Atlantic Beach City Manager Bill Killingsworth | City of Atlantic Beach
Published on January 7, 2026 at 4:28 pm
Free local news and info, in your inbox at 6 a.m. M-F. Sign up for the Jacksonville Today newsletter.
Atlantic Beach City Manager Bill Killingsworth voluntarily stepped down during a special meeting Tuesday night.
Killingsworth leaves after working as city manager since Sept. 26, 2023, after a decade as Jacksonville’s planning and development director.
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
At the start of the meeting, Killingsworth said he came to the decision after careful consideration and discussion with Mayor Curtis Ford during their weekly meeting a few days ago.
The mayor said they decided the needs of the city have changed, as the city manager said it was his desire to resign.
“This conversation tonight and the decisioning is not based on a specific failing of the city manager,” Ford said. “And I want to be very clear — it has little to do if anything with our most recent controversy with paid parking at Beaches Town Center. So this is about where’s the city going, what are the needs of the city going forward.”
Jacksonville Today thanks our sponsors. Become one.
After a number of residents bade farewell to Killingsworth during a public comment period, commission member Bruce Bole “sadly” made the motion to accept Killingsworth’s resignation. That allows Killingsworth to be paid until Jan. 30 but leave his position as of Friday.
City Commission member Candace Kelly wondered why the commission had only a day’s notice about the meeting.
Complimenting Killingsworth as “forward thinking,” she asked about Ford’s comment about the city’s needs changing.
“You have never discussed that change with any of us,” Kelly said, pointing at the mayor. “So before we can vote to agree to these unknown changes, we need to know. You are one of five (commission members), and why are you the only one who got to negotiate with Bill about this mysterious and sudden change in direction?”
Due to Florida Sunshine laws, Ford said he was not allowed to call Kelly when the resignation was discussed. As for the 24-hour notice about Tuesday’s special meeting, Ford said the city needed a decision about the resignation “right away,” calling it a judgment call.
Ford said this is not “an adversarial resignation,” adding that he asked Killingsworth to stay until the end of the week to work out his departure with city staff.
The City Commission voted 4 to 1 to accept the resignation. Kelly voted “no.”
Assistant City Manager Kevin Hogencamp becomes the interim city manager. Decisions about how to search for a full-time replacement will begin when the City Commission meets next Monday.
Atlantic Beach has seen a number of city managers depart in recent years, some of them fired and some who resigned.
