I'm sure some are still finding parking, so. But we're going to go ahead and get started. I'd like to thank everyone for attending the training this morning on government in the
Central Sunshine, and would like to thank you for your service on boards and committees. Most of you know our presenter this morning, but for those of you who do not, I
would like to introduce our esteemed City Attorney, Andrew Saltzman. Attorney Saltzman is a distinguished Florida attorney whose career spans decades of dedicated service
and litigation, governmental representation, and labor and employment law. He built a strong academic foundation at the University of Florida and Stetson University College of
Law, before beginning his legal career with the office of the State Attorney for Florida's Sixth Judicial Circuit. Over the years, Mr. Saltzman has earned a reputation for
excellence in insurance, defense, public sector representation and complex employment matters, serving a wide range of governmental agencies, fire districts and
private entities. He is a V rated attorney and an active member of numerous professional organizations, and also is a frequent lecturer on key legal topics, reflecting both his
expertise and his commitment to advancing the profession. He's also a partner with Eunice Salzman and Jensen. Without any further ado, I'd like to
introduce you to attorney Andrew Saltzman. Thank you. I think Irene just said I was old,
so let me talk to you about government in the sunshine, which some of these things will not apply to you. And some of these things will. And it's just important for you to have a basic understanding of what
we're talking about. You know, the interesting thing about government in the sunshine is everyone in the state, all boards are subject to this
except for the legislature who passed this. They are exempt. So it's interesting. They're the ones who need it, not you.
Okay. We're starting off poorly. It is not advancing for some reason. Help! Oh, here we go.
Okay, so this is the oath of office. And what's important to know about the Sunshine Law is it's statutory and its
constitutional. So the requirements are taken pretty seriously. And there's an oath of office that is taken by all elected officials that they
have to follow not only the laws of the of the state, federal and of the city. So you've seen that swearing in. But what is government sunshine?
So it's really two things. It's that we have meetings open to the public in the sunshine, in essence. And it's a public records requirement. And the important thing about public
records is that you and your capacity in in advisory boards or in the Board of Adjustment Code Enforcement Board, which are final boards, you are subject to both these
conditions. Now, when we talk about the Sunshine Law from a public meeting perspective, really you're you're pretty safe in a lot of those things. We'll talk about the
requirements, but those are handled by administration. But when we talk about public records, while you may not think it applies to you, it does. And you need to be
careful on some of the things that you do. You'll see when we talk about it, there are penalties for all violations in both these areas, and some of
them are pretty significant. So the basic requirements is that we have a meeting open to the public. There's reasonable notice and minutes are taken.
So let's talk about that for a minute. You've seen how your meetings are and most of them are are in this room. So they're open to the public. There's access for the public.
You cannot have a meeting where you where you deny access to the public. And that includes wheelchair access. Anything along those lines? The idea
behind public sunshine meetings is this not only can you attend and see what goes on, but you have to be able to hear and you have the right to speak. And
when we talk about, I think everybody's aware when we had Covid, what went on, where we had some Zoom meetings and things along those lines. You still had the right and
actually the obligation to be able to see somebody when they're making their decision. So it's not just hearing their vote, it's seeing their face. So you can see their reaction to the information they're
getting. The other part about this, and the most important part, we talk about this at all our meetings. We ask you at the beginning as to whether or not on each issue you've had any ex
parte communication, because the importance of. Also, the Sunshine law is that when you're making a decision, everybody has the same information. And whether you
think about it or not, if you go out to a a location and you're talking to somebody and they tell you this particular property or this particular
neighbor who's asking for this variance is not a good neighbor, or we've had problems with them over the years or they've done this influences you. And if and if the rest of the board
doesn't have the same information, then it's unfair for not only the applicant but for the board to make a decision. So you need to say those ex parte. Now, in a
perfect world, I will tell you, in my opinion and I'm very conservative, I'd rather you don't go out and talk to anybody. I mean, most of you know where the properties are. Most of you are familiar, and
there's nothing wrong with driving by and seeing those things. Heritage preservation, very familiar with what they're seeing, what they're looking at, but really not having the
conversations is much better. You know, these issues never come up except on the controversial matters. And in the controversial matters, they're the ones we have potential for litigation. So
when you're defending these type of cases, you have to make sure that things are done properly. And I think we had this discussion recently, either in heritage preservation
or or board of Adjustment, where you have to be very careful that we provide due process in quasi judicial proceedings, right? Everybody
has the opportunity to have certain rights. You have the right to have your matter heard. You have the right to present evidence. You have the right to cross-examine witnesses. These are all due due process
conditions. And when the court looks at any appeals in these cases, they're looking for two things. One, did somebody get due process? Two, was there competent, substantial evidence?
And you'll hear when I when I read the quasi judicial rules, that that's a big thing. And actually, for most of the cases that are appealed, that's
really the criteria. Doesn't matter what your decision is, approval, disapproval, it's irrelevant to the court. What matters to the court is that you can base it on competent, substantial evidence. So that's
the most important thing. And usually you see competent substantial evidence is provided by the city. Because we have the experts, we have all the information and we're presenting it. Occasionally
you'll see somebody bring their own expert, which would also count as competent, substantial evidence. But you also know why we introduce if you're in code enforcement board, you see it
all the time that Mike will say, I'm introducing into the record these documents. And that's because we now have competent, substantial evidence on the record. And I can defend
whatever you do. But so it's important again, that for due process standpoint, that you disclose any information that you have obtained. Also, you
want to be careful on doing your own research on these things. I mean, it's natural, right? People see a particular piece of property and they might get online and start
looking at things regarding that property. Well, I prefer you don't do that. And the reason is, is because you have to base your opinion again on what the city presents or what
the applicant presents, not on your own research. So that's an important thing. But if you do that research, and for the most part, I've seen people say, well, I looked at this and I found out this, this and this,
but we prefer you avoid that reasonable notice and we'll talk about that. But for for the most part, our meetings are all noticed in advance. And so
that people know when those meetings are occurring and that you have to have some basic understanding of what the meeting is about. So how does that turn? It turns on this
enough information that you would know whether or not you wanted to go to a particular meeting. Right? So if we're talking about a variance on a piece of property, just enough
information that, you know, okay, I would show up for that if I knew that was there. So that's the reasonable notice timing. We'll talk about that in a minute. Minutes must be
taken. So this is an interesting thing that people don't understand or they want a lot of people would like verbatim minutes. We don't do verbatim minutes. In fact, the law only requires that you have
who was in attendance, who made the motion, who seconded it, and what the vote was. Now, the nice thing about most cities, and certainly here in Tarpon
Springs, we videotape everything. So there are, you know, exact minutes of what happened. And you can use that. And people use that when they're looking at cases or
they're looking at what happened at those particular meetings. But if we didn't do that, you don't have to have the verbatim minutes. Some people like to come up and say, well, you know, I said this and
you didn't put it in the minutes. Well, it's it's not relevant for what's needed. So minutes are basic basic information. Okay, so the
purpose of the sunshine law is pretty basic. You know, that again, you have open access to government. You get to see what government is doing. You get to determine what happens, and you
have the opportunity to speak before votes are taken. And let me touch on that for a moment. So it's interesting, when I was updating these slides, you know,
I like to look at it, whether there's any current case law or attorney general opinions. And there was an attorney general opinion that I looked at, and I
hadn't seen it in a while, but it a lot of cities do workshops, and when they do workshops, they allow public comment. So let's just say the issue is
about putting in a particular stop sign in a location. If at the workshop you allow public comment and the public speaks, you don't have to allow them to
speak again before the voting meeting, you have one opportunity to speak. Now, most cities don't do that restriction, but it can be a restriction where you allow
only one opportunity to speak before the vote occurs. This is the statute. 286 is the statute for meetings, and it says all
meetings of any board or commission, of any municipal, corporation or political subdivision at which official acts are to be taken are declared to be public meetings open to public at all times.
