WHITE SPRINGS, Fla. — Following the appointment of a former fired employee to the town council, Stacy Tebo resigned last week as White Springs’ town manager.

Tebo submitted her letter of resignation Oct. 9 following the council’s appointment of Anita Rivers to fill a vacancy on the council Oct. 8.

“As evidenced by the appointment last night of a disgruntled former employee whom I terminated for theft, Anita Rivers, the current Council does not have the best interests of the White Springs citizens at heart,” Tebo wrote in her resignation letter, stating her last date would be Nov. 8.

At the council’s Oct. 8 meeting, Tebo voiced her concerns with Rivers as a council member, providing evidence that Tebo said showed Rivers had shorted the town money by waiving fees on her own late utility bills and reinstating the service without permission from superiors. Tebo fired Rivers in May 2017.

Rivers has since filed a harassment complaint against the town manager, adding “I still want the complaint in her permanent file.”

Tebo was hired as the town manager in September 2015. Last December, the council approved a new two-year contract with Tebo to remain in that position.

But since that contract was approved, the council has changed with Rhett Bullard not seeking re-election and Spencer Lofton recently resigning after moving.

Tebo said those changes, along with the re-election in 2018 of Helen Miller, now the town’s mayor, made the situation “untenable.”

“Since her return to Council, she has aimed to retaliate against me for notifying the Council in May of 2017 of her misdeeds,” Tebo said of Miller, who had her seat forfeited by the council in October 2017 following a June review and Tebo’s declaration that May that Miller was a “rogue councilwoman.

“Over time, the hostility and retaliation has escalated and become untenable as the composition of the Council has changed.”

That change continued with Rivers’ appointment.

Tebo said in her resignation letter that she always looked out for the best interests of the town and worked with the idea of being a good steward of the town’s assets but it has become “ever more challenging by the day as the Council does not support staff.”

And that is a concern Tebo leaves with.

“We have dedicated hard-working employees, and their morale has suffered from the criticism of the Council,” she wrote in closing the letter. “I will miss working with them, and I hope that in the future the Council appreciates them and the value they bring to the Town of White Springs.”