After a couple weeks of rumors, and even alias-written e-mails to the media; it is now known that Joe Dunagan is out as General Manager of Danville’s David S. Palmer arena. But Arena Board Chair John Spezia says the action taken was rushed, done in Executive Session back on August 24th. Spezia says when Dunagan came in, he simply tried to get things in line. Spezia says what often happens next is quite common.
AUDIO: There was never any evaluations of employees or anything before Joe got there. And policies hadn’t been done. He cleaned up a huge mess, I mean a huge mess. And when you do that; you let people go, somebody’s not going to be happy. You know, they’re used to doing for 20 years what they want to do. And that’s anyplace.
Spezia says when it actually happened, the whole thing felt so rushed that he had to step up and make sure Dunagan received some kind of termination settlement.
AUDIO: I didn’t have any idea this was going to happen in executive session. But all of a sudden they come and, “We’re going to fire Joe.” And I mean, “C’mon man, are you kidding me?” And so I had to fight just to make sure he was going to get sound type of settlement out there. They were just going to terminate him completely.
Spezia says he has no idea when a successor to Dunagan might be named. The board’s next meeting is this coming Tuesday, September 13th, at 5:30. Spezia also confirmed that board vice-chair Scott Dowers resigned from the board earlier in the day, the same date that Dunagan was terminated.
Neuhoff Media was told earlier this week by a member of the arena board that the board would have no statement on this matter.