The key here is official acts, right? So just because people are in the same board, are meeting somewhere or happen to be somewhere, that doesn't mean
that there is a violation of the of the Sunshine Law. And no resolution rule or formal action shall be considered binding except as taken or made at such meeting, and there must
be reasonable notice. So again, your opportunity to see your government in action and your ability to to see those things. All right. Let's talk about advisory boards. So this
applies to advisory boards. And again the key is whether or not you're delegated a particular authority. That's how we determine these things. So even if there's a creation of a
committee, an ad hoc committee, if you're making any decisions on behalf of the government agency, then you are subject to the sunshine law. And to take
this to the most extreme, there are cases that talk about hiring of, let's just say, a city manager. And there is a there's going to be individual
commissioners that are going to look at the resumes, and they're either going to rank them or they're going to give the top three. And there's a. There's going to be a meeting where one of the commissioners
is going to be sitting here going through the resumes. That has to be it. That has to be a sunshine meeting, because they're making a determination to some extent, even if it's just watching them, sitting
there, looking at the resumes, putting them down and not saying anything. That still is a sunshine meeting ad hoc groups. When we talk about those, they're going to go out to the sponge docks and they're
going to make some kind of determination. Well, the key is determination. If it's just information, you're not subject to the Sunshine law. But if it's actual determination or any delegation of a situation,
then you are subject to the sunshine law. And people need to understand that because again, people are making decisions that affect the city or affect the government, and
you have the right to see those things. So we talked about this formal or informal gatherings of two or more members of the same board. Okay. So everybody
sees this in small communities. Oh, there are two commissioners or two members of planning and zoning board. They're sitting having lunch. Okay. You all know each other for the most part. You're going to be there
are people that are friends. You're there's nothing wrong with you going and having lunch or meeting. The key is, you know, no discussion about what you potentially could vote on,
but more importantly, the one that people don't see is that just because you voted on something, it doesn't mean it's over. Okay? There are chances for matters to come back before
you, so you have to be careful in that extent. That's where I see the violations, where people have just made a decision and then for some reason that matter comes back.
Now we have a problem. Do do we have to have a recuse yourself? Do we have a problem having a quorum because we don't have enough people? Those issues go on. So don't think just because
you voted on something or that matter is gone, that it that it's over. Okay, so that's you have to be careful with that. But the idea is you can still go to conferences and you can
have social gatherings and there's no issue. Now I will tell you what comes up is the appearance of impropriety. And that is again, what you want to
keep away from. Those happen in controversial issues. Let's just say we have a matter before board of adjustment on a on a variance. And we and it's
questionable. And we see somebody make a motion and another one makes a second. Right. Relatively quick. Is that appearance of impropriety. Well, they have been seen talking about this during lunch
or they had been seen together for lunch. So you just have to be, you know, smart about it. You may have done nothing wrong, but just, you know, think about what's going on before you. We're trying to avoid you
getting in trouble. I'll talk about what? What trouble you can be in. But it can be an expensive proposition. And we don't want you to have to do that. You're volunteering for these boards. There should be
no reason why you have to go through that. And we want to avoid that. One of the other things that we have in there are two things about Sun.shine
meetings and meetings where people. Well, actually now three, you have you have the internet with social media, you have telephone conversations
and you have people that can act as conduits. So you have to be careful with those things. Email trails, when people are sending emails on things, we tend to have a problem because they don't know who. If you
forwarded something, who else is going to get it? Could it be somebody from the same board? And let's talk about what the issue is here. So there is nothing wrong with me. I'm on the commission and I'm the
first person and I say, I think we should paint the building blue. And actually the there was a sunshine case that was prosecuted talking about the color of the building. But we
want to I want to paint the building blue. There's nothing wrong with what I said. I can give my opinion. I can send it out to the rest of the board. The violation occurs when somebody else on the board says,
I agree or says something in response, how they're going to vote right, or how their impression is, where do we run into these problems now? Social media, you have the social
media page and somebody brings up an issue and you respond and somebody else responds on the same board, or somebody acts as a conduit, you know, hey, I saw
so-and-so's social media page and they're saying that we should paint the building blue. What do you feel about that? And the person responds. So you have to be very careful in these situations. Those are the
violations that that you see. And nowadays with social media, it's in writing. And that's easy evidence to be used when you're putting in writing. Now, the same token, you're not supposed to get around it by
calling somebody up, you know, and having a conversation. I mean, that's a violation harder to prove, but it's still a violation and conduits, things
like that. Eventually all this stuff comes out because people talk or things are seen and you just need to avoid this. It's just not necessary, especially
when, again, you're volunteering your time. You don't want to have to deal with these things. So as I said, here's the problem with the
social media communications. You know, we have people can make public records requests. And one of the things that they can ask for is your phone. Text,
emails, phone conversations that you've had, showing who you've talked to because of this type of technology. So you could be without your phone for
a while because courts order you surrendering either your computer, your iPad, your phone, so they can review it to see if there's a violation. So you have to be careful on these
things too. I mean, what are you using for? Is it necessary to do that? Okay, we talked about this. One of the things
that you see, and sometimes you'll see me make the comment, probably not enough when some when one of the boards is, is meeting, any conversation you
have is supposed to be audible. You're not supposed to be talking to the person next to you unless it's an audible conversation. The same is true with notes or records I will
talk about with public records shortly. But any conversation I'm supposed to be able to hear what you're saying. Now, obviously some people could say, well, I'm talking about a restaurant, you know, that we
should go to or, or have you tried this store? But the point is, is that when the meeting's going on, you should not be having those conversations. Everybody has the right to hear
what you're discussing. And so to avoid that, you just don't do it. Okay? There are exceptions. One of them I did
Monday morning. I'm doing another one tomorrow morning. Labor negotiations. So labor
negotiations are the true only 100% exception to the sunshine law. And that means that the meeting does not have to be advertised. Individuals do not get access to the meeting.
