Cape Coral City Council voted Monday night to terminate City Manager Michael Ilczyszyn's contract without cause, ending more than 20 years of his service with the city just hours before voters headed to the polls. Ilczyszyn's contract officially ended at 11:59 p.m. Monday, and he left the meeting before council members had even finished discussing his fate.
Mayor John Gunter made the motion to terminate Ilczyszyn's contract, according to the Cape Coral Breeze, and the council moved almost immediately to fill the vacancy. Gunter announced that Assistant to City Manager Maureen Buice would take over as interim city manager, telling colleagues she had worked side-by-side with Ilczyszyn and knew the city's inner workings, according to WINK News. Council member Joe Kilraine recommended Buice for the role before the vote, per the Breeze's reporting.
Not everyone on the dais agreed with the pick or the process. Council member Derrick Donnell opposed appointing Buice, saying he preferred one of the city's two sitting assistant city managers for the interim post instead. Rachel Kaduk, meanwhile, opposed terminating the city manager without giving the incoming council a chance to weigh in on the decision, and Keith Long questioned the timing of the motion and pressed for details on the ramifications of a without-cause termination.
Several Council Members Walked Out Before the Vote
The vote itself happened after an unusual exodus from the dais. Rachel Kaduk, Keith Long and Jennifer Nelson Lastra all left the meeting before the final tally, leaving at least five members to decide Ilczyszyn's fate. Of those who remained, John Gunter, Bill Steinke, Derrick Donnell and Joe Kilraine voted in favor of the termination, while Laurie Lehmann voted against the motion, per the Breeze.
Council member Bill Steinke said the city manager had faced controversy and criticism amid disputes over trust and confidence, the Breeze reports. Gunter, who lost his own re-election bid in the primary, said residents had already spoken through the election process. The meeting fell the day before Cape Coral's general election, timing the Breeze's report flagged directly in its own headline framing.
Severance Pay and a New Interim Salary
Ilczyszyn's 2023 employment agreement, on file with the City of Cape Coral, set his starting annual base salary at $285,000 when he was hired September 20, 2023. That same agreement entitles him to four months of base salary as severance, paid in a lump sum, for a without-cause termination by the council — a figure city representative Aleksandr Boksner confirmed at the meeting, according to the Breeze. The agreement also states that Ilczyszyn waives any rights under the City Charter or City Code pertaining to a without-cause termination in exchange for that severance.
Ilczyszyn's base salary was later reported at $336,984.65. Just over a year before his firing, Mayor Gunter had publicly praised his performance, giving him an overall evaluation score of 4.0 that Gunter called above average on the city's 1-to-5 scale. At that same 2025 meeting, Ilczyszyn asked that a roughly 7.25 percent raise be redirected toward family benefits rather than taken as a straight salary increase, the Breeze reported.
The council set Buice's interim salary at $290,000, roughly 10 percent above what current assistant city managers earn, who make $261,000, per the seed facts in the Breeze's reporting. It is a notable jump from the last time the city filled the top job on an interim basis: when Ilczyszyn himself was tapped as interim city manager years earlier after serving as public works director, his starting base salary was set at $220,000, according to WINK News.
Tension Had Simmered for Weeks
The firing did not come entirely out of nowhere. In the weeks before his termination, Ilczyszyn had apologized to city staff for not defending them against questions he considered out of line from council members during a budget hearing, according to a report from NewsBreak. Beyond that episode, the dossier of public reporting does not establish exactly why the council chose to act when it did, and the full terms and duration of Buice's interim appointment have not been detailed.
The shake-up lands at a pivotal moment for Cape Coral's city government. The council meeting took place the day before a municipal election that will fill four of the eight council seats, with Jennifer Nelson Lastra standing as the only incumbent on the ballot, Bill Steinke and Keith Long both having opted not to seek re-election. The city was already guaranteed at least three new council members heading into the vote. In the mayoral race, Lisa Cohen-Adkinson and Richard Erickson advanced to the general election out of a six-candidate field, with Gunter himself eliminated in the primary.
