Charter Review Advisory Board - Regular Meeting

Our roll call. Art Bilski. Bridgette

Body.

No justice. Joseph Guerin. And our new appointee is not here at the moment. Neither of them. Neither of them? I guess that's Guerin Staples? Yes. Okay. We will continue on. If they show up, we'll add them to the role. Pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the

flag of The United States

Of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

I've said the pledge more times in Florida than I did in the forty years before that living in Illinois.

I don't know. When I was in grade school, I used to say it every in grade school.

Well, my grade school is a long longer than forty years ago. Mine's sixty years ago.

Are we dating ourselves? You're on the wrong side of 65? Oh, yeah. Okay.

Public comment. I see we have nobody Nope.

Okay. Can I get a motion to approve the minutes?

A motion to approve. Seconded.

Okay. They've been moved and Any discussion? All in favor, aye. Aye. Motion passes.

Okay. Presentations. Shun sign law training. Where's our trainee? She's sitting back in her wheelchair.

There's your trainee. Yes, I'm Margaret Roberts. I'm the interim deputy city attorney for the city now. I know several of you probably have been trained, and I heard you say you're ready to learn more. So feel free to interrupt me as I go along. This is a pretty standard training we do for all our boards. And if you'll forgive me, I'm going to sit down so that I can can run the slides from this computer. Whatever makes you comfortable. All right. Thank you, sir.

So this is our Advisory Board training. We're going to be talking about public meetings, public records, ethics, and meeting procedures. So let's get started. First of all, public meetings and public records. You have a real good resource. You see this, bright sunshine in the middle. That's the Sunshine Law Manual. It will tell you a lot of detail, much of it statutory or case law examples. And if you ever want some sleepy time reading, this will help you. It's quite extensive.

So this is the program that the State of Florida, enacted quite a few years ago. And it's not common to all states in The United States, but we were one of the first, I believe, to start with public meetings records. So what do I mean when I say a public meeting? And if you can't hear me okay, let me know. It's any gathering.

So today, perfect example, you have a gathering of your board members. In that gathering, if you discuss any foreseeable action, something that this, advisory board would vote on, then that could constitute a meeting or a gathering. And if you have not followed all the procedures to hold a public meeting, then, we would have a legal problem. Now, what's a gathering? Let's get into it in a little more detail.

It's any conversation, any text message, any email message, any phone call. It doesn't matter what the form is if it communicates. So even your members elect, I heard you mention that you've got some new members to your board, even those members, once they are appointed, are bound by the Sunshine Law even though they're not on the board, so to speak, right away. So please be sure and be observant when you're encountering any of those new members. So the Florida law requires that your meetings be open to the public.

And so in order to accomplish that, your notices are provided by the city clerk's office so that they, can be communicated to the public. They're usually a routine meeting. You have a certain night you like to meet and set that up annually with your schedule. These notices are produced and posted for the public to be able to see them. And the other requirement is that the clerk's office does take the minutes of your meeting and preserves those as a public record.

So what's the big deal? If there is a violation, it's considered a second degree misdemeanor and can have a fine up to $500,000 plus sixty days in jail. It can also have a non criminal fine up to $500 It could involve removal from office as a board member, And it could also, in the event of any litigation, result in the assessment of attorney's fees if the city was not, successful or you were not successful in the case, defending you.

Question. Yes.

That means that if somebody files a complaint against one of us or anybody, if you lose the case, you have to pay for attorney fees?

Well, that's a possibility. I won't say it's always the case. But it depends on how the complaint is filed. If it's filed with the state attorney, then it's going to be a criminal matter potentially. The city attorney's office does not handle the criminal defense work for the city, so we would not be doing the work.

It may require you to engage private counsel to support you in that defense of a criminal action or a charge of a criminal action. And there are some cases where those fees can be reimbursed by the city. So it's got a variable, I would say possibly, is the best answer I can give you across the board. To know. All right.

Now here's an example, and you'll note, that this involved two council members who were, discussing, matters that naturally would be coming to a vote before the, in this case, the commission that nor the council that was governing the city of Sebastian. And, there had been a meeting notice,

noticed, but it was postponed. The board members went ahead

been and discussed the matter in the meeting without being properly convened as a Board with a quorum and taking all the appropriate steps to have persons there and notices provided and available to the people who would be attending the meeting. So they were found to have been they were arrested for these violations. That typically connotes that it is a criminal action. So let's talk about the definition of a public record. We're switching from your public meetings over to your records requirements now.

