Clearwater mayor shocks city council with sudden resignation — during meeting

Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard unexpectedly resigned Monday morning during the city council’s special budget session, expressing frustration with his colleagues’ plan to allocate $90 million for a new city hall and municipal services building, an expenditure he says would plunge the city into debt at a time when it's already spending $84 million on the Imagine Clearwater project.

“I’m having problems sitting here looking at this list and looking at the bottom line of a deficit of a quarter of a billion dollars,” Hibbard said, adding that the city needs to figure out “what the bucket is that we’re going to be drawing from, or if we’re willing to bond a certain percentage of this deficit.”

Hibbard continued to complain about the numbers, saying: “It’s very difficult to prioritize. You guys have different math than I do. I don’t know how you prioritize without determining how much of a financial commitment we’re willing to make, either through bonding or digging into reserves.”