When Politics Lead Patronage Follows and Disaster is Ensured

Over the past four years, the billion-dollar enterprise known as Manatee County Government has been hollowed out from within. Devoid of leadership and stripped of decades of institutional knowledge, it should be no surprise that the county’s response to a recent natural disaster was … well, disastrous.

At Tuesday’s Manatee County Commission meeting, citizens lashed out at commissioners, demanding to know why the county seemed so ill-prepared for a slow-moving storm that was predicted to cause heavy rainfall and flooding in the area. They didn’t get much in the way of answers, but one doesn’t have to look too hard to discover why our systems are so decayed.

It all began in November 2020, when Kevin “I do what Carlos tells me” Van Ostenbridge moved to fire Cheri Coryea, a highly qualified county administrator with three decades of experience in Manatee County Government. Why? Simple: Carlos Beruff and Pat Neal didn’t want her in the job.

Coryea was beloved by county staff, and the embarrassing way she was eventually cast aside caused immediate fallout, such as losing highly-talented Deputy County Administrator John Osborne and several other longtime leaders in the county hierarchy. The purge continued with key players like longtime Utilities Director Mike Gore. All of this was, in one way or another, related to those officials merely doing their job in executing the previous board’s direction in purchasing much-needed land for expanding public services in the fast-growing eastern portion of the county—land that developers had unsuccessfully sought for decades.

The immediate result was the utterly calamitous tenure of Scott Hopes, who was handpicked by Van Ostenbridge to lead the county despite having no relevant experience whatsoever. At the top tier, we got sycophants like Courtney De Pol, Rob Reishuttle, and Charlie Bishop, the latter of whom would go on to become our next inept county administrator despite the promise of a national search to find someone who was actually, you know, qualified for the job. For his part, Hopes would get fired and go on to face felony charges for alleged misconduct while administrator.

More relevant to the storm response is what has happened to the county’s public safety department during that time. Public safety was one of the county's most respected divisions before the hatchet was taken to Manatee County Government. First to go was Jacob Saur, a 20-plus-year county government veteran who had been the emergency communications chief before being promoted to public safety director in January 2020 by Coryea. Saur, however, drew the ire of former commissioner Vanessa “Vaccinegate” Baugh for failing to fall on his sword when she directed him to rig a COVID vaccine lottery, which ultimately led to her “retiring to spend time with family" when she was found guilty of ethics violations. He departed in mid-2022.

Saur’s sacking (technically a “resignation”) saw two experienced emergency management coordinators flee for greener pastures. Thomas Kitchen is now the Manager of Emergency Management for a state-wide hospital membership association in the northeast, and Tristan Morath is an Emergency Management Specialist for the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Reinshuttle was inexplicably named acting public safety director, and Steve Litschauer served as deputy while simultaneously heading up the division of emergency management. If you’re confused by this convoluted mess, you’re most certainly not alone.

Enter Jodie Fiske

 In 2022, Litschauer oversaw reassigning one of the communication coordinator positions to create a "deputy chief" position within the small division. That November, Jodie Fiske, who had worked for the Florida Division of Emergency Management as a Regional Emergency Management Coordination Team Manager, was given the job.

By May, Fiske would be promoted to Manatee County Director of Public Safety, marking the first time the post had been filled since Saur’s departure. Fiske had been named acting director of the department approximately two months after joining the county and was promoted to permanent director after only seven months. Fiske would go on to place the very experienced Litschauer on administrative leave before he, too, "retired."

Who did Fiske bring in as the new emergency coordinators? Two of them are from the county's scandal-ridden code enforcement department. One is Brad Szink, who you might remember as the Code Enforcement lieutenant who directed an employee to remove a Hell No KVO sign from private property. The enforcement officer who refused was disciplined, essentially for failing to steal private property, and is no longer with the county. The other two emergency coordinators' experience seems to include stints as 9-1-1 operators. Again, these positions were filled by Kitchen and Morath, who were much more qualified and have since gone on to bigger things.

It might seem at least a little comforting that Fiske has a background in storm response with the state, but that is quite different from the experience that leaders like Saur, Litschauer, and even Gore had in storm preparation, which is something else entirely. My colleague Dawn Kitterman and I have pointed out several times on The Bradenton Times Podcast that the hollowing out of those departments could prove devastating as we head into what was predicted to be an active hurricane season. One storm into it, and those concerns have been validated.

The lesson here is that when the political machinations of a few oligarch developers and their elected minions are elevated far above the organs of government itself, the results will be ruinous. When the most sought-after qualities in an organization's leadership are fealty to a puppet thug, you cannot expect functionality, let alone excellence. It will take decades to recover from the loss of leadership and experience Manatee County has suffered. However, those decades cannot even commence until the cancer within the commission is cut out. Vote accordingly, folks.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. His 2016 short story collection, Casting Shadows, was recently reissued and is available here.