By Franklin Hayes….Editor’s Note: The Independent News published this article in August 2009. The State Attorney’s Office later issued a statement that no criminal violations had taken place.
County Commissioners Face Numerous Sunshine Law Complaints
It’s Florida Sunshine Law 101 for county commissioners: “1) Don’t communicate verbally or in writing with your fellow commissioners about county business and 2) Don’t meet with each other without notifying the public.” As simple as these cardinal rules are, it appears Santa Rosa County Commissioners have a problem following them, and “Good Old Boy” backroom politics seem to be alive and well in Milton.
STATE ATTORNEY INVESTIGATION
Santa Rosa County officials, both past and present, face allegations that they violated the state’s Sunshine Law in 2007 and may have committed other ethics infractions. A set of complaints, originally filed in 2008, is currently being investigated by the State Attorney’s Office. The documents include accusations that the commissioners discussed county business through e-mail and met privately to talk about governmental matters.
The incriminating documents were originally filed by Romi White, a former county employee who worked as an assistant public information officer in 2006 and 2007. Her complaints claim sitting Commissioners W.D. “Don” Salter, Robert “Bob” Cole and Gordon Goodin, and former commissioners Tom Stewart and John Broxson violated open meeting laws in 2007.
Additional complaints filed this year by Alan Isaacson and Jerry Couey allege misconduct by TEAM Santa Rosa, which serves as the county’s economic development agency, and cast doubt on the commission’s recent decision to spend $3 million on land for an industrial park near Milton.
DISCREDITING THE COMPLAINANTS
White has been described by some of the commissioners as a disgruntled former county employee bent on tarnishing the record of the commission. Stewart, who was defeated by Jim Williamson in 2008, claims her allegations were designed to remove him from office.
Isaacson, a minister in Pace, and Couey, a commission meeting regular and former political candidate, regularly post dissenting opinions about the county’s actions on an Internet forum that includes about 85 regular members.
The duo have been dubbed “Boo Bears” by county staff members in e-mails about the pair’s unrelenting barrage of public records requests. Isaacson and Couey have combed through thousands of e-mails over the last four years and want to have TEAM Santa Rosa disbanded.
ILLEGAL MEETINGS
On a sworn statement form from the State Attorney’s Office, White describes an illegal meeting allegedly held by Santa Rosa County Commissioners in March 2007 at the University of West Florida. Board members were participating in a two-day public forum with other local elected officials from Escambia County. The visioning session–held before a large audience at the campus in Pensacola–brought elected officials from both sides of the Escambia River together and allowed them to openly discuss issues facing the two counties, such as transportation.
The handwritten testimony from White says all five commissioners met privately after the forum and discussed the details of a hiring freeze they would enact at an official meeting the following day. In her statement, White wrote that the commissioners continued a discussion from their last public meeting and that Broxson voiced concerns that the conversation might be an ethical violation.
“However, the others laughed when I made a joke that I could run back into the auditorium to announce they were meeting and come back to take notes so they could comply,” White wrote. “The other commissioners then continued the discussion involving how they would handle the decision about a hiring freeze on March 22, 2007.”
In an interview with the Independent News, White discussed other allegations facing the commission, saying Salter and Stewart “habitually” broke the law and often strategized on how to get a third vote on some matters.
HIDING INVOLVEMENT WITH PAC
White said Salter became frustrated in 2006 with a political action committee that was supposed to raise money for a local option sales tax the board had on the ballot that year. Leading up to the vote, White said Salter directed her to solicit members of the PAC for funding to produce a voter mail-out pamphlet, which the county eventually paid for itself at a cost of about $48,000.
“People didn’t know the extent to which the county was involved with the campaign,” White said. “Salter didn’t want people to know the county’s involvement.”
The sales tax, designed to pay for road construction over the next 10 years, was defeated in the primary election.