There is a limitation as to who can meet, and it's usually the board and whoever is handling their collective bargaining. And the reason behind this is very simple. It's a strategy
session, right? So when you're meeting for collective bargaining, you're discussing what you're going to potentially offer, what you can live with, what you can't live with. Well, obviously, if it's open to the public, then the
other side knows what you're doing. And that makes no sense to having that strategy session. However, in collective bargaining, the actual bargaining sessions are public
meetings. So the requirements are people being able to observe those things are in the public meeting and the ultimate ratification of whatever
agreement is at a public meeting. So individuals get to see exactly those discussions and final votes. But from a strategy standpoint, that's an
exception. The other exceptions are risk management issues, which are are how does that really come up? So that comes up with what we call shade meetings. For the most part,
shade meeting use that term is it's a temporary meeting outside the sunshine. So what happens? Similar to collective bargaining, the board may meet
and have a discussion on litigation, how to resolve litigation, where we are with the litigation, what strategies we're asking the board to give us to determine how we're going to handle the litigation. The
reason it's a shade meeting is it's temporary, and there is a court reporter present and takes down everything that is going on. And upon the conclusion of the litigation,
that becomes a public record. So it's a temporary exception to these things. And there are specific requirements that have to occur. Security systems and
advice are also an exception. That's also an exception to the public records. And that's just from a safety standpoint. Those don't happen that often, although unfortunately lately
we've had to do more of those for protection of everyone. Okay, here's something that people get confused. If you're on a board, you cannot meet and
discuss actions that are going to come before you with only the board members. You can talk to staff, you can talk to the
clerk, you can talk to me. You can talk to whomever. You can talk to members of another board. You just cannot talk to each other. So we're here to try to help facilitate what
you're doing. So we're available for those discussions. If you have a question, especially a question that's going to affect how you vote at a meeting or how you discuss an issue, please. That's what
we're here for. And if we don't have, if we go to a meeting and we don't have sufficient information for you to make a decision, let us know. We will then continue the meeting or we
will have somebody come down and give you that information. You need to be comfortable with the decisions you're making. However, that there's no problem with having staff
provide those things. So that's what we're here for to make it easier for you. Now, of course, staff is not supposed to
discuss what you say to me, right? If you say something to me, I can't go tell somebody else on the board. By the way, you know, you may want to consider this. This is the
meeting's requirements. I talked about some of these things I'll have mentioned. So we'll go through those slides.
Okay. Public comment. So in my time here in Tarpon Springs, I've seen public comment done several different ways. Let me tell you how I mostly see it in
all the years of doing this. Mostly I see public comment at two two times right in a meeting. Now some people put the first one public comment
open public comment either at the beginning or the end. The end I have always found to be ineffective. It doesn't make any sense. So usually at the beginning of the meeting and
it's normally limited to most most places three minutes, some do two, some do four, but mostly three minutes. And you could talk about any item that's not on the agenda. Also,
you should be talking about anything that's on the consent agenda if you so choose, because that is something where there's no other discussion that's going to go on. The second part is obviously before
the vote occurs, you have the opportunity to speak before the vote is taken. As I said, you can do that sometimes in a workshop or right before the
meeting. Now, sometimes, you know, open public comment is pretty open. You can talk about anything. Certainly there's some decorum issues. Obviously,
I've been in one municipality where as soon as somebody, you know, uses profanity, they're done and they're out. I've had situations where people are
pretty thick. Well, I'll skip that word where people are, you know, just acting in a certain manner for no purpose other
than their own. I actually had this one happen. It took me aback. I had somebody stand up and talk for a minute and said, I'll take the next two minutes
in silence. And I was like, well, that's different. Can they do that? Well, we let them subsequent meetings, we said, you couldn't do that. But that was interesting because there
was a protest. A lot of times people bring up federal type issues that there's nothing you can do, state issues that you know, nothing you can do. But there's nothing wrong with that.
They have the right. As long as they follow decorum, they can go ahead and speak about any issue. Now let's move to the particular issue that we're
discussing. There's a limitation at that time only to speak about that issue. Sometimes what happens is somebody gets up and they'll say, well, I didn't talk about this other issue, so I want to
mention that and then I'll talk about this issue. Well, that's improper. Okay. The only time when it's when we have a motion, a second public comment, it's
solely for that comment. Now, some places do allow secondary comments after the board has spoken on an issue. There's
usually not really a change in what somebody's going to say. So those are there's nothing wrong with not allowing that. You're going to have long meetings. If you allow that all the time. It's not necessary. I
know here there used to be some public comment after presentations. That's unusual. Most places don't allow that. There are some subjects that are discussed that are just
purely board administrative action, and there's not public comment taken in those situations. Those are rare. And the rare exceptions for that.
Now we can also allow and we do it here where you don't have a right to necessarily bring in a board showing, you know, your
thoughts or, or, or any particular audio visual things, you can limit that. You have no right to that. All you have the right is to speak on the
subject. As we talked about reasonable opportunity to be heard. And we used to allow
public comment from like a Zoom type of situation. You do not have to have that. That is not required by the law. Some municipalities allow it, some
don't. I mean, we've had gone so far in this county where there's been an extreme limitation. I believe Clearwater stopped public comment at some point. They put
it back on some places require cards to be filled out, and you have to say what agenda item you're going to talk about. And then those go to the chair or
the mayor, and the mayor then reads off. Okay, so and so wants to speak about this. The other thing is, and this again is a choice. Email comments do
not have to be read into the record. They are part of the record, but they do not have to be read. That's subject to just a determination by the particular board as to whether or not they want those read. I
have some clients that have just started doing that. I have other ones that have stopped doing that. Either way, it's not illegal. We talked about
the limitations of public participation during the board. The other thing is, is I've seen this and I, I think I've seen it here where people will yell out, point of order, or
this thing is, you can't do this. All right. That's all subject to the board. The board makes a determination on how they're going to go forward. As long as it's not illegal, they
can amend right then and there. Your procedures on doing something. Okay, that's that's not illegal. You may not like it and you may, you know,
chastise them for going outside of the normal way. They do something, but it's not illegal. And remember, these are guidelines. You know, people we talk about that we follow Robert's rules for these
meetings. Well, the truth is you can't follow all of Robert's Rules because in Florida, every elected official or appointed body, unless you have a conflict, is supposed to
vote in Robert's Rules. The chair doesn't vote except in ties. So you cannot follow all Robert's rules. You can follow generally Robert's Rules. And
frankly, again, those are for decorum and format of a meeting. They're not for a legal purpose. And the statute doesn't say we're going to follow Robert's rules. The statute says that we
follow the basic rules of, you know, motions. Second opportunity to be heard. Speak on it, see how they discuss it. That's the requirements. There are not requirements for
particular rules. And that's why sometimes it depends on the issue. Frankly it depends on what's going on. Sometimes those rules are amended. If we're having a presentation on something that might be a
little more controversial, and you want to give everybody the opportunity to speak on those issues. So, you know, the board may decide to extend things. The board may decide to extend your time to speak on something.
