Does Key Colony Beach play fast and loose with Florida's Sunshine Laws and more*?
» A city resident, unhappy with the quality of the official recordings of KCB Commission Meetings asked the City Clerk how she prepares the minutes. "I have my own private recording," she told the resident.
Those clean, uninterrupted, "private recordings" are public records and must be proffered when requested.
The Florida Attorney General notes that, Pursuant to Ch. 119, F.S., the Public Records Law, every person having custody of public records is required to permit them to be inspected at reasonable times and under reasonable conditions and shall furnish copies of each record upon payment of the fees prescribed by law.
The term "public records" has been broadly interpreted to encompass all material made or received by an agency in connection with the transaction of official business which is used to perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge.
To be contrasted with "public records" are those uncirculated materials which are merely preliminary or precursors to future documents and which are not, in and of themselves, intended to serve as final evidence of the knowledge to be recorded. That appears to cover the City Clerk's private recordings. It does not.
The Supreme Court of Florida in considering what constitutes "precursors to public records" referred to "rough drafts, notes to be used in preparing some other documentary material, and tapes or notes taken by a secretary as dictation"" If, however, the purpose of a document [which would include tapes or notes] is to perpetuate, communicate or formalize knowledge, then it is a public record regardless of whether it is in final form or the ultimate product of the agency.
» KCB residents have questioned many of the claims of funding for the city hall project. In a nutshell, people want to be able to see what KCB has actually received from outside sources and what they've spent those dollars on.
The Sunshine questions include FOIA violations. Residents trying to track the grants are asking for financial records and not getting them. City clerk Silvia Gransee's reply was illuminating:
The monthly financial records that identify deposits and payments for the City of Key Colony Beach would be monthly bank statements. Bank statements are not posted on the city's website. I will have to confer with our city attorney's whether any exemptions per Florida Statutes apply to your request. I am not aware of any but want to make sure I am compliant with Florida Statute.That is deliberate obfuscation. The city clerk next wrote:
I wanted to follow up on my email from Monday. City Attorney Smits is out of the office until next week. I will check back with you after I hear back from him next week.Otherwise known as slow-walking the request. Vernis & Bowling is not a one-man office; they have at least two other lawyers assigned to KCB.
The resident sent the city clerk "an amended records request" for city revenues deposited into the Iberia deposit account and transfers out of the Iberia bank account as well as payments made from the City's First Horizon primary operating account. The bank statements are not necessary.
The request was for a report of the city check register for those two accounts by fiscal year, including type of transaction, date of entry, source or payee, accounting class and/or category, and amount. The reports were requested as files in .XLS or .XLSX format. Reports in that form can be run using the "export" function in Quickbooks. This time, the city clerk replied:Your amended request for records has been received.
Please note the statutory obligation of the custodian of public records is to provide access to, or copies of, public records "at any reasonable time, under reasonable conditions, and under supervision by the custodian of the public records" provided that the required fees are paid. Section 119.07(1) (a) and (4), F.S. However, a custodian is not required to give out information from the records of his or her office. AGO 80-57.
Ch. 119, F.S., provides a right of access to inspect and copy an agency's existing public records; it does not mandate that an agency create new records in order to accommodate a request for information from the agency.
The City's accountant has informed me that the records requested are not existing in excel and it is not mandated to create new records to fulfill a public records request.That is, in a word, horsepuckey; the resident asked for a report in electronic format, not to create new records. The city appears to be trying every possible tactic to avoid delivering the reports.
People are asking ... what doesn't the city want us to see?
» Another resident requested a paper copy of all the documents sent to the contractors for bidding the new Key Colony Beach City Hall, plus all documents, emails and phone calls with the bidders prior to the bidders submitting their bid back to the City, as well as paper copies of the two bids submitted to KCB including any correspondence with the bidders after their submittal.
The city clerk replied:» Unfortunately, I am unable to fulfill your request for the documents.
» Florida Statutes provide further exemptions due to the possibility of the rejection of all bids and the reissue of a competitive solicitation. I copied Florida Statutes below for your reference.
119.071 General exemptions from inspection or copying of public records...The City Commission will meet on July 20th, 2023, to review the recommendation by the evaluation committee. If the Commission decides to reject all proposals and reissue the solicitation the bids remain exempt from public disclosure. If the Commission decides to accept a proposed bid, the bids become non-exempt and are available for public inspection.
2. Sealed bids, proposals, or replies received by an agency pursuant to a competitive solicitation are exempt from s. 119.07(1) and s. 24(a), Art. I of the State Constitution until such time as the agency provides notice of an intended decision or until 30 days after opening the bids, proposals, or final replies, whichever is earlier.The 30 day exemption limit expired July 5, 2023.
People are asking ... what doesn't the city want us to see?
» The city attorney created a revolt among KCB's volunteer committees by threatening them with Sunshine Law violations. Some have speculated that the purpose was to disenfranchise KCB's volunteer committees.
» The Key Colony Beach FY 2022-2023 adopted budget shows the city overcharges for permits as well as fees and fines.
"All fees and charges established by the city commission shall be set forth in a "fee schedule," which shall be adopted, and may be amended from time to time, by resolution of the city commission. All fees or charges in the fee schedule are adopted as a reflection of the actual cost of providing the applicable services, and are intended to recoup only the city's actual costs involved with the administration and enforcement of such services."» Fines have doubled. KCB has balanced its budget on the increase in revenue, a clear violation of Florida statute and of its own ordinances.
» The City has broken other rules as well. This page will be updated as other examples surface.
* This question addresses a technical part of state law out of concerns that KCB city officials selectively apply local ordinances and state statutes.