UNREPORTED TRIPS
In his own separate statement, Isaacson writes that he wants charges “brought against various members of the board of TEAM Santa Rosa for misuse of public funds, numerous Sunshine violations, open record law violations, unfair hiring practices, insurance fraud and whatever other charges [the State Attorney’s Office investigators] may believe apply.”
Isaacson and Couey believe at least one public official was swayed to vote for the purchase of a 90-acre, $3.1 million piece of property owned by Bill Pullum because of a trip Goodin took to the developer’s Honduran island home in 2005.
In one e-mail provided by Isaacson, TEAM’s Executive Director Cindy Anderson describes the county’s effort to pass the sales tax in 2006 and writes that the economic development group was working toward an industrial park that included the Pullum property and also discusses working with the Honduran community. The e-mail was sent in 2006, three years before the county voted to buy the property.
Goodin filed a gift disclosure to the state’s ethics board in July, four years after the trip to Guanaja, Honduras. The documents filed included a receipt for $6,793 in firefighting equipment that Goodin said he donated to the island community.
The disclosure also included a narrative, read aloud by the commissioner at a meeting in July, that described his 25-year friendship with Pullum and the plight of the Honduran villagers, who Goodin said were still recovering from a hurricane in 1998 during his visit in 2005.
Goodin wrote, “Four years later, and after talking to hundreds of people about our trip to Guanaja, it has come to my attention that I should have filed a gift report with the Florida Ethics Commission.”
Goodin later reiterated that he did not need to recuse himself from the vote to purchase Pullum’s land during a tearful apology at a July meeting.
“There are those that would argue that because of my friendship with Bill Pullum, I should have recused myself this spring from the vote to purchase his industrially zoned property on State Road 87 and I-10. I disagree. I’ve had no actual or pending business transactions with Bill since before I took office. There is and was no personal gain and there is and was no conflict of interest. Simply put there is and was nothing improper about this vote,” Goodin said at the commission meeting. “If the vote were held again today, my vote for the purchase would be the same.”
E-MAILS BETWEEN COMMISSIONERS
In another set of e-mails provided by Isaacson and Couey, Commissioners Goodin and Cole appear to exchange opinions about a local transportation board in May 2006. The dialogue included in the e-mails appears to show the two commissioners having a conversation about a transportation board they both served on that year.
The first email, dated May 4, 2006, was from Goodin to all his fellow commissioners and several county staffers, including County Administrator Hunter Walker and County Attorney Tom Dannheisser. Goodin shares his frustrations with how District 3 FDOT staff prioritizes projects.
Within an hour, Commissioner Cole replies in an email: “Sound (sic) like how they decided to back up Avalon Blvd. Maybe there is a dart board somewhere we do not know about????”
The Santa Rosa Commissioners eventually voted to withdraw its membership from the transportation authority they shared with officials from Escambia County.
REACTIONS
Of the five elected officials named in the complaints, only Broxson acknowledged that he had been in contact with the State Attorney’s Office. Salter, Stewart, Broxson and Cole categorically denied involvement in anything that would cast a shadow on their time on the Santa Rosa County Board of County Commissioners.
Goodin refused an interview request from the Independent News, but has also denied in other newspapers his involvement in anything outside of the Sunshine.
Broxson, who was defeated in 2008 by Lane Lynchard, said he feels the complaints are irrelevant because he never participated in any meeting that would violate the law.
“I am absolutely confident that this is not a valid charge,” Broxson said. “It is not a valid observation that I ever violated Sunshine.”
Cole said his e-mails are public record, so their contents should not be considered a violation, but did say it’s not appropriate for commissioners to have an extended conversation via electronic mediums.
“I have not heard anything official on this,” Cole said in a telephone interview in July. “If [the allegations] were true something would have come down by now.”
Stewart said he believes White’s original complaints, which became public a few days before the 2008 election, were a scheme to remove him from office and called the accusations about the closed meeting at UWF “ridiculous.”