The board may decide to shorten your time because we have too many people. The board may discuss. We will have a group representative instead of every individual talking about
something. Those are all things that change. So all these rules and regulations are subject to the general requirements of the Sunshine Law, but the particulars of it are not
necessarily illegal. It's just a procedural way of doing something. I just talked about reasonable rules. You can adopt
reasonable rules, policies. You can obviously amend those. And and the other issue is making sure there's proper decorum. You hate to have somebody escorted out of a meeting. And
it's very rare when it happens. But decorum is necessary. And frankly, nowadays safety is necessary. So we want to be careful. We always have, I
believe, at every meeting, and I might be wrong, but I know at least that all the commission meetings we have a police officer here. It's sad that we have to do that, but we do it
because we want to make sure people are protected. So we also want decorum. You're volunteering for a board. You're not subject to being attacked personally. Right. And the other part about that, and
you'll hear me occasionally I've said this where reminding the board members that you must, people that are speaking must direct it to the board as a whole. We're not here for
individual attacks. Individual attacks get you nowhere. Number one. Number two, it's just it's just disrupts the meeting. And that's not why we're here. You
can disagree with what the board does. And frankly, if you if you really disagree, you can sue. Sue us. We have insurance. We have attorneys that handle that. There are some matters
that I'll handle. But you know, we're not going to have you subjected to being attacked and we're not going to have people, you know, personally on a
record being taken to task on these things. So we talked about adopting rules or policies and and we amend those
at time, and we'll be doing that in the upcoming year. Again, limitations can be part of this with certain boards though, as I talked about
before, we have the quasi judicial requirements. So those we cannot change and generally what the quasi judicial requires, as I said, not only competent substantial evidence,
but allows the applicant to not only present what they want to present, but they also have the opportunity to cross-examine
what is being presented to make sure the information comes out factually. The other part about that and, and there we had this issue come up a couple times. So you and the public have the
right to speak at a quasi judicial. But but really your only right is to say I agree or disagree with the particular applicant. And you can say your reasons why it's not a question
and answer time. Okay. And we had that recently at a couple meetings where I had to interject and say, we're not answering questions here because there's a due process
requirement in the basic due process is I get to present what I need to present. That is, it's a clean kind of thing. It's quasi judicial. So it's like what a judge would hear.
And most of the time a judge in court will not hear from the public except for in in exceptional situations, normally for sentencing purposes or penalty purposes.
But we allow at least people in the, you know, to come up and you don't have to be necessarily a neighbor. You can be considered a special party
in certain circumstances, but for the most part, you're just there to speak, whether you're for or against a particular application. We're not going to discuss all the facts or things
like that. You don't have the right to question the city. You don't have the right to question the applicant. All you have to do is the right to say whether you're for it or against it. And I think there's
some confusion with that. Maybe we need to be a little more specific when we talk about the rules, when we have something quasi judicial, that's something to consider if we have people. I mean, for the
most part, we don't have too many people that show up for the quasi judicial that are not related to the particular case that they're asking for. So
here's some of the issues. Courts have found that ordinary information briefing held by staff is fine. You cannot poll
members, and you have to be very careful in that situation because where we try to avoid polling and where this could come up is whether or not an issue should be brought before
a particular meeting. So we try to avoid polling in those situations, but there may be discussions from a factual basis. The other part I touched upon, and I want to reiterate,
is there's nothing wrong with presenting information outside a Sun.shine meeting in general. Okay. Don't really want you to do that because we want to base
it on on staff or what the applicant has. But you can present information in a general manner. You know, board of adjustment. Hey, I just want
you all to know that there's a state statute that says X, Y, and Z. That's not a violation of the sunshine law unless there's a discussion. So
there's nothing wrong with that. A lot of these we talked about polling. The the other thing that has happened is, is more in the ad hoc groups where
there's decisions being made outside the sunshine. Those cases have occurred. But again, you can talk to any staff members and I encourage you to
do that so you're able to make your decision. We talked about reasonable notice. That's something that you don't really deal with. Some people will
talk about emergency meetings, special meetings and your general meetings. Okay. So really easily to to know that the general meetings are done.
You know, every two weeks we have a, a board meeting, the commission board meeting once a month. We have the other boards. Those are all advertised and plenty of time. There's no
issue. Okay. When the issues come up are in two situations, special meetings and emergency meetings. So again, what is reasonable? Reasonable is the average person. What would you
think is reasonable? What the courts have said is that reasonable? Notice for a special meeting is at least seven days. So you'll see that
we won't call a meeting unless seven days. And you can have any discussion at a special meeting. Normally, they're centered on a particular issue. We've had the hurricane. We're
having some issue to to discuss. There are exceptions that are emergency meetings. Now, the interesting thing about emergency meeting is an emergency meeting. You try for
24 hours notice. It's a single subject and obviously has to meet the criteria as an emergency. I mean, something's going on that that we just have to meet. Also at that
particular meeting, when you will, at your next general meeting, you'll ratify what happened, an emergency meeting so that everybody knows what's going on. Emergency meetings
are very rare. It might happen when I'm trying to think of one, maybe something related to the hurricane. Maybe if somebody passes away that we have to do
something. Maybe there's some some act that we have to redo because something went wrong or something along those lines. So there's very little notice, an emergency meeting, but it's
very limited circumstances and has to really be an emergency in my opinion. I think over the years that I've done this type of law, which is over 30 years,
maybe I've seen two. I mean, you just don't do them. They're not necessary. You try to have a special meeting at at the minimum with the seven days notice. The other part about
notice is, again, you don't have to worry about how the notice comes through. We've had situations where people have put notice on Billboard or, or your, your front board and it's been covered. Part of it's been
covered. And somebody will claim that, okay, I didn't have proper notice. And then we have to re notice the meetings. Okay,
there are penalties and they actually occur and they occur here in Pinellas County and they have occurred in Pinellas County. There are criminal penalties, which I can be
honest with. You are very rare. And when I was talking about actually happened in Kansas City years ago in Kansas City, before they had a city manager, they had a commission form of
government. So each commissioner was in charge of a particular department. One person was in charge of police and fire. One was in charge of public works, you know, so on.
Well, in their situation, they had two offices, one office for the mayor and one office for the four commissioners. And the four commissioners would be in
that office, and there would be discussions. And these discussions were outside the Sunshine Law, and they were on things that they would vote on, and one of them was actually voting on what color to paint
the building. So for some reason, it became an issue and they all got prosecuted by the state of the Sunshine law. And there were criminal penalties
that were paid in that situation. I know it sounds like an extreme situation. It is. They don't bring them too often, but that's one of them.
The non criminal penalties for the most part are the ones we see. And what are those. Those are the Ethics Commission and the ethics Commission. Here's here's the problem that you
would go through with the Ethics Commission. Number one, you have spent a lot of time responding to things. Number two, you have to go up to Tallahassee. That's the only place they meet. What happens
is when an ethics complaint is made, an investigator is assigned, the investigator comes down and talks to everybody, puts together a report. The report goes to what we call an advocate, which is
usually an attorney in Tallahassee. The attorney then makes a determination with the administration of the Commission on Ethics. Whether or not this matter will be has
probable cause to move forward, which they then present to the Commission on Ethics, who has to vote to determine whether or not there's probable cause. If there's probable cause to move forward, they then have a
hearing in Tallahassee to discuss whether or not there's a violation. They then subsequently have a penalty phase, which is normally a fine.
