Carolyn DiPaoloGuyton takes the council gavel, Evans secures a six-figure buyout and former City Manager Wilkins returns.
Riviera Beach City Council members shuffled the city power structure Wednesday night by striking a deal with their departing city manager, hiring a temporary replacement and installing new council leadership.
The big winner was Council Member Bruce Guyton. On Wednesday, he ascended to the chair of the council, successfully nominated Council Member Glen Spiritis as his vice chair and presided over the final hours of City Manager Jonathan Evans’ tenure.
On a motion by Council Member Shirley Lanier, members voted to pay Evans $86,196 in unused PTO and salary through the end of his contract on July 13.
They also gave Evans $100,000 to secure his assurance that he would not sue them. The vote was 4-1 with Guyton voting no.
The separation agreement came after an hour of public comment and council discussion followed by a brief recess for Evans to consult his lawyer.
Lanier initially argued that Evans should work until the end of his contract, but the city manager agreed with Guyton that it would be best for all if he stepped down Wednesday night.
She later made the motion to include the $100,000 Evans asked for, she said, to put an end to this chapter of city business.
“Let us just be done with this,” she said, “so we don’t have anything two months from now in the newspapers saying Mr. Evans is suing us.”
Wednesday’s action came 10 days after Guyton drove a majority vote of the council not to renew Evans’ four-year contract.
New council chair and vice chair
Earlier Wednesday, Spiritis nominated Guyton to be chair of the council, a position he won on a 3-2 vote with Lanier and KaShamba Miller-Anderson voting no.
Guyton had lobbied to get the topic on the agenda even though, traditionally, Riviera Beach’s council selects leadership only during election years. He replaces Lanier, who served as chair since the 2025 election.
His public service career includes two terms on the Riviera Beach City Council in the 1990s and from 2013 to 2016.
In 2017, Guyton pleaded guilty and paid a $500 fine to settle a misdemeanor charge under Florida’s Sunshine Law.
Last year, he was elected to his fourth City Council term.
Once he had the chair’s gavel in hand Wednesday, Guyton nominated Spiritis as vice chair, and he won on the same 3-2 split. Spiritis replaces Miller-Anderson.
Guyton and Spiritis also won votes to run the meetings when the council operates as the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency Board. As she did with every reorganizing vote Wednesday, Fercella Davis Panier voted with them, giving them a 3-2 majority.
“They did a good job in this capacity,” Guyton said about Lanier and Miller-Anderson, “and now it’s going to be new leadership, and we’re going to keep the movement going.”
New temporary city manager
The discussion of Evans’ separation agreement came at the end of the meeting. But after the final vote, around 10 pm, Guyton asked members to add one more item: choosing an interim city manager.
Spiritis made a motion to hire former City Manager Bill Wilkins at a salary of up to $83,333 for up to four months.
Guyton invited Wilkins, who watched the meeting from the audience, to the podium.
Wilkins outlined his government experience, including serving as Riviera Beach’s city manager from 1979 to 1987. He said he helped create the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency, its MEAHOP program designed to increase affordable and workforce housing and that he advocated for improvements to the water plant.
Wilkins also served as an assistant Palm Beach County administrator for 10 years. He returned to Riviera Beach as city manager before departing again in 2008.
“I am not a puppet,” Wilkins said. “I am not a yes man.”
Spiritis’ motion to hire Wilkins, effective Thursday, passed 4-1 with Miller-Anderson voting no.
“I know what the former city manager is going through,” Wilkins said, referring to Evans, “because I was fired in 1987 as a result of a recall.”
Evans told council members after the votes, “There will never be another Riviera Beach for me. It will always be the best job that I ever had in my entire life.
“And for the next person that has the opportunity to serve, Godspeed and God bless you. I left Advil and Excedrin in my office. And some small, multidenominational little Jesuses. Because you’re going to need them.”
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