“I’ve known [State Attorney] Bill Eddins for quite a while,” Stewart said in a telephone interview. “As well as I know Eddins, I would have gotten a phone call from one of his investigators or someone in his office.”
Stewart also defended his record as a commissioner, saying the alleged meeting could not have happened, because all relevant discussion of the issue occurred at public meetings. “If you go back and look at the agenda in March 2007 when we voted on the hiring freeze…you can clearly see that there’s no violation of Sunshine Law. I moved it to the next Thursday’s agenda as the chairman,” Stewart said.
During an interview in his office at the Santa Rosa County Administrative Center, Commissioner Salter, who now serves as commission chairman, denied the allegations and said he had not been contacted by the State Attorney’s Office.
“I have been in office for nine years,” Salter said. “I have never participated in, or known of any Sunshine violation.”
HEATED BOARD MEETINGS
The allegations recently lead Salter to publicly question the character of one of the complainants. Isaacson appeared at a July Commission meeting and spoke to the board during an update about the county’s Blackwater Correction Facility. The Pace resident described his concern about TEAM Santa Rosa, mentioned the 11 accusations he filed with the State Attorney’s office and said he believed he is “absolutely” sure that the economic development entity had violated the Sunshine and open record laws.
As Isaacson stepped back from the podium, Commissioner Salter began a rebuttal that described the county’s economic development over the last few years as being in a state of transition. He also said it was the Commission’s duty to make sure TEAM Santa Rosa complies with a “new interpretation” of the Sunshine Laws mandated by the Governor’s office in January.
Salter said many other similar agencies across the state may not even be aware of any compliance issues and added that TEAM Santa Rosa should be given credit for attempting to bring its activities into public view, saying the relevant laws were “very unclear” until the beginning of the year.
Salter then turned his attention to Isaacson’s comments from moments before and an Internet forum where the local pastor and others often voice their grievances about county government.
“You talk about laws being broken, ‘absolutely,’ you said. I thought we lived in America where we have a judicial system that proves innocence and guilt, not you,” Salter said, in reference to Isaacson. “I’ve read some of your quotes about where you said, ‘No reason to wait on the courts, let’s take matters into our own hands.'”
The commissioner, who was by then visibly irritated by the exchange, said he wanted the public to know that he did not take Isaacson’s comments or accusations lightly.
“I’m starting to, as chairman of this board, fear for some of the people who are associated with economic development for their safety based on some of your comments that you’ve made about ‘Don’t wait on the courts,'” Salter said to Isaacson.
CHILDERS’ SUNSHINE LEGACY
Buried deep in the average American’s cultural psyche is an image of a stereotypical “Good Old Boy” Southern politician. In Escambia County, that persona is almost always fleshed out by former State Senator, former County Commissioner and ex-convict Wyon Dale “W.D.” Childers.
The Childers case, Salter said, gave the general public an impromptu lesson on what it meant to violate Sunshine and what the consequences would be.
“We would have to be totally stupid to do the things [White] said we did. It would be foolish to do that at a visioning session where there are thousands of people around,” Salter said.
During the interview, Salter referenced his open meeting training and the “Government in the Sunshine Manual,” compiled by the Florida Attorney General’s Office.
The state of Florida’s Sunshine Manual – given to public officials as a reference for applicable case law that includes detailed examples of how to comply with the ethics code – mentions the former Escambia County Commissioner.
Childers was released from jail earlier this year after being found guilty of bribery, a Sunshine violation and unlawful compensation charges in 2002. Childers, who earned the nickname “Banty Rooster” from his days in the Florida Senate, broke the Sunshine Law with a telephone call during which a fellow commissioner, Childers and the supervisor of elections discussed voting districts.
The newly-released Childers is mentioned again in the 139-page document for discussing county business with two other elected officials in an unannounced meeting behind closed doors.
