More Questions About Manatee County's Handling of Record Requests

BRADENTON – As Manatee County faces another lawsuit over its handling of public records, additional details have come to light, raising more questions about the county's procedures for responding to public record requests.

On Wednesday, TBT reported that the Florida Center for Government Accountability (FLCGA) had brought legal action against Manatee Countyfor alleged violations of Florida's public record law. Since our initial reporting on FLCGA's legal filing, TBT has uncovered additional information relating to the record requests that sparked the lawsuit. One of the main focuses of FLCGA's legal complaint concerned the county's lack of procedure to capture and archive county employees' work-related text messages.

FLCGA's Director of Public Access, Michael Barfield, had submitted several public record requests to Manatee County beginning in May. By late June, Barfield submitted additional requests for public records including copies of text messages from the cell device of former Deputy County Administrator and CFO Jan Brewer.

Brewer resigned from her position with the county in May after Manatee Clerk and Comptroller Angel Colonneso officially warned the board of county commissioners of multiple "grave" concerns uncovered by her office relating to actions by the county administrator. In a resignation letter she submitted on her departure, Brewer alleged Hopes had directed staff to withhold information from her. Brewer also wrote that fiscal concerns raised by the clerk were items that should have "gone through" the county’s finance office but did not. Brewer called the administrator’s exclusion of information from the CFO and county’s financial office "unhealthy for the organization."

When Barfield requested copies of any county-related text messages Brewer may have in her possession on her personal cell device, records management was tasked with contacting Brewer to inform her of the record request so she could comply.

However, an email dated July 15 that Brewer sent to County Attorney William Clague reveals that Brewer was not made aware of Barfield’s June 23 request for texts from her personal device until July 8–and only after the county attorney reached her by phone to ask why she had not provided the text messages. Brewer’s email detailed what she called "a major concern."

"A major concern and complaint I would like to address is the timeliness and procedure of notification of this public records request," read a sentence by Brewer typed in bolded font. "You contacted me on Friday - July 8 to let me know that I needed to comply with a Public Records request during my employment but as of that moment, I had no knowledge of the request. I immediately called Debbie Scaccianoce to speak with her directly and she indicated she had tried to get in touch with me. My concern is the notice I finally did receive in the mail."

Brewer explained to Clague in her email how she received two letters in the mail–one mailed to her home address and the other mailed to her P.O. Box. The letters, Brewer told Clague, arrived at her mailboxes on July 12–four days after Brewer received a phone call from Clague to inquire why she had not provided the requested records.

What particularly concerned Brewer was that the date on the letterhead and the postmarked date stamped on the outside of the envelope did not match.

"The date of the letter is June 27, 2022, however, the postmark on the letter when it was mailed was July 6, 2022," she wrote. Brewer reminded Clague that it was July 8 when he phoned to inform her that Scaccianoce had told him that Brewer was "nonresponsive" in producing the requested texts.

"I received the information on July 12, 2022. It took 9 days to walk the letter to the mailbox after it was typed and it took 15 days for me to receive it," Brewer continued in her email, again in bolded font. "I would be curious as to the date of Mr. Barfield's request and if it correlates with the date the letter was established to me on June 27."

Brewer concluded her email with instruction that all future requests for public records be communicated to her by the county attorney’s office directly, and not by Scaccianoce.

"Clearly, Ms. Scaccianoce is not expediting any public record request and if you had not called me then it would appear I was not compliant,"Brewer wrote.

Attached to the email were several files. Brewer provided the copies of the texts requested of her, as well as photos of the letters she received in the mail with the June 27 date, and images of the envelopes showing that the letters were mailed just two days before the county attorney phoned her.

Images Jan Brewer provided to County Attorney Clague showing the postmark date of July 6.

TBT’s review of public records showed that while Brewer attached a file of her text messages to her July 15 email in order to fulfill Barfield's public record request, the county did not produce Brewer's text messages to Barfield until August 3. TBT attempted to reach the COA by email to inquire how promptly its office forwarded Brewer's file to records management. We did not receive a response by our publishing deadline.