So just by what I've told you, if you get an attorney, it's expensive. If you go up there, it's expensive, it's a hassle. It goes on for a long period of
time, doesn't go away very quickly. There are a few that have are dismissed at the beginning. Most of them at least get the investigation and it's done. If you've ever been
up Tallahassee, we have the appellate court, first DCA district court there, and that's where everything is held. It's very intimidating, kind of really nice building. And these
things are taken very seriously. These individuals on the Commission on Ethics are appointed by the governor and they they take these matters seriously. There's going to be
a hearing on Friday. I've handled many of these for the most part. I would say almost all of them. We've been able to deal with either by dismissal
or a minor fine. But you have to be careful on these things. And for purposes of cost, it the only way you can ever have
an opportunity to recover your costs if you hire an attorney is if you're exonerated, you can then come back to the board and ask to have your fees paid. I do not defend anybody in
these cases unless you work for another city and you hire me. We do not give our staff to handle these things. You're on your own. So that's why we try to avoid these things. There's
also civil actions which are injunctions. In those cases, we go before the court and there's some minor matter. In fact, I have one right now for a client
dealing with a code enforcement decision. And so the circuit court actually hears these appeals, and you can have an adjunctive action, or you can
have a whole new trial on the issues, depending on if it's a due process violation. Otherwise, it's a determination of competent, substantial evidence, as I discussed before.
So you want to avoid those. There's a thing called a cure meeting and this does not affect you individually. If you violated the Sunshine Law, but
it affects the city. So what happens is, is let's just assume for our discussion that the Board of Commissioners votes on something and somebody had a legitimate sunshine
violation or conflict that they didn't disclose. We have what's called a cure meeting. The cure meeting is actually rehearing, whatever the issue is, as if you never had the prior hearing.
And it's very important that it's done that way, because I've been involved in situations where it wasn't done that way, and then it's still the violation has not changed
because in those situations, there was not a new discussion. I mean, you have to do this as if the first meeting never happened. That'll cure it for purposes of allowing that
particular issue to be finalized. It doesn't change what the individual's violation is. So if individuals have violated, they don't get away with that. But we can still
move forward with government business. That's from the Sunshine law. There are any questions dealing with the Sunshine Law that I can answer before we talk about public
records. Okay. Public records, that's Florida Statute 119. It's a very thick in the sunshine manual. If you look at it, it's very thick because
there are a lot of exceptions and there are a lot of requirements to public records, but basically it's controlled, again by Florida statute and
the Constitution. This is how broad the definition is. Any documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes, photographs, films, sound recording, data,
processing software or other material. Regardless of its physical form, characteristics or means of transmission made or received pursuant to law or ordinance, or in connection with the transaction of
official business by an agency. If you can figure out something that I haven't included in there or the statute hasn't included in there, good luck. It's a public record. Okay. The
key here is really the last line with the transaction of official business by an agency. Does that mean everything you receive in your position on a
board is a public record? No. If I if you get a solicitation or you get an announcement that we're having music on the beach, if you're getting somebody sends you a recommendation for
a restaurant, even though it's addressed to board member Jones, that's not a public record. However, again, I'm going to give you the conservative
response. If you receive a public record outside of something that comes through here, give it to the clerk. Just give it to the clerk. Let
them decide whether or not it's a public record or not. It saves you an amazing amount of just anguish. Okay, some of you
are aware of some of the public records issues we've had here. And let me explain to you how a public record request works. I make a public record request. I
don't have to do it in writing. I can do it orally. I have to now, because there used to be an exception to this. I have to now go to the records custodian. It used to be, and this became
a cottage industry for attorneys that you could go to a public works guy and say, I'd like a public record request on X. And if that public works guy
who probably didn't even know what the heck you're talking about, doesn't immediately give that information to the proper person, there's a violation of the law and attorneys for making good money, because
guess what? In a public records violation, you get attorney's fees. That's really what happens in a public records. It's not damages to the person
who made the request. It's recovering the costs of enforcing it. So that became a little cottage industry. They therefore changed that issue. There's a couple of things that
they changed under the law that's really helpful for the city and for the records custodian, but that's one of them. So we have a designated records custodian, our records
custodian. We have one for the police department, and we have the clerk's office. So you make a public records request and guess how many days you get to
respond? There are no limitations on the days you have to respond. What is reasonable. Now, the funny part about that is the enforcement of public records violations can be the State Attorney's
office. And I will tell you that I and I worked there, that the State Attorney's Office is one of the worst people in responding to public records requests. They will give you a standard response that we will.
They acknowledge the request, which they have to. And they'll give you a standard response of. We will not be able to get to this for at least, you know, 20 days. You can't do that. It's illegal. It's improper. But
they do it because who's going to enforce it against them? They're the ones who enforce it. But mostly what you do is when you get a public records request, depending on the request, we first acknowledge
that we have the request. We secondly, make a internal determination. Here's the determination. Is this a record that we can produce easily? Meaning, do we already have it?
Do you want the minutes of a particular meeting? Easy? No problem. Is this going to take anything more than a half hour? If it takes more than a half hour, then you know, obviously
you're disrupting what we're doing and we can charge you for that time that we estimate that it will take. Because what we do is we have to we have to go
through the system to determine the records that you're requesting. And some of these requests are pretty broad and some of these requests are talking about we get what we call hits on the words that you've requested. So we need
you to be pretty specific on your request. Otherwise, we're going to come back and say, by the way, we've got 10,000 hits on your request. We have to go through every one of those
emails or every one of those documents, and it's going to cost you roughly, and you have to use the lowest hourly rate for an employee that can perform this function. It's
going to cost you $500, or it's going to cost you $1,000. And so we'll come back and we'll say, do you want to refine your request? Most of the time
people do that. The other part about that, which is what the courts have changed and the statute has changed, it allows us to not only do that charge, but it requires you to pay a
portion of that, sometimes all of it, before we're going to do the request. And therefore, we don't have to have somebody spend a bunch of time and and then do that. And we have a
stack and you never pick it up. Okay. That used to happen. Also, another part of that is this if we do that, if we have that stack of documents, even if it's even if you owe us $10, we
do not have to do another public records request until you pay for the one that you requested. So that's helped out a lot in in doing these things, but it is a disrupting factor.
And we have to contact a bunch of people. We're not trying to limit public records. We're going to follow the law at all times. But here's here's the question. So we have planning
and zoning, planning and zoning meets. And there's some notes taken by one of the board members. And it has to do with the particular meeting, not their grocery list. And I'm in
the audience and I see that and the meeting is over, and I go to the next day, I go to clerk's office and say, I want to see those notes that were taken. And the person says, I
don't have them. Well, you violated the sunshine. I mean, you violated public records law. And guess what? You're subject to those penalties. And I have actually seen that happen. And
that resulted in court action. And there was a sanctions and monetary damages. So truly, what you're supposed to do is that at the conclusion of the
meeting, any notes you take, you give to the clerk, okay, because those are part of public records and those are documents that are discoverable in a public records request.