I mentioned earlier that it doesn't matter about the form. A record can be just about any document, paper, or communication that we use in today's age. Now, that can also advance as technology gives us other tools for communication. There's all kinds of apps for messaging these days, so just about anything that could be made or received by another person, that, talks about the transaction of any business that potentially come could come before you. Well, with this board, your business is the charter.

So it's pretty easy to narrow it down on what the kinds of communications are that could cause difficulty. So any discussion about the charter would be in this niche of something to be careful about in discussing outside of a public meeting. So, if it is made or and received, other words, if that record is made by you in this meeting as we're discussing and you don't share it with anyone else, whether it be staff or another board member, then that's not communicated. So, that record is your personal note, which is not the kind of document we're looking for. It's the documents that you may transmit to another person.

It doesn't necessarily have to be a board member if it talks about charter business. So this goes a little broader than discussions with your fellow board members. Some of the things you want to ask yourself is, Am I getting this communication because of my position on a board? Is it about the charter? Is it about other city business related to the charter?

It could be whether your charter amendments are getting to the city commission. That's of official business because you provide your recommendations to that commission. So it's broader than just what you may talk about as far as the charter. The other thing is you want to ask yourself, does this communication perpetuate, communicate, and formalize knowledge? And it's a broad statement and it's broad for a reason.

They apply this law very liberally. They want people to have confidence in government, and so they've developed the Sunshine Law and the Public Records Law to give people a chance to know that the public business is in the open and all of the communications are maintained as a part of public record. Now, I mentioned it could be any form, so that could be an electronic message from a private computer or a phone that are written or received in the connection of official business. And all of these records have a retention schedule. There's a master schedule.

It will vary in how long the record has to be kept. Some are permanent records, for instance, I believe, and Matt, correct me if I'm wrong, but your minutes are perpetual. They have to be kept permanently evidence of what your business has been about. So, because we have all these public records, we get public records requests from citizens and businesses who are trying to work with the city, some who are not trying to work with the city. They'd like to, catch us in a faux pas.

So these records are maintained by the city clerk. She is the official custodian of the city's public records. I mentioned how liberally this act is, construed and so much so that the courts favor disclosing the record. There are exemptions, and I will tell you hundreds of them, so it's very hard to keep up with the fine points that exempt a document from the disclosure requirements when we get a public records request, and that's part of what the city attorney's office does. We review the record and help with any redaction of information that's not supposed to be disclosed, it's supposed to be exempt.

And those exemptions also are listed in that Sunshine Manual if you ever are curious as to how many they are. So if you get a public records request, what should you do? You want to forward it to the city clerk. If you feel the need to respond to the person that maybe said, Hey, I want to request this record about your board, then you can say it's in process. I received it and it's in process.

And that lets them know that you're working on it, you've given it to the proper person, and they will be doing the necessary communications to be sure it gets responded to. All of those requests are tracked. They have a software system that helps maintain those. And there's a really good reason for that, and I'll touch on that just a little bit later. We talked about retention and, because we have these retention records, it's important that you provide any request to the clerk so she can maintain that record for whatever the required period of time is.

The notation here also provides that you can give that to the staff liaison, who is the city clerk's delegate for our meeting. Now, the city clerk will, number one, ensure that the record is, kept for the requisite period of time and that it is produced to the person who has requested it. So once you delegate it and send it on to the clerk, she will handle it or he will handle it if it happens to be Matt. So failing to produce or respond to a public record, again, is penalized. And you see here where Manatee County had some problems with failing to respond.

Let's say you get a text message and you think nothing of it, but it happens to be worded as sufficient to be called a public records request. And sometimes they don't start out with, this is a public records request. It might say, I'd like a copy or I'd like to know what your minutes said or, you know, it could just be a statement that says, well, how do you answer that? If it is a record available that answers their inquiry, then you want to get it on to the clerk so that she can maintain it and respond. If you forget about it and think that that's not a public records request, then you could see headlines.

