Martino: City Legal Failures

In three recent Palm Beach Post newspaper editions the City of Palm Beach Gardens was in the headlines again. But the news and the articles did nothing to enhance the reputation of the City. All of the articles highlighted the seeming ineptness of the present City Council and its immediate predecessor Council to establish clear, cogent, and competent decision making in the legal areas of their responsibilities. These missteps have stumbled the City into costly lawsuits that competency could have avoided.

The City Council should be concerned with these legal failures. As a resident I am. And yes, in my opinion, these lawsuits are failures because they could have and should have been avoided. Failure should not be an option. Let’s briefly discuss the three lawsuits featured in the Post…

• Sears wants Gardens to pay $2.1 million for legal fees: In a case that involved a lease between The Gardens Mall and Sears that had no public implications the City Council passed an ill-advised City Resolution that resolved a position in favor of the Mall’s argument. Due to this Resolution the City was ultimately inserted into the litigation. On appeal Sears was victorious. The 4th District Court of Appeals ruled the City Council’s Resolution was unconstitutional because it impaired Sears’ contract rights while also ruling Sears was owed attorneys’ fees.
  • My opinion: The City should not have consented to a Resolution that inserted its’ full faith into a private business contract dispute. $2.1 million for legal fees or any portion thereof is a lot of taxpayer money. The Council’s legal advice was and is suspect. If no Resolution is passed than there is no litigation against the City. 
• Gardens to fix rejected questions:  As a result of a private citizen’s lawsuit in February a County Circuit Court ruled that the City’s proposed language for City Charter revisions on the March ballot were misleading, therefore, illegal and any votes for them are negated.
  • My opinion: The City Council simply did not discuss the legal advice being suggested in a logical and coherent process. Public workshop meetings should have been scheduled to flush out the propriety, purpose, and legalities of the Charter revisions. In a workshop format the Council members could have thoroughly discussed and vetted the associated language prior to moving to ordinance format and the required ballot wording. Perhaps, then a private citizen would not have had to sue the City.
• Rustic Lakes wants out of Gardens:   Rural community, just annexed, says it was forced to join: It is rather difficult for a City to get sued over a balloted annexation. There is a state statute that offers a clear roadmap. The areas to be annexed must vote in the affirmative, as was the result in this past March election. Rustic Lakes claims dubious means were used by the City to “orchestrate a reprehensible method” of including them on a ballot question with two neighboring communities.
  • My opinion: It is apparent that some Rustic Lakes residents were opposed to being annexed, thus the lawsuit. If annexing the two larger communities was possible without creating a non- contiguous situation, a reluctant Rustic Lakes community could have been removed from the annexation ballot question. Again more legal counsel and guidance together with more probing discussion at a workshop meeting among the Council members, perhaps, would have been the extra ounce of prevention necessary to avert this problem.

The above is only the latest in a list of failed legal decisions by Gardens City Councils’ past and present. The decision in 2013 and 2014 to keep the “baseball stadium fiasco” a secret from the residents based on the interpretation, wrongly in my opinion, of a State Statute by the City Attorney, a Statute whose intent the City Council had violated almost from the get-go, is on that list as well. Another list maker is the 2016 election for the Group 4 seat. The City Council on the advice of the City Attorney and City Clerk allowed the 4-term incumbent to be placed on the ballot as a candidate even though the Term Limit language in the Charter determined him to be ineligible. The election was legally challenged and the 4th District Court of Appeals ruled the incumbent to be disqualified and declared the challenger the winner.

So who is responsible for these legal missteps and failures? From my perspective, it’s the City Council. They were elected to be the decision makers and, therefore, the responsibility is theirs’. One could argue and rightly so, that the legal advice has been less than proficient in the above referenced decisions. However, it is up to the City Council to recognize and contend with what are defects in counsel and guidance.

My suggestions to the City Council are simple. Do your homework. Do not accept the advice and /or recommendations of the Administration as if it were the Holy Grail. Ask questions and more questions. Hold regular advertised workshop meetings so discussion among all Council members is shared with each other and the public; the exchange of thoughts and ideas may help to ferret out unforeseen defects in the Administration’s advice and recommendations. Be aware of bureaucracy creep. Jealously guard your rights to be the leader, the policy maker, and the decider, not the follower and the disciple.