Now, the other part about public records, and because we have all this technology, is that you are subject to anything. If I'm if I'm a board
member, I'm on my iPad and I send an email or something along those lines, that's a public record related to what you're doing, you need to get that to the clerk's office. So they have that particular
record. Otherwise, as I said before, your iPad may be going to the court. In fact, what the court does now because of the technology issues and and the
problems that we have, they actually send out whatever if it's a phone, if it's your iPad, if it's your computer to a separate entity that has to go through everything because they
don't want to have a problem with the court system based on any malware or anything else that you've, you know, virus you may have. So this process with you without your phone or
your computer or your iPad is going to be a long time, you're not going to have it unnecessary. Very simple thing. You just forward everything to the clerk's office. They have
it. They're the ones that have to respond to the request. Otherwise what would happen is you have to go through everything. And unfortunately, I've had that happen here where I've had commissioners having
to go through everything to make sure that they've responded to every public records request that's being made. If you just take it and forward it, not a problem. The
other issue that I that I, if you ask me, this is my opinion. Most people don't follow it is that you do not put things on social media that are related
to anything. Government. Okay, because it's subject to being looked at as a public records request. And that could be your own personal Facebook page or
Instagram or whatever it is. Because if you're using it for the purposes of your board, I actually had this happen
recently for a client on a variance where one of the board members actually sent out on social media said, we're having
a a hearing on whatever date. Please come and or tell me how you want me to vote on on my
social media page. Of course, that person could no longer participate. Now we have all these emails out there that are now public records from people that didn't even think it's an
issue. They didn't know the difference. This person didn't understand that they're selected for a board to make their decision. Not, you know, you can hear from the public, but the public doesn't make the
decision. You're on a board, you're put on the board to make the decision. If you're an elected official, you're elected. It's representative form of government. You're elected to make a decision. You can talk to the public. You can
hear what the public has to say. At the end of the day, it's your decision. We don't go well. 90% of the people have voted. And you know, the majority says this. That's not what we do here. We're still a
representative form of government. So you have to make the tough decisions. Don't be on the board if you can't make the decision. Don't be an elected official if you can't make the decision. But it's a
nightmare if something like this happens. And so we try to avoid that. But truly, unless it's like your, your grocery list, everything is a public
record. So this is what I said. Any material prepared in connection with official agency business intended to perpetuate, communicate or formalize
knowledge? It's not the it's not its physical location. It's the nature of the record. Right. So did you use this record for those purposes? Then it becomes
a public record. So public records law provides the right of access to the records. There are some exemptions. All right. I'll just talk about some
exemptions. You cannot get a police officer's address. You cannot get a police officer's phone number. You cannot get pictures of a police officer. I
think I don't know if they did it yet. They're doing it for code enforcement also. You can't do that because they're trying to protect those individuals. There are certain medical records you cannot get
or certain test records you cannot get. But for the most part, records are public records. We could redact them. That's the other part about it. So if you asked, for example,
there's a police report on an incident that occurred, we would have to put up that particular record and we'd have to redact it. And so that would take time because certain
things you cannot have, if we have a report that we can send to you, we can send it any way you want. You could come in and get it. You could come in and review it. You don't have to.
We don't have the right to charge you for a copy if you want to just review it. We we have the right to charge you a minimal amount for copies, but we don't have the right to make
you pay for anything. So you could come in and review it. But there are certain things that are redacted as confidential. And Social Security numbers, for example, are are redacted. So that's the
other problem. When we get a public records request that's broad. We have to look at it to see if something is exempt or if it is a. Exemption. The
other with litigation, it's the same thing as I told you for the shade meeting. So with litigation, everything that we do is temporarily exempt. Once
the case is over, it's all public record. The other thing that you may or may not know, which makes it sometimes difficult, and I'm not going to besmirch Morgan and Morgan, but I'll just use them. So Morgan
Morgan suits us and we have a case. And most of the time, if you're a private individual, when we resolve the case, if we resolve it by settlement, we do
a confidential release. And therefore nobody knows what the insurance company paid. Nobody knows what you received other than when they put up the sign. $26 million recovered in a
drunk driving case, which is probably true. What's $26 million verdict? They didn't recover. That is probably a $10,000 policy. And they went to trial and nobody showed up.
But that's what they do for advertising purposes. But when you're dealing with a government agency, nothing is confidential. So you get to find out what our insurance
company settled a case for. So that's that's the difficult part about that because public records, the whole idea is for you to see how your money is being spent, what goes on in
government action, except for certain things that are confidential or exempt. These are some of the ones I talked about. Active criminal
investigations are another exempt aspect, which we do get requests for Social Security numbers. A lot of this, again deals with personal bank
account numbers. Police officers are pretty well protected. So are judges and so are some of the state officials, but not local. So if anybody
gets a public records request, we want you to immediately see the city clerk. If the city clerk is not available, you know, city manager or me, and just tell us what's going on.
Again, public records request can be done orally. It can be done anonymously as long as you have an area, some place for us to send it so you can send, you know, we get those a lot. And
as long as we're able to give the record, we have to send it to wherever they've requested it in any format that they've requested that we can supply doesn't mean we have to create
something. Let's just say somebody makes a public records request, and I want to see the last five years of public works
expenditures on Gross Avenue by highest amount for the month of February. Okay. We don't have to create a document that doesn't exist. And many times
our response is there's no document subject to your request. Now, if we had everything in just general format, we could give that to you. But we don't have to do it
the way you said it, and we don't have to do it in in a particular format that we don't have. I want a spreadsheet to show this. We don't have a spreadsheet to show that we're not going to give it to you,
that we're not going to create that, even if we're not going to charge you to create it, we don't have to do that. Public records is is the other part kind of similar to something I talked about for quasi judicial
and people don't understand this. We don't have to answer questions. This is not a question or answer request. This is for a document. So many
times people get frustrated with this. You didn't answer my questions. We're not going to answer your questions. If you want to come in and ask the city manager, if you want to come to the police chief and ask a question, that's
different. We're not answering questions in public record. We would do that all day long. In the city of Gulfport, we have one individual that sends public records, requests and
questions. And I'm not making this up. We had 10,000 in 1 year. Clerk has to go through and see if there's actual public records. We don't answer
the questions we've told the person. I don't know how many times, and they still ask questions. And when they go unanswered, we kind of don't understand why you keep doing it, but they do it. So we have
to look at it. We have to give the public record and we have to acknowledge that we have, you know, we your request and we're going to respond to it and we respond accordingly to how I told you we do it. But,
you know, there are individuals that abuse the process. We had one for a fire district where a former employee kept asking for
the same document over and over again. We finally said, look, we've responded to it, and we sent them a cease and desist letter. We'll respond to any public record that you request you have. That is not the same
one that we've already responded to, because, you know, you just can't keep abusing the system. But every one of these takes time. And you have a city clerk's office that does more than just records. And so it's
taking people's time out of the day and we can't get other things done. So you can't abuse the system just because, you know, it gives you a particular, I don't know, jolly. But but we
have people that do that. I equate it to the people that used to be in the basement that would type letters and send them to government. Now they have the ability to do it quickly and do the same things.