If you're in doubt, forward it to the clerk anyway and say, I don't know if this is a public records request or not, but I wanted you to have it. And they will take care of it if it is, in fact, a public records request.

My favorite thing regarding this topic is if you get 7,000 emails in your spam every day and one of them happens to go in there and you don't get it, you can be a violation of it.

That's an excellent point.

Because I brought that up in my very first Sunshine meeting. I'm like, I get some I'm just like empty, empty, empty.

It's burdensome. We agree wholeheartedly. City of Venice also had trouble producing a record. And these are our neighbors. And I would say the state of the art in keeping these records has advanced and able to handle the volume.

It's still very burdensome on U. S. Board members and staff as the persons who have to handle this. You see here in this case, there was a cost to the city of $45,000 to settle the case. You've got Manatee County, again, one of our neighbors.

Again, legal fees in the amount of $60,000 So when in doubt, talk to your clerk, forward it to your clerk. So let's go on to ethics now, and this Florida is, officers, and so welcome to the Elite Group. This is the phone number. These are some really good resources. The phone number of the Commission on Ethics is here for you and that's also their site.

If you ever have a doubt about ethics, these are the people you want to talk to. I will assure you that they're very good, they're very professional, and they're very informed about these kinds of things. That's all they do is deal with ethics concerns before the fact and ethics complaints after the fact. And they can guide you with sample opinions that they have issued or any of the statutes that govern what you might be asking about. So as an individual board member, this is your first line of defense.

If you have any concern about something you're about to do, talk to the ethics people. And they're located in Tallahassee. Here is their phone number. The other book I mentioned earlier was the, there's a booklet much smaller than the Sunshine Manual, but it's a good booklet in case you want to keep that handy. And then the, Florida Statutes, again, you can Google these, and get a lot of information on these statute sections if you want to get the wording exactly as it is.

Okay, so we're going to talk a little bit about some of that wording and what is the prohibited conduct that you should be watching out for. And the first is the acceptance of anything of value, of a favor, or a service with the understanding that it will make a difference in your vote, your official action, or potentially your judgment will be influenced. So if it gets your attention and you think that, you know, this is something that could influence you, this is when you need to be, you know, doing that gut check to say, Hey, is this something that's going to influence me and my vote? You cannot accept any compensation or payment or thing of value that you know or you should know that it will influence your vote in your official action. This carries over to your spouse and minor children as well.

So if the payment is made to the spouse or to a minor child or some support is given in some way, then that's something you do not want to accept.

I've a question about that. Why just minor children? Why not even adult children? Because that has made plenty of headlines over the previous four years.

That's just the way the law is written.

They just single out just the minor children?

I think they probably hold adults to the standard.

And I think technically, the

adult child, you would legally probably consider influence,

where minor child, there's influence.

It's hard to say for sure. I don't recall when they did this legislation. It's been there from the beginning. But I think they consider the parent perhaps responsible for their minor children.

Because they're the guardian of the minor child?

Yeah, the they're legal guardian.

Are campaign contributions accepted?

Campaign contributions are a whole another regulation.

I was

going to say there's usually a lot of rules around those.

I know there's limits, but I mean

There's quite a bit of an authorized company on how they're handled. They're not considered campaign well, I won't say can't influence because they probably can. But if you're on a board and have received a campaign contribution, you might want to talk to the Commission on Ethics.

A dozen people from one one company make their individual $1,000 contributions.

And fortunately, as an advisory board, hopefully that's not one of your worries to be having to do campaign contributions.

I want to get contributions.

But I wish you the best on that.

Unauthorized contributions. I

want unauthorised contributions.

So we'll get to that. That's the next subject, misuse of public position. And that is to correctly use your position to get something special or a benefit. And here's where the motive jumps in to play. If you intend to do it to get something special and they can prove that, then it goes to the level of corruption.

So that's the misuse of public position. They talk about abuse of public position where you're getting more of a benefit than, let's say, your neighbor. You know, let's say they're paving the road out front and somehow you manage to get your driveway paved too or, you know, some some oddity that could be considered abuse of position. I don't think it applies to this board, but that's the way the law reads. And then if you had confidential information, again, I don't think this applies to this board, but if you had information that came to you because of your position, like myself as an attorney, I could receive confidential information.