These latest revelations relating to the division of public records follow a string of other instances that have been raising questions about the county’s handling of public records for several months. Instances that have even resulted in lawsuits and an audit of the division by the County Inspector General’s Office.

In reporting in March, TBT shared that our publication obtained public record emails that appeared to show some intention by the county to lean upon state statute language providing for a "reasonable" length of time for fulfillment of public records requests as an excuse to delay production of certain records. Public records that, in many instances, likely could have been produced within days of the submitted request.

In that reporting, it was uncovered that Scaccianoce–presumably in an effort to find out how TBT had obtained a public record we requested from the county, but that it had not produced to us–emailed the counsel of the clerk's office to inquire whether his office had produced the record to TBT without informing BOCC county administration.

The incident in question followed several other instances of questionable response by records management to adequately provide public records requested by TBT. Read our March reporting, Email Queries Raise Questions on County's Treatment of Public Records Requests, for more details.

In her email to County Attorney Clague, Brewer referenced the brief period when records management was placed under her watch, and she was tasked with reviewing the county’s record request processes. Brewer appeared to remind Clague in her July 15 email of "discussions" the two had shared related to Brewer’s time providing oversight of record requests.

"Éyou know I was instructed to review her processes of which we have had discussions," Brewer included in her email to Clague.

Earlier in the year, the county administrator provided the board with an update on his efforts to reorganize the county’s departments and divisions. County Administrator Scott Hopes told the board that the Division of Records Management had been removed from oversight by the Department of Property Management and reassigned to the Department of County Administration to be overseen by Deputy Administrator Robert Reinshuttle.

"One of the key functions of records management is public records requests," Hopes told the board in the March special meeting. "We needed to tighten up public records requests. I felt it was best under the direction of the administration so that when records requests come in what was responded to was what was requested and what we are obligated to produce."

However, sometime after Reinshuttle was put over records management, another shuffle took place that briefly placed records management under Brewer's oversight, before eventually, being returned back to Reinshuttle. Sources with knowledge of the rearrangement told TBTthat the move to place Brewer briefly into oversight of records management came after a citizen took legal action against the county.

In April, Judge Edward Nicholas, ruled for the plaintiff in a case brought against Manatee County, affirming that the county had violated Florida’s public records law. The month following his first ruling, Judge Nicholas awarded the plaintiff reimbursement of litigation costs.

In that case, Daniels vs. Manatee County, the plaintiff argued that public records he requested from the county were not produced until seven months after having submitted the request. Manatee County Records Custodian, Deborah Scaccianoce, provided testimony regarding the county's failure to produce 40 public records responsive to Daniels’ request within a "reasonable amount of time“ in accordance with the law.

In her testimony, Scaccianoce seemed to lay blame on the reorganizing of her division which outsourced queries for public records to IT. Scaccianoce told the judge that it was IT who overlooked public record emails in an archive folder, thereby failing to provide those records to her so she could produce them to the requester.

Later in a May 17 special meeting–during a discussion raised by a commissioner concerning "mystery record queries and deletions"–Hopes assured the board that through his efforts of reorganization and streamlining procedures for the handling of record requests, the county had completed its implementation of improved systems and procedures for responding to requests to public records.

Three days later, on May 20, Clerk Colonneso delivered her warning letter to county commissioners laying out "grave" concerns uncovered by her office. Among the items listed by Colonneso was a paragraph about a "lack of transparency" within the administration, which included a reference to public record requests.

By mid-June, it was revealed that the IG’s office had informed Manatee County Government that it had initiated a "project to review the county’s process for responding to public records requests." The IG’s office is unable to provide any information about the audit while it remains open.

Dawn Kitterman is a staff reporter for The Bradenton Times. She covers local government and entertainment news. She can be reached at dawn.kitterman@thebradentontimes.com