And it's much more of a problem. Okay, so as I said, not required to answer questions, provide information from records. We don't have to interpret the records. You also
cannot make a standing request. There used to be a standing request I would like to see on Friday every document that the city manager received for the
week. Those. That's a real request that we had. Can't do that anymore. You have to be specific and you have to. If you want a document from the city manager, you have to come
and ask for every day and you can't do that in advance. So I want April 20th documents. I have to ask for them on April 21st. If I want April 21st, I
have to ask for them. So because that used to be a problem, we mostly got that from news reporters that wanted that. There's a reasonable charge, as I said, and we have
the ability now to charge an advance. Okay. Again, what are the penalties? An intentional violation is a first degree
misdemeanor subject to up to one year in Pinellas County Jail. And if you've never been to Pinellas County Jail, you don't want to go there. It's not pleasant and $1,000 fine.
I've never seen anybody go to jail for public records request. So I really don't think that that's going to happen. Unintentional violation, which is normally what you see is a
infraction with a $500 fine. More importantly is your elected officials. If they violate this, they are subject to potential suspension and removal from office. We have a
governor that is not afraid to do that. He's done it many times. We've had a lot of governors that have never done it. This governor will do it. He'll remove you from office. There are attorney's fees and
costs available if the person prevails, and they can be pretty expensive. So we've had that situation. So again, when
we talk about your position, there are also ethical issues. And I'll try to go through some of these a little quicker. So
Florida Statute 112 is a ethics. And it deals it's pretty extensive. It deals with the responsibilities of board members, both in advisory board
elected officials, appointed boards. And it talks about what you would expect. It talks about how you need to act. It talks about for the most part,
getting yourself out of situations that the public would see as something wrong. So what are we talking about? Nepotism is one issue. We're
talking about quid pro quo. I give you something, you give me something. We're talking about misuse of your position for some kind of financial gain for
you, or some kind of gain for you or somebody else. There are conflicts under the law. Now, the one thing I will tell you is I, I touched on before,
elected officials, when in doubt, are supposed to vote, you have to have a specific ethical violation or conflict
of interest. And we we announced that. And you actually have to file a form. It has to go up to Tallahassee advisory boards. If if you have
a conflict, you know, you you don't participate at all. Elected officials do participate. They can still discuss the matter. Why is that? Because you're represented. You're elected. You're
representative form of government. I voted for you. You have the right to give your opinion on something and discuss it. You have a conflict. You don't get to vote on it, but you still get to discuss it.
Advisory board, you're completely out. You do not have any say whatsoever on that subject. Will announce that you have a violation. You still have to fill out the form. Okay,
so we see these in nepotism. Let's talk about nepotism because nepotism is not exactly what everybody thinks it is. Okay. Can you have two members of a family on the same board?
Yes, you can, because they're elected for that position on advisory board. No, we wouldn't do that. Can we hire somebody that is the I'll use the mayor,
the mayor's cousin. Can we hire that person? Absolutely. What we couldn't do is have whoever has a nepotism issue, they can't supervise that person.
They can't directly determine their advancement or salary. Since we have a budget, and since the mayor does votes on the budget but doesn't hire or
fire those people or supervise them, he can vote on the budget because it's a general matter versus a particular matter. So they'll look at those things for specifics on nepotism. You
get more in trouble with the things that we see are more of the quid pro quo situations. And those are, let's be honest, if it's things that you would suspect that you can't do, you
know, I'm going to give you a discount. They are this one. I'm going to give you a roof for $10,000. That normally
would cost $30,000, and you're going to vote on a rezoning for my development, right? You know, you can't do that. And it's
just it's wrong. It sounds wrong and it is wrong. So those, those are the ones that we see mostly on that. You got to be careful on misuse of your
position for any gain. So it's not just your gain, it's somebody else's gain. But how we look at these is does a particular issue ensure a
special gain to you, your family, your business, a friend, does that do that? That's considered a conflict of interest. Absent that, it's not
a conflict of interest. And why that's important is we're in a relatively small community, but there are much smaller communities in Pinellas County. If if your neighbor was a
conflict, we'd never get anything done in some of these cities because just because you know the person or just because it's a neighbor, you still have to vote. Don't get on that board. Don't get on that board
of adjustment. If you can't vote for something about your neighbor and don't get on the code enforcement board, if you don't want to do something to your neighbor because those things happen, planning and
zoning, those things happen and they affect your neighbors. So that's not a conflict. And though you're uncomfortable, you still got to vote. So those
are the things that we look at. So I said there were primary there's primarily two types of provisions those prohibiting certain acts and those
requiring certain disclosures to be made in the public. Chapter 112 I talked about is the general one. There are
things that are also that we didn't talk about. So there are financial disclosures that the state requires everybody to do a form one. Some. Well, form
six is in question. Voting conflicts I touched on briefly. And then there's prohibited business and employment practices. Nepotism is the employment. The other one is you can't do business with your
own agency except in exceptions. So where do we see that? We don't see that too often in municipalities. I've seen it in
fire districts. There are may or may not be aware, but in Florida we have a lot of independent districts, independent taxing districts. Here in Pinellas County, we
have four fire districts that are independent, meaning they're not related at all to a municipality. We have Eastlake, Palm Harbor because there's no city. They're part of the
county. They're independent. Lieberman same thing in Pinellas, Suncoast on the beaches. So those are separate entities that act as their own mini city. What ironically,
what we usually get is some commissioner that has, you know, some background in fire there or head background somewhere else. And some of them are actually in business. And, and
some of those businesses are unique businesses to fire. So we've had this situation where they're the only sole source for something. And if they're
the sole source for a particular thing that the fire district needs, they can still sell to to the fire district. They can't vote on the issue,
but that's the exception. Otherwise, you cannot do business. Even if you're you know, I'm in the roofing company, I'm a commissioner and I can get the city the best
prices on this. Well, you can't because for the obvious reason. So that person would be prohibited from doing that. And but there are exceptions, as I
said, as the sole source. Solicitation or acceptance of gifts. Let's talk about gifts briefly. So you obviously can't get something again, the quid
pro quo something there are exceptions. There is honoraria, which allows you to go to say you can have a conference paid for, or you can have your meals
paid for, you can receive a gift subject to that. Otherwise, anything over $100 is prohibited as a gift. One of
the things that that we have to be careful about is, I mean, there are small things that affect us. Even if you're at a particular function. And let's
say it's a conference, I'll use the Florida Association of Special Districts. So they have a conference every year with elected officials, and they may
have vendors there. And vendors like to give you something nice. You know, whether it's pen and a lollipop or, you know, a bottle of wine or something like that, you have to be
careful on what you can receive because of the value. And so it is the fair market value that we look at. One of the problems we've had that I've seen when somebody is wants to give a
gift of, say, a ticket to the lightning or take somebody to the lightning games, is that value excessive of $100? You can't go, okay, so there are
some requirements under this law that requires notification and filing. Some are just prohibited. You probably won't run into those issues, but that's just the general gift
law. Again, to make sure that people are not, you know, receiving things and, and, and skewing their votes accordingly.
I talked about nepotism, doing business with one's own agency. The contractual relationships, dealing with the government
agency and dual office holding. The only thing I'd say about dual office holding is that if you're an employee of the City of Tarpon, you can't sit on a board. Could you sit on an ad hoc committee getting
information? Yes. Can you sit on a board that's making decisions? No. Can you go and sit on another board that's not related? Yes. So could you sit
on a Pinellas County board? Absolutely not a problem. You just can't sit on a board in the city of Tarpon Springs while you're an employee of the
city of Tarpon Springs. And if this would work, okay, I talked we have the disclosure so that
that's something we've already touched on the requirements. It's a special private gain or loss. There are some other particular issues that we don't
need to go in to, but there are some development districts that talk about property owners vote based on the size of their parcels and and those issues.