If I use that for my benefit, I'd be disclosing, the information improperly and that would be to, that would be a misuse of my position. Okay. They also prohibit certain relationships, and these are definitely ones you want to ask about if you have any doubt because there are exceptions to the rules. So these are just the general overview to give you kind of that heads up. The first one, again, applies to spouse and children as well as yourself individually, and that's about purchasing, renting or leasing, realty goods or services, from the city for the city from your personal business.

Then you've conflicting employment or contractual relationships and if you hold an employment relationship with a business that is regulated or doing business with the city, you need to, act cautiously and get, counsel from the Commission on Ethics. And also, if you have an employment relationship and you're on a board and those conflicts come up, they're not always going to be prohibited. But if the same conflict comes up over and over and over, then that could be considered a prohibited relationship because it keeps happening and, could be considered to influence your decision making. Okay. As board members, you must vote.

That's your privilege and your requirement. It's a mandatory requirement. The statute cited here says that the member who is present may not abstain from voting unless there's a voting conflict, and again, that's where you're going to get advice from the ethics, counsel, or it's something in a quasi judicial proceeding, that keeps you from being fair and impartial. So, quasi judicial proceedings are those that involve other people's property at stake. They're asking for a zoning permit or a comprehensive plan permit or approval to do certain activities on their lands.

Those are quasi judicial items. They may be asking for a vacation of an easement. Again, has been quasi judicial in the past. That recently has been updated. So, there's a laundry list of quasi judicial on the agenda.

It usually will set if it's quasi judicial. Again, this board does not have that occurring. So you can also have, voting conflicts of interest And this is where you might have a financial interest or a relative or business associate could have a financial interest in the vote. They are prohibited and you want to consult with the ethics, people if you have any concern hiccups that this may apply to you. If you do have to file a voting conflict of interest, then there is a form you must complete and you see the time requirements for making sure that form is properly completed and the City Clerk's office can assist you with regard to anything that has to be done there.

Keep in mind, it has to be announced in the meeting that you have this conflict. Okay, we talked about relatives and relatives is defined in the statute. And it's fairly lengthy here and can reach quite a few family members. So keep that in mind when it involves employment relationships. That's where we talked about that.

What are your penalties for violation of the ethics? Well, it could result in impeachment through action of the State of Florida, the House of Representatives, could impeach a public officer. I'm not aware of any that I can recite for you, but they do have that power. You can be removed as a board member. You can be suspended.

There could be a public center and reprimand, a civil penalty of $10,000 and restitution of any benefit you may have received and that's paying it back to, however that, restitution is required for whoever did not receive that benefit. Okay, now we're going to move on to meeting procedures. These are fairly straightforward and I know you're probably all familiar with these. Your quorum is your majority. You take action.

First thing you do after you have, opened up an agenda item is you determine whether there are any motions on the floor, to take action on the agenda item. It does require a second of a second board member and then, of course, it's open for full discussion. Once you have spoken, you probably want to allow all the other board members to have a chance to speak, but, after that, you may, address, the floor again. And then the board, debates the motion and makes their decision. You want to always stay on the agenda.

There are cases out there where a board deviated from the agenda, and when the judge reviewed the case, he said, I can't tell what this board's business was. They were talking about all kinds of things, and he threw it back and it had to be done all over again. So stick to your agenda is the best policy. You also get out of the meeting a little earlier.

We haven't had that problem over the last two years.

Good. Excellent.

That's two

years ago. Yes.

Now, your time limits can be per agenda item if someone is speaking. If you have members of the public who would like to address the board, there are time limits that have been set up there. And then each board member speaks once and then you allow the others to speak before continuing. Okay, we've got code sections here that help you see the details of how your board is composed. If you have alternates, the alternate does not participate or vote.

Now I don't believe this board has alternates, but if you do it any time, then, the participation is limited unless you're sitting in an absent board member seat. Once you are in that replacement category, then you can participate fully and vote.

We haven't had alternates for four or five years now. I was going

say, I think we may have had an alternate when I first got on.

Yeah, we did. That's three years ago. And I can't remember his name. Yeah, we did. We used to have an alternate.

We have two alternate spots, but they're both empty.

We can't fill the regular spots. Right.

