BRADENTON – In 2015, politically-connected developer Carlos Beruff of Medallion Homes used his position as the chairman of the Southwest Florida Water Management District board to help approve a permit for fellow developer and sometimes business partner Pat Neal to destroy an acre of high-quality wetlands on Perico Island, resigning the same afternoon.

The Florida Commission on Ethics recently announced that it had found no probable cause that Beruff had a voting conflict in doing so. The commission did find probable cause to believe that Beruff violated financial disclosure laws by failing to properly complete his 2013, 2014, and 2015 CE Form 1, which discloses financial interests.

The land in question is on 3.46 acres of a 40-acre parcel that was transferred into Neal's son Michael's ownership in 1997. The developers have plans to build four homes, roughly 4,000 square feet apiece, on lots of around 10,000 square feet along the long sliver of waterfront property.

The Neals have already broken ground on the first home, and the SWFMD permit was a pivotal piece in getting what seemed to be an impossible development off the ground. The City of Bradenton had already, contrary to the regulation of its comprehensive land-use plan regarding wetlands, rezoned the property and did so via a controversial administrative procedure that meant there would be no public hearing.

The Neals still needed a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers, however, when the ACOE sent a notice in May of 2015 that the site plan their company had submitted would not be permitted, the project was again in doubt. Not to be dissuaded, the Neals revised the plan to use pilings in order to elevate the homes rather than filling in the wetlands and argued that because they were not impacting federal waters, the project would not require such permitting.

The ACOE ultimately shared that position andinterpreted the proposed activities as "no permit required," according to Neal.