But that doesn't that's not. So you need to disclose the conflict. This is an area where you would come to the clerk or come to me or the city manager. You have to abstain from voting.
And then as I said, you have to file what we call an eight B memorandum within 15 days, and that goes up to Tallahassee. We
can request ethics opinions. You can get online. You can actually see ethics opinions online. They have an advisory phone number that you can call similar to the Attorney General
opinions. The Commission on Ethics issues, opinions I got on there recently and there's some very good opinions on there. If you if you want to
look at it, that's not a not a problem. Okay, so who can file anybody can file an ethics complaint. I my personal
opinion is I prefer that a board doesn't do it. I'd rather an individual do it. I don't think it's appropriate. It's not illegal for a board to do it. I just think it causes
internal conflicts for people that we try to avoid. But anybody can file an ethics complaint. It's like it's like we talk about lawsuits. Anybody can file a lawsuit. Doesn't
mean it'll get passed a motion to dismiss, but you can file a lawsuit, although now they're frivolous lawsuits. You can recover your fees on penalties
for this very similar penalties. You can be removed from office, suspension from office, public censure and reprimand, forfeit
your salary. You guys don't get one. And a civil penalty. I talked about the violations for Sunshine Law. I don't want to
keep you guys too long. Violations for 119. You also have an obligation. There are obligations we don't talk about.
Right. So when you're sitting up in a board or you're an elected official, you have the obligation to perform your official duties, right? You're
not supposed to be lying if you're up there, there are crimes that are being committed. You cannot push forward on something that you know is not, you know, true or fair, right?
So you got to be honest. I mean, you have to have a, a belief in what you're saying. But if it's something obviously that is not true, you can't be doing that. You're you still have a duty
when you're sitting on these boards or you're an elected official to follow through with what is considered reasonable in the situation. Again, we use the reasonable man standard.
What are you talking about? What is how is this related? You just can't make up things to try to sway a particular issue. It's not allowed and you
should be removed from the board if you're doing that. These are just more of those definitions. I'm not going to go into that misuse of public
position. I just want to touch on this. Okay. The law, this is the section that people get in trouble with. This is probably one of the bigger sections that
there are cases on. This is 112 3136 public officers, employees and local government attorneys are prohibited from corruptly using or attempting to use
their public position or resources to secure a special benefit, privilege or exemption for themselves or others. Okay, so you cannot this is you cannot intimidate somebody. You
cannot say, I'm the code enforcement officer and you need to, you know, get a give me a free lunch or give me a discount or you can't knowingly
accept a discount based on your position. Misuse of the position is the one that we always catch people doing. They sometimes do it not, you know,
by accident. But you have to understand if you're if you have a shirt, if you have a card, if you have a hat, if you make the statement, you are dealing with the average person.
They don't know, they don't know that you know that as the city attorney that I can't do anything to them. They know that the city attorney has come
into their restaurant and is, you know, saying, well, you know, I can talk to code enforcement and we could look into why you have roaches running in the kitchen or something like that. But it
would be nice if you gave me a free dessert. So you just can't do that, right? And not only can you not do it, you have to go the other way. So let's just say I'll use Mike. Mike is
going to lunch and he's going into a place he has to affirmatively. If somebody would even think about it, he has to firmly say, I'm not here on behalf of the city. I'm not here as a code enforcement
officer. I just really like your your salami and and I'd like a sandwich. And he has to make sure he pays the full price for something. Okay? You
have to go the other way so that people are not intimidated. People do not think that something's going on. And, and this is where you get the most violations, clearly, because
you're using your position for a gain. And it's not just you personally, hey, you know, Mike goes up, you know, my, my cousin's having a wedding. It
would be really nice if we could use you as a caterer. And I could, you know, make sure that nothing happens to you if you give a good deal to my
cousin. So it's ensuring any kind of benefit to somebody else. So this is the one we talk about and why there's a policy here in the city that if you're not, you know, working,
you don't wear your shirt. So it's just you can't misuse the city seal. You can't send out letters that make it appear
like you're acting on behalf of the city or you're acting on, or the city's going to do something to somebody, and you have to be very careful. And I'll just give you an example that came up recently that I
was somewhat surprised, but I had a someone from one of the fire districts who's doing a charitable organization do a public announcement, you know,
for this charity. And they were wearing their shirt and they said, I'm commissioner, fire commissioner so-and-so, and I'm inviting you to this function,
you know, and please give hundred percent violation, 100, 100%. The only way they might have been able to get around that is if you had permission
in advance by the fire district saying something along the lines. We support this charity, and it's okay for you to say that, you know you're representing us. You have to do
it in advance. You have to, because remember, one person on one of these boards has no power. Two people have no power. Three, it takes three. So three
of you commissioners up here, elected officials individually, other than the mayor having certain rights, individual commissioner has no say or power unless they are given
that authority by the board. That's why we talk about at the meetings you're going to serve on X committee. Yes, I'm going to serve on stay. Okay. Now you're representing the city
for SDA. You have authority to do that. You can act on behalf of the city. Otherwise you show up at a staff meeting and you're not the person. You can't sit there and say, the
city of Tarpon Springs wants you to, you know, give us our own jolly trolley and, you know, just to go around the city and we're, you know, you can't do
that, okay? That's a misuse of your position that results in potential removal by the governor, certainly subjects you to public reprimand or censure. It's the same on
advisory boards. You cannot use your position for your advantage. It's a violation. It's the one that's going to get you. And just don't do it. Do the affirmative thing. If
you happen to be out wearing something that city related or somebody knows that you're in that position, hey, I know you're so and so. You sit on the planning and zoning board and you go, hey, I'm not here
for that. I'm here to look at your lamps, you know, whatever it is. So you you want to be careful. That's the one I would definitely tell you to watch
out for. This one. You probably won't get. Possibly planning and zoning could fall into this, but you can't use your misuse of public information. What is
this? This is the Martha Stewart thing. You can't get information privately to use for your own gain. I know because I went to a planning and zoning meeting, or I was
told by planning and zoning director, we're going to be talking about rezoning this particular area, and it's going to go from residential to industrial. And I'm going to tell my my cousin to go buy
into that area, because I know we're going to change the zoning and it's going to be great for a new hotel. It's going to be great for, you know, a new restaurant, something along those lines. You cannot
misuse the information that you have. Now, would that really happen in planning and zoning? Probably not. Where would it happen? It would probably happen with a commissioner who knows that the city is going to
do something. So you want to make sure that there's no private gain on this, although apparently, you know, some agencies seem to be doing this and getting away with it. You,
of course, would be caught and prosecuted because we always do it at the local level. There are, as I said, if you're
interested in all, you come to me. If you have a 112 question, which is an ethics question, if you have a statutory one, I'm not going to go into too much
detail on that. Gifts we talked about. And that's it. So is
there any questions? Yes, sir.