BRADENTON – Public records have revealed that a citizen requested Manatee County Commissioners Vanessa Baugh and Kevin Van Ostenbridge "avoid" future discussions of BOCC business outside of the Sunshine. The citizen informed commissioners via email on June 8, that he had personally witnessed Baugh and Van Ostenbridge discussing "county matters loudly" over lunch on Wednesday afternoon last week, which is a violation of Florida's Government in the Sunshine law.
Mr. Van Ostenbridge and Ms. Baugh,
I ate lunch at Robin's Downtown today. You sat down at the table next to me and talked loudly about various Manatee County matters. I assume you are aware that a conversation between two or more commissioners about public business, without public notice, violates the state's Open Meetings Law.
I'd appreciate you avoiding this sort of thing in the future.
TBTobtained the email through a follow-up public records request relating to an outstanding request for public records submitted to the county by our publication last week that had still not been fulfilled.
Late Wednesday evening, June 8,TBTrequested copies of emails between commissioners Carol Whitmore and Misty Servia to/from County Administrator Hopes matching the dates of last week’s BOCC meetings–June 7 and June 8. The county confirmed receipt of the request before 7 a.m. the following morning (Thursday).
On Friday morning,TBTsent a follow-up to Manatee County Record Manager Debra Scaccianonce inquiring whether IT had collected the requested records in query and returned the records responsive to our request to her department for their production. In recent weeks, Administrator Hopes has publicly stated (more than once) that IT is "turning record query results around" in less than 24 hours.
Scaccianonce responded to our request for an update that Friday before 9 am, writing, "Let me check and see if they have provided the info. Thank you for your patience."
As of 10:30 a.m. Monday, no additional updates on the pending request for public record emails were provided toTBTby the county. Likewise, no records had been produced in response to the request either.
Due to the seeming lack of communication and/or a reasonable time of production of records,TBTsubmitted a duplicate request for public record emails directly to Commissioners Whitmore and Servia Monday morning, June 13.
UnderFlorida Statute 119.07, the public has a right to request to inspect or copy public records. Email communications relating to government business are included under the law as public records. Additionally, custodians in possession of public records, or their designee, are required per the law to provide such public records for public inspection.
Commissioners who are in possession of public record emails are "custodians" of emails in their possession.
Commissioner Servia immediately responded to our request, apologizing for the delay in the county's fulfillment of our request. Servia responded by sending all emails she had in her possession between herself and Administrator Hopes.
Althoughthe original request for public records was submitted in an attempt to collect emails confirming accounts made by commissioners in last week's BOCC meetings that the county administrator had canceled and/or declined meetings with commissioners, among the public records responsive to our records request appeared the emails from Mr. Tank.
In a reply to Mr. Tank's initial June 8 email, Servia wrote,"Mr. Tank. Thank you for the email. I hope they were not discussing county business, as that would be a criminal offense."
Mr. Tank responded to Servia in brief, affirming what he had previously relayed with his first email.
"They were," Tank wrote.
Records show the exchange between Servia and Tank was forwarded to County Attorney William Clague as well as County Administrator Scott Hopes.
Upon discovery of the emails,TBTsent an email to all commissioners requesting public records of any emails to/from citizen Dave Tank of which they were custodians in possession. An hour later–having received no reply from the majority of the commissioners–TBTforwarded the request to records management.
The county records assistant confirmed receipt of our request, but as of this reporting, no additional records had been produced responsive to our request.
Last week, the Manatee Clerk of Court, Division of the Inspector General,delivered a memorandumto the Manatee County Administration and county commission announcing that the IG’s office had initiated a "project to review the process for responding to public records requests."
On June 9,TBTalso requested copies of online calendars for the county administrator and each of the seven commissioners from the months of May and June. As of this reporting, that request also remains unfulfilled.
TBTreached out to the citizen who alleged to have witnessed commissioners discussing county business over lunch, but Mr. Tank declined to comment.
At the time of our reporting, neither Commissioner Baugh nor Van Ostenbridge had responded to our requests for comment.
TBTwill continue to follow this developing story and will provide any additional details and updates as they become available.
Dawn Kitterman is a staff reporter for The Bradenton Times. She covers local government and entertainment news. She can be reached atdawn.kitterman@thebradentontimes.com.
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