It was a slow day at Las Vegas City Hall. So Councilwoman Michele Fiore livened things up by performing a human sacrifice.

Seizing on a clause in City Manager Scott Adams’ standard contract, an irritated Fiore persuaded enough of her fellow council members to effectively break his professional work agreement in the name of reviewing his performance. The push might have made more sense had Adams not received a performance review less than a year ago. He was awarded a bonus then, but was eviscerated on Wednesday during one of the most calamitous and chaotic council meetings I’ve witnessed in more than three decades of watching City Hall.

Although Mayor Carolyn Goodman and others on the council and at the city have lauded Adams’ professionalism and policy expertise, Fiore makes no secret of her dissatisfaction with him. As she told KSNV TV 3 after the contentious session, “As someone who sits on the council, we set policy and budget, so as I would ask him to review things, or maybe this doesn’t really fit in the budget – so some of these things in the past year-and-a-half that I brought to his attention, Mr. Adams has voiced that he has listened to me. However, he just went about and did whatever he’d like.”

That’s the problem with being the city manager. Although you serve at the pleasure of the part-time council, whose members are historically buffeted by political caprice and visions of grandeur, you’re paid to be the professional adult in the room.

Fiore’s stated beef focused on elements of Section II of Adams’ contract, which was set to renew automatically on Saturday for another two years with the term to start on July 6. Under a provision of the agreement, Adams had to be given a 90-day notice of termination prior to his renewal date. Wednesday’s meeting was the last one before the July deadline.

For the record, the document is standard and modeled on one recommended by the International City/County Management Association. It was vetted by city legal staff and publicly available. The standard it failed was the one set by Fiore, who argued Adams should have his contract reviewed – especially with new members coming to the council after the upcoming election.

“I’m just asking for fairness,” she said. “And in fairness there’s going to be five council members that haven’t had the opportunity to work with this city manager.”

Since we’re talking about fairness, it’s hard to keep professional city managers when they are subject to a public dressing down from a council member.

As Adams noted, “Because with staggered terms on councils, the political vagaries of councils, a manager could never pull off a tenure of enough time serving as your city manager to get the job done. A manager would always be subject to the individual whims of council members and their tenure would be very limited, and you’d never get anything done. And that is why the contract is written the way it is.”

After reading a litany of challenges and successes under his watch at the city, Adams said,  “I’m sitting here listening to the discussions of a unilateral negotiation of my contract,” Adams said. “Let me be very clear: If you vote today to terminate the contract, you’re getting rid of me. It’s a two-way contract. You don’t get to decide with me what I want to do. If you vote to not renew today, it doesn’t feel good. I feel like we’ve been in a very good relationship contractually, personally, and professionally.”

Earlier in the meeting, Councilman Bob Coffin, often Fiore’s foil, tried to short-circuit the last-minute item from the agenda. His motion failed in a 3-3 split with Goodman and Councilwoman Lois Tarkanian joining him. Moments later, the ailing Goodman went home for the day — and Tarkanian declared she’d voted in error.

That was nothing compared to what came next.

Fiore made her case that she wasn’t comfortable with the language of the city manager’s contract, that he should have a performance evaluation before every renewal. She found willing listeners in council members Stavros Anthony, Cedric Crear and Tarkanian. All declared their respect and admiration for Adams before voting to terminate and renegotiate his contract.

Fiore’s displeasure with Adams came to a head after he posted on Facebook the news of her call for a late addition to the council’s agenda: “Looks like an interesting Council meeting this week. Councilwoman Michele Fiore requested an emergency addition of an item to reconsider my contract.”

Her response: “Your post, Mr. Adams lacks Integrity, and you wonder why I've requested a review. Your FaceBook Post speaks very loudly of your character.”

Fiore’s political allies have buzzed for weeks about the pay and benefits Adams and his assistant managers receive. It’s little secret that a shift on the council’s balance of power could make her a lock for mayor pro-tem at a time Goodman is battling cancer. Fiore also became irritated with Adams when he failed to take her hiring suggestion and failed to move someone who displeased her.

Fiore also wasn’t alone in her discontent. Tarkanian talked nonspecifically about “concerns” about the city manager, noting that Fiore had done a “sharp job” of noticing the automatic renewal date. Crear also favored matching the renewal with an evaluation.

Only Coffin demonstrably defended Adams. “It’s your personal dislike,” he chided Fiore, and later predicted the council had just sunk itself into a potentially costly legal quagmire.

At times the two bickered like siblings with Fiore attempting to raise her argument with Coffin interrupting her at every pause. I don’t know if “Robert’s Rules of Order” has a section on sending elected officials to a timeout, but these two deserved one.

When it finally came time to vote on Fiore’s motion, the critical rhetoric was softened, but the slight clearly stung Adams no less.

With 15 years at the city and more than four decades of public policy experience, Adams signed his two-year employment contract as city manager on May 17, 2017. Fiore was elected that June. The trouble started not long after.

Save Fiore, every council member expressed deep respect and appreciation for Adams.

If they love him any more, he’ll be out of a job and in need of a blood transfusion.