The 2009 manual also mentions e-mails. In today’s modern communication reality most elected officials are expected to use computers, cell phones and various software applications to keep in touch with constituents and staff members. E-mail can be a tricky subject when detailing the complexities of Sunshine Law but the manual from the Attorney General’s office is fairly detailed in its description.
The guidebook acknowledges that commissioners are allowed to share factual information about a particular item that the elected officials may vote on or discuss at a later public meeting. The manual says that it could become a violation when opinions about the factual information are shared because it shows an interaction between the board members that should only take place in a public meeting.
The ball is now in the State Attorney’s court, and July was a fairly busy month for Bill Eddins’ office. Investigators with the First Judicial Circuit have been very tight-lipped about the Santa Rosa case, and it is probably a fairly safe assumption that the office was inundated with facts from the Billings murder case while this article was being produced.
If found guilty of the accusations, commissioners face misdemeanor criminal charges, possible jail time and removal from office.
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Commissioner emails
From: Commissioner Goodin
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 1:15 PM
To: Board of County Commissioners
Cc: Hunter Walker; Tom Dannheisser; Tony Gomillion; Roger Blaylock; Beckie Faulkenberry; Nancy Model; Ray Sansom (ray.sansom@myfloridahouse.gov)
Subject: Northwest Florida TPO
At our meeting two weeks ago, Commissioner Tucker and Commissioner Broxson asked FDOT for an explanation of the criteria to prioritize the TRIP funding process. It is being left to each TPO to develop their own criteria.
A follow-up question asked what criteria District 3 was using to prioritize projects, and who would select the projects that would receive funding. The individual answering was not aware of any criteria District staff would use. A committee of District staff and Secretary Prescott will meet and make the selections.
Another follow-up question asked if the selections would be made in public, similar to the meetings in the Sunshine the TPO’s are required to hold. Commissioner Tucker received the attached explanation. So much for placing the TRIP funding process in the Sunshine! Makes you wonder if it is worth getting wrapped around the flagpole fighting for (and defending) our projects when District 3 can make their decisions with little oversight or accountability.
gg
Gordon Goodin
Santa Rosa County Commissioner, District 4
850-983-1876
—–
From: Commissioner Cole
Sent: Thursday, May 04, 2006 2:07 PM
To: Commissioner Goodin
Subject: RE: Northwest Florida TPO
Sound like how they decided to back up Avalon Blvd. Maybe there is a dart board somewhere we do not know about????
Sincerely,
Commissioner Bob Cole
Chairman Santa Rosa County BOCC
—–
From: Commissioner Goodin
To: Michelle Parker
CC: Commissioner Cole ; Commissioner Salter ; Commissioner Stewart ; Commissioner Broxson ; Hunter Walker ; Tom Dannheisser ; Roger Blaylock
Sent: Wed May 31 14:07:22 2006
Subject: RE: FW: Escambia-Santa Rosa Regional Transportation Authority Meeting
I’m not sure if we want to rescind anything or not. If they’re going to pick up their toys and go home every time things don’t go their way- then maybe they should stay at the house.
gg
Gordon Goodin
Santa Rosa County Commissioner, District 4
850-983-1876
—–
From: Commissioner Cole
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 5:13 PM
To: Commissioner Goodin
Subject: Re: FW: Escambia-Santa Rosa Regional Transportation Authority Meeting
How dose this effect the votes theyu have made since that date ?
——
From: Commissioner Goodin
To: Commissioner Cole
Sent: Wed May 31 17:30:17 2006
Subject: RE: FW: Escambia-Santa Rosa Regional Transportation Authority Meeting
The RTA hasn’t met since they withdrew their membership.
gg
Gordon Goodin
Santa Rosa County Commissioner, District 4
850-93-1876
—–
From: Commissioner Cole
Sent: Wednesday, May 31, 2006 6:44 PM
To: Commissioner Goodin
Subject: Re: FW: Escambia-Santa Rosa Regional Transportation Authority Meeting
There is to dam many authorities with no authority.
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