FAIRHOPE, Alabama—The shake-up at City Hall continued this month with the resignation of City Administrator Gregg Mims from the city’s top staff position.

“I don’t know the facts,” outgoing Council President Lonnie Mixon said Friday. “I do know Gregg told me he was leaving. I figured they were going to get rid of him, but not how or when.”

Mims said Friday he had met with Mayor Tim Kant the first week of October and based on that meeting decided to step down, working through Oct. 5.

“He indicated to me when we met that he had met with all the new council members, and three of the four new council members were in favor of eliminating the city administrator job,” Mims said. “He said it was the intention of three of the four new members to eliminate the job, and it was also his intention to eliminate the job.”

As the highest paid employee in the city and second only to the mayor in authority, Mims’ resignation follows those last month of former Police Chief Bill Press and Assistant Chief Terry Sanders.

All three resignations came after the Sept. 11 city election, which ushered out all incumbents but one and brought in a new council more aligned with Kant. The new council was expected to appoint a new chief and eliminate the assistant chief and city administrator positions.

“I did leave the city based on that fact that they were going to abolish my position,” Mims said Friday.

Kant and the outgoing council members often butted heads over a range of issues the past four years, including the creation by the council in 2009 of the city administrator and assistant chief positions and

appointment of those top staffers by the council.

The creation of those positions, as well as the appointment of Mims to the city administrator job, for which no other candidate was considered, was seen as a controversial move in the city, resulting in a raucous council meeting in July 2009 with heckling of the decisions by some audience members in a packed council chambers.

At a meeting Thursday of Kant and the newly elected council, the group discussed the agenda for the council’s organizational meeting on Nov. 5, which includes a proposed ordinance to repeal the city administrator position.

Both Kant and Councilman-elect Jack Burrell said after Thursday’s meeting they believed eliminating the city administrator position would put Mims out of a job with the city, but neither said Mims had resigned three weeks earlier.

Councilman-elect Kevin Boone, whom Kant said at Thursday’s meeting had sponsored the ordinance to eliminate the city administrator job, took a different view about eliminating that position.

“He will have a job until we decide what to do with him,” Boone said Thursday.

The Courier learned Friday of Mims’ resignation when calling City Hall to discuss the proposed ordinance to eliminate his job with him and was told, “Gregg doesn’t work here anymore.”

Kant could not be reached for comment by deadline.

Promoted to the city’s newly created top staff position in July 2009, Mims’ salary was increased from $89,400 to $110,000. He had joined the city about three years earlier as head of the planning department and later promoted to general superintendent.

“I worked at the city for over six and a half years and I am thankful for the time I spent working for Fairhope,” Mims said. “I am proud of the things that I was involved in and proud of working with two different groups of council members and the many good people in Fairhope. I don’t have any regrets. God’s always opened one positive door after another for me, and I’m excited about my future.”