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LWV County Commission Meeting Notes

Posted
The League of Women Voters of Manatee County Government Committee is monitoring the Board of County Commissioners' meetings for the foreseeable future. This report lists the items of interest to the League and notes adherence, or lack of adherence, to good governance procedures and the Sunshine Law. The following are the major points from the Board of Manatee County Commissioners Regular Meeting on 02/23/2021, monitored by Ginger McCallum and Coleen Friedman.

Items of Interest

Citizen Comments/Future Items

Of the 16 live/phone-in comments, 13 were regarding the LWR pop-up vaccine clinic; 10 were unhappy with the way it was handled.

Commissioner discussion following the citizen comments culminated in Bellamy stating there must be consequences and asking Baugh directly if she would resign the chair position. She refused and Bellamy made a motion for the Board to ask Chairperson Baugh to resign her position. After much conversation, the motion failed 4 to 3.

CARES Act/COVID Update
Clerk of the Court reported that the IG has found $80,000 in fraud within the CARES Act program and has identified suspected fraud of $500,000; there are robust measures in place to track validity of applications and apprehend any fraudulent applicants.

Jacob Saur, Director of Public Safety gave a COVID response update. Currently:
37.9% of county’s seniors have been vaccinated; Current lottery vaccine pool is 148,000.
Planning for eventual implementation of Phase 1b (teachers, etc.) and covered/inside locations for summer weather.

Manatee currently gets 5100 doses per week from the State. The doses are expected to increase to 11,000/per week in the next 1-2 weeks.

VanOstenbridge made a motion that no member of the Board will jeopardize the fairness of the lottery selection system. The motion passed 7/0. Bellamy raised concerns about the lottery system and discussion resulted in 3 different paths to consider: keeping the current random lottery, assigning positions to all currently in the pool, and assigning a month ahead. The IT department will report at the next meeting if they are viable.

Coryea Separation Agreement
Attorney Clague noted that it was an amicable separation. Agreement would be effective at close of business today, Feb 23, 2021.

During Commissioner discussion:

Whitmore established there were no known negative reviews in Coryea’s history of 31 years county employment, and that she is the only woman county administrator, and yet she was being forced to step down.
Servia noted that a business would ask, is this a good decision? Is this a good or bad time to make this move? She went on to say that the decision wasn’t thought through and could have been accomplished successfully if handled differently.

Van Ostenbridge said he would recommend approval.

Kruse recommended that the Board take the "high road“ and not say negative things.
Bellamy gave an impassioned commentary in support of Coryea saying that she took the high road to avoid acrimony. He put forward a motion to discontinue the discussion of the separation agreement and for Coryea to have another year to prove that she can move the county forward. The motion failed 4 to 3.
Vote on motion to accept separation agreement with Coryea passed 6 to 1.

Appointment of Acting Administrator

After voting to separate Coryea, the Commissioners appeared to be unready to deal with the need to appoint an acting administrator, which is required to ensure the continuity of County operations. Alternate names and methods were put forward, particularly by Van Ostenbridge.

Attorney Clague said he prepared an alternative to Hines, a current deputy administrator, Karen Stewart, stepping into the role for a month in order to allow time to determine if a local candidate would be more appropriate for a longer term hire for the acting administrator.

Ultimately, the motion to appoint Charles Hines failed. A motion to approve Karen Stewart as a temporary acting administrator passed and a motion to direct attorney Clague to draft a standard agreement for use with whomever the BoCC appoints for the longer-term (up to a year) acting role was approved.

Administrator’s Annual Report
Coryea gave her annual report for 2020 regarding the County’s Operations. She called up her Directors and then highlighted the work accomplished during the past year. Click here for the annual report and a summary video

The Board gave her a standing ovation at the end and thanked her for her service.

Motion to repeal Resolution 20-091 by Carol Whitmore

The Commissioners unanimously voted to repeal this Resolution, passed at the November 19, 2020 special meeting, which allowed the commission, by majority vote, to ignore procedures designed to allow public notice and input. This Resolution led to the creation of the LWVMC’s Government Committee and monitoring of the BoCC meetings. The League of Women Voters MC is pleased that Resolution 20-091 has been repealed.
County attorney Clague noted that he intended to review the Commission’s rules and procedures overall and have recommendations soon.

Governance/Sunshine

While the Commissioners worked collaboratively on a number of the agenda items, rancor among the Commissioners was frequent throughout the day. For example, Whitmore asked Baugh to refer to her as she does to the other commissioners, Baugh acted dismissively when Whitmore spoke to let the Commission know she was approached by a citizen and felt threatened, VanOstenbridge commented that Servia "ran to the national news media“ and wrote an OpEd that threw fuel on the fire during the discussion of the motion to remove Chair from Baugh; Whitmore remarked "shame on you“ after numerous votes that differed from hers and, following the 7-0 vote to approve a request to the attorney to draw up a new form agreement, VanOstenbridge said "I’ve unified the board“, to which Chair Baugh replied that he didn’t do it alone.

Satcher’s comments during the discussion of the motion for Baugh to be removed as Chair became quite partisan, mentioning that the Manatee Democratic party called for Baugh to resign because of disagreement with her decisions and policies and that the Governor is rated #1 as a candidate for president in 2024 and is doing a great job for Florida.

VanOstenbridge asked Director Saur if his department had sent the "VIP“ list emails to the press (obtained through the sunshine act). Attorney Clague interrupted stating there may be legal implications.
In an example of good governance, after the vote regarding Baugh’s role as Chair, Bellamy stated, from this point on we need to support the Chair going forward and be our best for our citizens. Servia commented at the end of the meeting that she fully supported the Chair in the interest of moving forward.

The lack of mask-wearing by some commissioners does not comply with requirements for mask-wearing in the county building.

To email our commissioners, click here.

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