OCALA, FL (352today.com) – Ocala businessman Clay Albright told the Ocala City Council at its regular meeting on Tuesday, September 15, 2026, that code enforcement has an “embedded cancerous culture” that has frightened the business community. He asked members to delay City Manager Pete Lee’s contract renewal rather than reward what he called a “lack of leadership.”
Albright said he had come to council weeks earlier angry about the code board and had since been “flooded with phone calls.” He told those callers he would not “carry the water jug” for them and that they needed to speak to their representatives themselves. Then, he said, he received another citation he called retaliation.
“This board right now, I would ask you to question what is happening within the city of Ocala leadership, and by that I mean I came in here fuming a few weeks ago about your code enforcement board,” Albright said. “The code enforcement department apparently has got such an embedded cancerous culture that it has frightened everybody in the business community. Since I came in here a few weeks ago, I have been flooded with phone calls, and I have told everybody in the business community I am not going to carry the water jug for you, you guys are going to have to stand up and speak your mind to your representatives. Well, that’s how it was left until I got another code enforcement letter today, that has to be nothing but more than retaliation.”
The latest notice, he said, was for weeds at a CVS site at 17th Street and Pine Avenue where he holds a ground lease and has no control over the corporate tenant. Due to weed overgrowth, he said that he now has “a clock ticking on me for about 30 days until the fines start.”
“This has got to stop. You all have got a city manager sitting here that’s up for renewal,” Albright said. Staff is being moved out of the division, he added, which only transfers the culture. “You’re playing a chess game, and it’s whack-a-mole. If the guy or the gal wasn’t doing their job at code enforcement, why do you move them to another department? This seems to be nothing but a problem. That’s a complete lack of planning leadership within the city.”
He urged a 60- to 90-day delay on renewing Lee’s contract.
“You have multiple issues going on underneath your city manager’s watch right now, and I would urge you to get these matters cleared up before you reward him with an extension of the contract. And I reflect that conversation with dozens of people in your business community that are scared to come up here and address this issue,” Albright stated.
Councilman James “Jim” Hilty, Sr. said he came prepared with a note that lined up with Albright’s criticism.
“I came prepared with a note, and it kind of lends into a little bit of what he is saying. But you know, I kind of looked at the review, and [was] a little bit astounded that he got such an exceeding report from council members when we sat here multiple times, talking about things that we had requested. Each individual member maybe requested something, and they didn’t get the answer. We had to wait and wait and ask again. If you look at my reviews, they reflect my feeling of the lack of leadership and management that we have,” Hilty said.
According to Hilty, eight downtown businesses closed in two years, which he said were ‘women-owned.’ “That’s maybe a point or not a point, but we had the businesses that were threatened downtown with the parking garage. It took them to come up here, and still he never went down to see them.”
“The light has not gone off in [Lee’s] office to go down and see what’s going on,” Hilty said.
“If the downtown is the hub, and that’s the leadership, we’re not seeing it at all,” Hilty said. He said he was voting no and wanted a search for someone with “the vision and the leadership because Ocala is growing, and we need to make a change to keep up with the growth.” He later noted that “a lot of [buisness owners are] afraid of retribution by coming up here.”
Councilman Barry Mansfield quickly said he “totally disagreed” with rejecting the contract but agreed with Albright on that division. “We need to make a change 100 percent,” Mansfield said. He and Lee have already been talking about rearranging code enforcement and dealing with “bad apples.”
“He’s doing a good job, 100 percent behind him,” Mansfield said. One employee’s failures do not make the whole organization bad management, he said. A real leader “walk[s] up to that problem and fix[es] it.” Code needs cleanup, he added. “Are there things that we need to clean up in code enforcement? Yes, I agree with you. Just for the act of, but we’ve got to clean them up. Firing him ain’t going to do it. I know we have good leadership.”
Councilman Jay Musleh said he “wholeheartedly support[s] Pete.” Code work is thankless, he said; the city probably had “the wrong man in the job,” but Lee has addressed it and “is going to get that ship moved in the right direction.” The division “rotates every now and then to where they’re not liked, and this is a time when they’re not liked.”
“I have not had anyone reach out to me and say, I don’t think your city manager is doing a good job,” Musleh said. He reminded colleagues that the last city manager was terminated “only a few years ago” and said he did not want shortsighted turnover. “Pete deserves a contract extension. I will vote in supporting.”
Council President Ire Bethea Sr. also said he would.
Councilwoman Kristen Dreyer said it is “very common to focus on the bad,” which “causes divorces; it causes breakups. It’s kind of what’s happening here.” Growth Services is “always the problem child department,” she said, regardless of who leads it. She also hears, “There’s never been a better time to do business with the city of Ocala than right now.”
“Code enforcement is one small portion that needs refining. We all agree, but don’t lose sight of everything else.”
Mayor Ben Marciano supported renewing Lee’s contract.
“As far as some of the businesses in Ocala with the grass growing, I’ve been one of the biggest sticklers on that. I think it’s important that we keep our community looking good. So I’m calling code enforcement on a lot of these things. Maybe I should be taking the blame on that. But also, I just say, show me someone who doesn’t have some faults. I think about the faults that I have,” Marciano said. “Overall, I think Pete’s job is to lead the city and lead the staff and create a good culture. I think that’s what we want, right? And I get to see day in and day out the culture and the leadership and the team and how hard these employees work for Pete. You know, again, I know he has some faults, but I think he’s working on them.”
Moving people in code enforcement “is the decision” a manager should make, the mayor said. “It’d be easy to Monday morning quarterback this and say, ‘Hey, the grass is always greener on the other side,’ and it never turns out that way. I think we have a good leader in Pete, and I think he deserves to be our city manager.”
The council voted 4-1 to renew Lee’s contract which raises his base salary from $258,558 to $267,608, an increase of $9,050, and includes a 21 percent city contribution to a Mission Square 401(a) plan (about $56,200 a year), a $750 monthly car allowance, a city phone, term life insurance equal to his salary rounded to even thousands plus $100,000, any citywide cost-of-living increase given to other employees, and, if terminated without cause, 20 weeks’ severance plus three months of administrative leave.