City Council members tabled two items at the end of their agenda Tuesday night until Aug. 4, when they apparently will hold a special meeting that could result in ending City Manager Ford Patton’s career at City Hall.

Councilmen John Fulghum and David Carabajal told the Bee-Picayune before the meeting that they had heard that Mayor Santiago “Jimbo” Martinez had asked City Attorney Frank Warner to tell Patton that the council would be asking him to resign or be dismissed from the position he has held for more than 20 years.

Fulgum and Carbajal said they had been informed of what was happening by others who learned of the move.

The two agenda items were included in four subjects to be discussed in executive session. The council was to consider the hiring of a new Main Street Program manager and discuss pending or contemplated litigation with Warner. Then the agenda called for ”deliberation of the appointment, employment, evaluation, reassignment, duties, discipline or dismissal of the city manager pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.074(a)(1).

The next item called for deliberation of the appointment, reassignment or duties of an interim city manager pursuant to Texas Government Code Section 551.07(a)(1).

The first item — evaluating Patton’s job performance — has been discussed by the council before. But the Council has never gone so far as to place the second item on the agenda: replacing Patton with an interim city manager.

Martinez closed the meeting to discuss the four executive session items at 7:07 p.m. and at about 7:30 p.m. Patton asked his wife, Kathlyn, if she wanted to sit in on the portion of the meeting for discussing his job. She went into the closed-door meeting.

The council reopened the session at 8:48 and Councilman John Fulghum made a motion to hire Michelle Wright as the new Main Street manager at $30,000 a year.

That motion passed unanimously.

Martinez announced that there would be no action concerning the litigation discussion.

Then Mayor Pro Tem made a motion to table items C and D of number 11 on the agenda, the two items involving the city manager discussion, until Aug. 4. “One week from today,” Scotten said.

That motion was passed unanimously.

Patton had refused comment on the matter when he was contacted earlier in the day, except to say that any decision regarding his future as city manager would come as the result of “a mutual agreement.”

Martinez would not comment on the subject when contacted by the Bee-Picayune on Wednesday.