You need some additional supportive information, it requires that the entire board vote to request that additional information, whether it be a report or some research, and it does require the unanimous vote of the Board. And then that is directed on through the staff liaison to the staff and that would be to the appropriate charter officers as the next stop. It could be, if it's legal, could hit the city attorney's office. If it's management or operational, it could hit the city manager's office. And if it's records, it could hit the city clerk's office.

So, it's directed to that charter officer responsible for their functions and then it is reviewed and the response, to the request is provided by the appropriate

I'm sorry. I don't know if it's my eyes or not, but I can't read it all that's center block.

No.

Okay. Let me read that to It's not very

ADA approved.

It's not user friendly for If approved unanimously, the chairperson may request the information report or research through the board staff liaison. So I gave you that input, but it wasn't well demonstrated there and we'll adjust that one of these days.

Well, what would happen if board wanted information and they couldn't get a vote a complete unanimous approval? And we technically can't ask staff to do anything. But since these meetings are all recorded, if a commissioner or somebody else would hear it and hear our request, could they, on their own, redirect staff to give us the information?

No. Commissioners work through the city manager. It's the city manager's staff. They could discuss it with the city

manager, Okay.

Just wondered. Never had it happen, but I just wondered.

Yeah. Understood. Any other questions?

Well, in the way that was worded, if we all voted that we wanted something, but you never communicated it to the city manager, you'd be in trouble.

No, no. He communicates it to the staff at the agency.

But if he never did

Well, he's right here. It's not But

what if he's not here?

Not here We always have somebody.

Somebody has to be here.

You won't have a meeting if somebody's there. Well, I'm

not supposed to. That's a whole another topic.

I was gonna say, say,

were not there. Just a beat. I mean, that's a gross

per person. Anything else I can help you with today?

Can't think of anything offhand. How about the rest of

you? Nothing offhand.

And it's funny because every year when we go through this, everybody has questions again.

Right after you leave. Oh, okay.

Share them with a staff liaison.

How's Michael doing?

He is doing good. He's doing very good. I know you miss him.

We do.

Where did he go?

He's still here. He's

still here.

At the He's

a acting city attorney.

He's too

busy for He's too busy for us.

Yes. He's in the big bus. He don't like us now.

Oh, I think he likes you just fine. I just don't think he has any time left. Alright. Well, thank you all very much.

Thank you for your time. Okay.

Welcome.

Nominations are now open for chair.

Question? Answer? Is it true my term expires in June?

Yeah. Maybe

that's probably good. Let's review what things are.

Yeah. Let's see. So,

Art, your term expires in July.

Okay. And that's been already four years, hasn't it? It's your second term. Yeah.

So yeah. I think that's the limit, isn't it?

No. It's three years.

Three years, yes. Two terms. So it's your second term. Third year of your second term. Okay. So I'm done. Yes, sir. Okay. And I can't be Okay. Chairward.

Aren't we supposed to say, like, What about motion forward? Well, yeah, you can

nominate anybody can nominate anybody.

So you

But we're just trying to figure out when our terms are ending

No.

Yeah. But

aren't we supposed before we do discussion I Aren't we supposed to do a motion? Well, you got motion.

So you need you need it's open for nominations. And then once all the nominations are received, you make a motion in order of the nominations received to elect them as chair.

Okay. And then So what's yours? Here's part

of the rules. He's gonna be done. You're gonna be done. I'm on my second term as chair. I can't do it again.

I know. I heard the first time.

You'll have nobody to chair, though. I'll be the chair. Don't I will nominate.

I second.

Sorry. Are you accepting I

will accept the nomination if everyone votes for that.

Okay. Nominations are closed at this point. I would call a vote. All in favor?

Sorry. Just I know this process is a little weird compared to other things. So now that you have the nomination in place, now you need to somebody has to make the motion to elect. I motion to

elect. Okay. I second.

Motion has been passed and seconded. All in favor? Aye. Yay.

Or sympathy. Okay.

You are in control of the meeting.

No, she was in

control now.

Instantly, I'm in control. Oh, yeah.

Is there

any interest of anyone to be a vice chair? I don't think we're technically allowed to elect people

No, have to be here to accept.

That's what I thought.

