Not exactly a profile in courage, Mayor. Clearwater Mayor Frank Hibbard quit his job in the middle of a city council meeting Monday. He surprised everyone with the move, including his wife, whom he called afterward.

Frank Hibbard is at odds with the majority of Clearwater City Council over fiscal management. Mayoral positions are typically non-partisan but voters usually know which party the candidate represents. In this case, Hibbard is conservative. The mayor resigned Monday because he said he just couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t even finish the council meeting. He said the decision to resign was one of the toughest decisions he’s ever made but he’s not the right man for the job now.

“I’m not the right leader for this council anymore,” Hibbard said. “I’m concerned about where the city is going because this is simple math and we’re not doing very well on the test.”

He later told television station WTSP that the council is spending recklessly.

“It was a 4-to-1 vote forward with what I believe is reckless spending,” he said to the outlet.

He went on to say he “always believed in making sacrifices for public service.” He’s reached his limit, though, he said, and resigned for his health, his family, and other reasons. You can see him packing up his bag as he offers his resignation in the video.

The problem seems to be that the city council wanted to approve funds for a new city hall and Hibbard thinks the money has a better use. The ironic part of this story is that Hibbard isn’t a newbie on the job. He served as mayor for eight years before he ran again in 2020. Now, three years into his term, he’s no longer able to handle the stress or pressure or disagreements with the city council or whatever it is.

Hibbard served eight years as mayor between 2004 and 2012 and was elected again in 2020 before resigning in the third year of his current term. He says one of city council’s top priorities is to build a new, $90 million city hall. It’s a proposal he strongly opposes, and it was being discussed when he packed his things and walked out of the workshop on Monday.

FOX 13’s Lloyd Sowers asked Hibbard what he believed the plan should be.

“I think city hall should go in our main library. We have 90,000 square feet there,” the now former mayor said.

Sorry, he looks like he just gave up because it got hard. Why wouldn’t he just stay and speak up for fiscal responsibility? Politicians have to learn how to handle it when their ideas are defeated and I doubt this is the first time Hibbard has faced opposition. C’mon, man.

He told a reporter that he would like to see more money spent on the police and fire departments. That’s a sensible goal, especially since people are moving into the area, as they are throughout Florida. “To me, these are the things the city should be focusing on, more than monuments,” he said. More taxpayers moving into the city means more tax dollars available to city officials. Hibbard cautioned that just because the city has money doesn’t mean it has to spend it.

Hibbard said he is proud of a massive waterfront development that is on track and it will be part of his legacy. Unfortunately for the mayor, his legacy will not be what he accomplished in his final term as mayor. It will be that he’ll be known as the guy who up and quit in the middle of a city council meeting. It’s not a good look. He looks impulsive and, frankly, irrational. He didn’t even give his wife a heads-up that he was going to quit during the meeting. That implies to me that it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. He snapped after that last vote on spending took place.

There will be a special meeting held by the Clearwater City Council next week. If it can’t decide how to replace Hibbard within 30 days, a special city election will be held. The man who quit out of a sense of indignation over city spending may force the city into a special election. That will cost the taxpayers some money.