Mayor Urges Professional vs Emotional Approach to “Gun Control” Resolution

Much of the May 3, 2018 City Council Meeting was not controversial or included much discussion.

State Senator Bobby Powell, as he did last year, gave a very thorough and engaging power-point presentation summarizing the last legislative session. Marcum LLP presented the Fiscal Year 2017 audit report with glowing results. City Manager Ferris presented an award to Deputy City Manager Stephen Stepp (in his former capacity of Police Chief), Laura Schuppert – Tennis Director gave an update on the new Tennis Clubhouse and Crystal Gibson of Code Enforcement described a most recent humanitarian effort by staff coordinating with Christ Fellowship.

Bookending the remainder of the meeting was the subject of “Gun Control”; Council Member Litt later in the meeting described the current ‘proper’ nomenclature to be “Gun Reform Legislation” or “Commonsense Gun Legislation”. During Comments From the Public, Joan Hoffman of Ballenisles gave a heart-felt statement about her former house-keeper Kassandra Morales who was killed recently in a West Palm Beach bar & grill. She spoke representing a few others that were in the room for Mom’s Demand Action. Her said that her personal focus was not necessarily on the guns but the people behind them. Speaking after her was Mary Castronovo, also a Gardens’ resident describing Mom’s Demand Action as the counter-weight of the “powerful gun control lobby”. The final item on the Council’s agenda for the evening was Resolution 26, 2018 – Firearms Control.

This was the first opportunity for the council members to express their positions on the Resolution they asked staff to draft. Mayor Marino, respectful of the passion and emotion on the subject, urged that the council not vote on the resolution that evening and that the council address the resolution from a professional approach rather than an emotional approach. All agreed. City Manager Ferris suggested that each member submit their comments in writing and that those would be incorporated and reflected at the June 7 City Council Meeting.

Public Comment also included:

• Steve Mathison representing the PGA Corridor and congratulating the City for the clean audit
• Paula Magnuson – thanking staff for progress on Gardens East Drive and handing a package to Council requesting that they review her response to what was said about her last month
• Carol Easton and Kevin Easton – expressing their concern that their properties were being targeted with code violations and describing the difficulty of Sunset neighborhood egress with new plans for expanded lanes on Northlake Blvd
• Sandy and Marty Groner of Gardens of Thornbury, asking for assistance on a code enforcement issue with the parking of a non-commercial bus-like vehicle in their neighborhood.

Consent Agenda and Public Hearings and Resolutions:

• Consent passed 5:0
• Resolution 19, 2018 – Frenchman’s Reserve clubhouse flagpole passed 5:0
  Ordinance 6, 2018 – amending Chapter 26, Elections passed 5:0 on first reading; Kevin Easton requested that perhaps petitions could be filed on-line.
  Ordinance 7, 2018 – Referendum Question 1 – Term Limits – passed on final reading 4:1. Council Member Lane described the huge advantage incumbents have and the combination of this question with the recently passed ‘run again’ provision essentially obviates term limits. He voted NO. Vice Mayor Woods once again quoted members of the Term Limits Committee saying that run again was never intended. Mayor Marino gave a lengthy statement essentially against Term Limits and for the need for longer number of years in office.
• Ordinances 8, 2018 (Referendum Queston 2 – Repeal/Replace Charter) and Ordinance 9, 2018 – (Referendum Question 3 – City Manager Residence) both passed 5:0 on final reading with minimal discussion as did Ordinance 10, 2018, first reading (Voluntary Annexation for Richard Road Seacoast Utility Authority Parcel)
• Resolution 24 2018 – in support of the Steeplechase Community in its effort to mitigate impacts of planned Beeline Highway and Northlake expansion projects was passed 5:0 after Tom Berita thanked the Council for the Resolution and Council Member Lane summarized his efforts on the subdivision’s behalf

Note: Also on June 7 at 6pm is a City Council Workshop with Florida Department of Transportation on Beeline Highway