There's only one person that's going to be left. That's me.

Any interest in being vice chair?

If you give me the right kind of

a maybe. Yeah. Oh. The bribe would be I'm not sure what I got nothing. You got

nothing. The bribe would be to spend quality time In this room. Wednesday in a month in this room with the fellow charter review

board Well,

two of

us might make quite a team since some of you might be here. All

right. Do I have a motion?

I'll make a motion to nominate Joe Justice as vice chair.

I'll second. Boy, how fast

All those in favor? Aye. Do we then have to do a motion to elect him?

Nope. So that was the motion to elect All done with the item.

So if I'm not here, Joe will take my place to lead this mean, no. No. I do work for a living.

With I know sometimes, yes. And no meeting because one person is not a

quorum. These We've

people had a few instances where we did not have quorum.

Yeah. Happened before.

All right. So that's all of new business. How about any future agenda items?

It's up to you now. Anybody have any

Any motions for future agenda items?

I will stick my foot in my mouth.

Wonderful. Do it. Why are

we continuing to meet? The commission never listens to anything we

That is not what I asked.

Well, But that is an agenda item because

statutorily, we're already required to be Okay. So make the motion.

I motion that we just do our minimum once a year.

Give me one second that.

Okay. So we can talk about

the schedule at next meeting.

But because These are future agenda items. Yeah. So you're making a motion to add schedule Yes. To the next Okay. That's fine.

Anybody want add the to the agenda, talking about schedule?

Right. Now let's talk about when we're going to schedule our next meeting.

That goes on to next time agenda, I guess. We already have it scheduled.

Yeah. Already have a calendar for this year.

Yes. So the previous schedule was approved. Excuse me. Our next meeting would be June 18.

Would you So be going by then?

I believe I'm done before then.

Well, I need Let to me get So

your termination date is April 12. You are on your first term, so I don't know if you wanted

I know I keep getting the emails saying, hey, would you like to reapply?

We wouldn't mind having you.

Somebody's got to keep this place lively, Joe.

It'd be nice to

have Because I all won't be here.

All right. June 18 for our

next meeting, I will not be here. I'll be

here. So

we do have that motion on the floor to discuss amending the schedule.

I second. Can I second? Sure. Okay. Second. Am I allowed to second?

Yeah. You can do that.

Yeah, because I made the motion.

Okay. All in favor of adding schedule to the next agenda?

Aye.

Aye. I would say that, but I have a caveat to that. There's no caveating. Well, if the meeting is going to be June 18, I won't be here. They won't be here. You can't have a I said next meeting.

I can still well, wait. Let me see where I am June 18.

Where's the next meeting, June 18?

Let me see where

I could use the phrasing next meeting. So I see that to be the next time we are able to

meet. Correct.

Not necessarily June if you no one's here, we won't be meeting.

I agree. Do have it on my calendar. It

might just be

So you two and maybe Yeah.

So there's no way to know officially. But if we don't have a quorum, you will be notified. And then we'll move it to that. We'll move all items to the next meeting. And also, while we're on the topic as well, as you all know very well, one of the requirements of the board is to review the charter. So I'll probably add that to the next meeting, assuming it's not too the kind of overview of the charter, see if there's any suggestions or

Does anybody have any other motions for adding items to future Well, it may not be a motion,

but it's a thought for people to keep in the back of their mind that are going to be here. We have couple of referendums coming up for a vote. In May? In May, yes. If they don't pass, we may want to add that to our agenda items to see if we can

At the next meeting, we can discuss something that I about. For sure. Any motions for any other future agenda items?

Actually, Joe made a and I'll try I have to preface it. You made a comment, I think, a year and a half or two years ago to be like Sarasota County where the crab can put forth referendums without commission.

Yes. That's within the county charter. Talk about it? See, they're an independent, an elected body.

I know. But I could come visit as a public.

There's a slight difference between the county board and our board. They're an elected body. We're an appointed body. Body.

So you think that there's no way to hell to get that through?

It's pretty close to that.

Okay. That's fine. Then I won't bother.

Because you'd need all the commissioners to approve it. Good idea, though.

All right. Well, if there's no other items for future agenda additions, we'll move on to public comments. Any public comments? None at this time. All right. Then I think we can call