After spending the past year trying to convince the public that the county commissioners’ 401(a) retirement plan was illegal, Escambia County Clerk Pam Childers suffered two legal defeats yesterday.
Okaloosa Circuit Court Judge William Stone dismissed both her lawsuit against commissioners Robert Bender, Steven Barry and Lumon May and denied her motion to quash the commissioners’ writ of mandamus that would compel her to make payments to the 401(a) plan.
Childers’ lawsuit asked the court to rule that disbursements to the retirement as unlawful. Judge Stone dismissed her lawsuit because he said the mandamus case “will resolve the determinative issues in the present case.”
Judge Stone wrote, “Both the mandamus action and present case ultimately turn on whether the County’s local retirement plan is unlawful as to elected officials.”
He declared Childers’ lawsuit a “duplicative declaratory action.” In other words, an expensive waste of time that Childers will have the taxpayers pay for.
In denying Childers’ motion to quash the writ of mandamus, Judge Stone wrote Childers’ personal attacks on the commissioners and political disagreements were “not germane to resolving the legal issues presented in this case.”
He ruled, “Having considered the Amended Complaint and the subsequent filings as true and in the light most favorable to the County, the Court finds that County has made a prima facie case for relief.”
The county’s lawsuit against the clerk may now proceed.
I was already out of words for what an embarrassment this whole thing should be to the Clerk (her poor staff) in my last comment after the initial hearing on her mirror lawsuit BS. Oh, and her “I don’t cotton to being sued sir and will not abide it so do me a solid and gimme a quash” inanity.
Thank God we still have judges left who are willing to enact the law.
It has been amusing to watch the QAnon We Want It The Way We Want It crowd shift gears into “even if she loses…” I suppose Doug took a break from his Ashli Babbit, Patron Saint of Insurrections devotions to give them the high sign that Mr. Fleming had in reality signed on for an impossible task in trying to clean up round one of her legal mess.
Too bad that Pam doesn’t have to pay for the shotgun filings, and instead is sticking the taxpayers with the bills from two firms.
As her idolaters have already proudly taken to boasting, they think she’s the bomb regardless of how idiotic and puerile her actions. So there you have it, folks. ‘Merica.
Nonetheless it still bears repeating, for the percentage of our local population still in touch with reality and the rule of law:
–The local 401a doesn’t cost the taxpayers any more money than the state FRS.
–The state run FRS has just about the kind of abysmal returns you would expect from Tallahassee managing money.
–WHEN A COMMISSIONER’S ELECTED SERVICE IS OVER, SO ARE THE 401A PAYOUTS.
–The FRS system is lifetime payouts the taxpayers are stuck doling out for the likes of Doug Underhill, and, if he goes first, his trash mouth wife after him.