The
Deltona
City Manager is accused of making an anti-Semitic comment during a recent meeting. Faith Miller allegedly made the comment in front of a Jewish employee of one of the city’s contractors.
That contractor has now filed a lawsuit claiming the city wrongly terminated a contract it had with the city after the contractor asked for a reprimand against the city manager.
Biddle and Associates Incorporated was originally hired to audit the city’s service providers to find billing mistakes.
“Their job was to find savings that would benefit the tax payers. And they were doing their job well. I don’t believe there was any evidence they were not doing their job,” said Clay Townsend, an attorney for Biddle & Associates.
However, just before the city canceled its contract the working relationship started to go bad.
“When it was said, the room was so quiet. It was so quiet you could hear a pin drop,” said Jay Goldberg, with Biddle & Associates.
Both the city and the contractor say they are open to resolving the matter without legal action. If they do not, Deltona’s taxpayers could be the ones who will ultimately have to pay.
Biddle and Associates claims that Deltona City Manager Faith Miller said, “If we’re going to try and Jew down our vendors, why even go through a request for purchase process?”
Jay Goldberg, who is Jewish, says he was in the room at the time.
“I felt uncomfortable. I felt it was very uncalled for statement and I walked out of the room,” said Goldberg.
Eyewitness News tried to contact the city manager but we were unable to reach her. The city attorney says the contract was canceled because there was a provision in the contract that allows the city to cancel the contract when the services are no longer needed.
The city says the alleged comment is a separate incident altogether.
Source:
http://www.wftv.com/
