing gave her an overall rating of 1.88. His highest rating of her was a 3 for "Financial Management" and "Vision, Initiative, Plan Execution".

Wow... Pretty bad right?

In comparison, Mr Holmes gave her an overall rating of 4.44.

Ms Satchell gave her an overall rating of 4.77. Worth noting, her lowest review section was a 3 for "Communication" and cited an issue where Ms Curts gave Ms Satchell incorrect information on an issue.

Umm.. HUGE difference.

How in the world can you have 4 people provide a review of the same employee and they be THAT far off? Personal reasons perhaps? Sure, it is possible for 4 separate people to have 4 unique views of the same individual, but for two of them to not hear anything from staff regarding Ms Curts? Seems odd.

I'll got into reviews on a separate day, but for now, a brief overview. You can read them yourself at the links above.

Mr Ensing does mention that he had "reports" of her essentially having bad relationships with staff, businesses and organizations in the city. He mentions this a few different times.

I have reached out for records of these reports. I presume there would be emails, texts, phone calls, etc for some of these and those would be public record. I will report back on what I find.

Ms Frink had similar comments in her review. Issues with staff, both current and former. She also references the first email, you will see below, that was sent (and includes it in her review paperwork). She makes it a point to say that the evidence of all these things make it unlikely that she can improve.

Ms Frink also mentions a specific incident where Ms Curts sent an email to all council members in December of 2024 seeking approval of funding for the asbestos removal on the 579 building. In this email, she wants council members to reply "approve" or "deny". If they all say "approve" she will move forward with it and add it to the next agenda. Important to note that the emails were sent to each individually and not together.

Ms Frink suggests that this violates sunshine law and recommends termination on that issue.

Question... If this was this big of an issue that could result in termination, why wait until October 2025? She states that the matter warrants review by the County Attorney. So why not say that at any point prior to this review? It is such an issue that she waited to mention it for 10 months? If it happened before, I did not see it.

Did Batsel review this and provide Ms Frink or Ms Curts with an opinion? If not, why not? If so, why is that not included too?

Key takeaway here is severance package of Ms Curts. If terminated prior to March 23 2025, she would get 10 weeks paid severance. If fired after then, she will get 20.

Assuming the firing is not a "Cause". If not convicted for this, not sure she can be fired for cause on this issue alone.

Ms Frink goes on to explain several more instances she feels Ms Curts fails at doing. She is also consistent in stating that no remedy exists to fix any of these issues. They are beyond fixing.

And what about Mayor Meek? Why did he not turn in a review? He does have a vote in the matter, so I would think he would have a review. As mentioned, he met with her on Friday morning, so perhaps he expressed his views there, but one would think he would be required to submit one as well if he will have a say in determining her job status.

Here is where things start to get interesting.

There were emails sent by "City Employees" from an email address "crystalriver070323@gmail.com". The key thing here is the date. It is the date the city turned 100 years old.

Here is a picture celebrating the day taken by Patrick Connolly from the Orlando Sentinel.

I have seen 3 emails sent by this email address to council members and mayor Meek.

Mayor Meek first received this on September 15th after what looks like a failed attempt to send it due to spelling error in the email. Not sure if it was delivered, but I assume it was since it was provided to me in a public records request.

Then, on September 22nd at 9:53pm, the same email is sent to council members and Mayor Meek individually, starting with an email to Ms Frink.

Same contents as the first email as it was copy/paste. Perhaps Mayor Meek did not respond (I did not see on in public records) and they felt the need to send to everyone individually.

This email was forwarded to Mr Batsel by Ms Frink and Mr Holmes who responded on September 25th.

Mr Batsel then forwarded it to Ms Curts to make her aware. He noted the city would not take any action on an anonymous email. Makes sense... if they did, the floodgates will open to anonymous emails.

Mr Batsel receives a response later that day

Which is then forwarded to Ms Curts on October 1st

A 3rd email was sent on October 13th. This was sent to everyone at one time, so a change in strategy from sending it to them individually as they did with the first email.

This one is a lot more detailed than the previous ones. It also has a different format and tone. The first two didn't have too make line breaks... mostly just writing in one paragraph. This one obviously has a lot more breaks. It also comes across as more "educated". Look at the word choices. The descriptions are a little more in-depth.

I could be wrong, but to me, it feels like it is written by someone else. I did email the address asking if I can get some additional information, so we will see.

Mr Holmes responds back asking to meet with them. He receives a response from the email address suggesting to meet with employees one on one. I am not sure if those meetings took place or if anyone went to Mr Holmes.

Honestly, I am not sure what to believe with this. Is it possible that employees got together and told a fellow employee to speak out for them? Yes. Is it possible that the evaluations given by all four council members are completely accurate based on their dealings with Ms Curts? Yes.

Is it also possible that there are things going on behind the scenes and we do not have the full story? Also a yes.

This does sound a bit like Doug Baber's "resignation" in 2024. Remember, he had a lot of staffers complaining about him to the mayor and council members via email. He resigned and was given a 6 month consulting contract that paid out $36,000.

I have heard a lot of different things. I have had a lot of people reach out to me to provide information. I am in the process of piecing all of that together and having more conversations with more people. I have some digging to do this coming week.

So I am not ready to share any of that just yet.

What I do know is that come Monday, if nothing changes, Ms Curts will no longer be employed by the City of Crystal River as their City Manager. Who steps in to fill that spot? It is supposed to be Troy Slatterly, as he is the assistant City Manager, but will it be him or someone else the council decides on? We shall see. The City has an interesting history with City Managers here recently. Not sure who sees all of this and eagerly desires to be the next one. Time will certainly tell.