JLAC votes to look into potential Sunshine Law violations at the City of Gainesville
BY JENNIFER CABRERA
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – At the October 16 meeting of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee (JLAC), the committee heard an update on the City of Gainesville’s response to a January 2022 operational audit by the State Auditor General and asked the Auditor General to investigate possible Sunshine Law violations at the City.
JLAC Chair Mike Caruso (R-Boca Raton) reminded the committee that the audit’s primary concerns were “the City’s $1.7 billion in debt related to the GRU and the transfer of funds from the GRU, the City’s utilities, to the City’s general fund. These transfers appear to be based on the needs or wants of the City Commission without regard to the sustainability of the GRU.” He noted that the City Commission served as the governing board of GRU until October 4, when the GRU Authority, appointed by the Governor, was sworn in.
Derek Noonan, the Audit Manager of Local Government Reviews and Special Audits for the Florida Auditor General’s office, gave an update on the City’s response to the audit; the information he presented is available here.
In response to a question from Caruso about why the Reichert House findings had a status of “No occasion to correct,” which Noonan said was another way of saying “Not applicable,” Noonan said that the Auditor General’s office had recommended more oversight and transparency in the City’s relationships with nonprofits that had been involved in Reichert House operations, and the City’s response was that they “basically just got out of the Reichert House business.”
“And then they were done with Reichert House”
Noonan said the Auditor General’s review of a previous Reichert House audit showed some “payments that it wasn’t obvious what the purpose was, and we basically recommended that they follow up on that. So [the City Commission] made a policy decision that it wouldn’t be cost-efficient or a good use of staff’s time to do that… and then they were done with Reichert House.”
Senator Jason Brodeur (R-Lake Mary) said that given “additional concerns” brought up by “members of the [legislative] delegation or others on the committee… What if there are some additional things we’d like to ask the City to do and/or penalties that we could enforce?”
Rep. Taylor Yarkosky (R-Lake County) followed up on the Reichert House issues: “They just stopped [doing business with the organization]; do we move forward, or do we look into — I mean, just because they stopped doing it, does that mean what was done was righteous and okay, or have we even looked at all that?” Noonan responded that his office had recommended that the City do that, “and they elected not to do that, so at this point–that’s it.”
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”
Noonan reiterated that the City had made a “policy decision” to stop investigating the use of funds by nonprofits associated with Reichert House. Yarkosky followed up, “So it’s your position today that you don’t know if anything was wrong or right, you have no position on that because the ‘pay no attention to the man behind the curtain’ kind of thing, and we didn’t look any further into it.” Noonan replied, “Correct.” He said that his office is not a law enforcement entity, just a “reporting entity,” and they recommended that the City do more investigation.
Ward: The City has “aggressively leaned into addressing the issues”
Caruso then asked Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward to speak, saying that the committee had asked the City “to take bold action to address the City’s financial situation” and that the City had pledged to present its plans to do that in October.
Ward said the City had “aggressively leaned into addressing the issues you communicated to us.” He said the City had eliminated 125.5 positions, about half of which were filled and all of which were budgeted. The City Manager voluntarily took a $15,000 pay cut, and the City Commission rescinded a raise they had previously approved for themselves. Ward said the only departments with increases were the public safety departments. He said the City had established a formula for calculating the fund transfer from GRU to General Government, which reduced the transfer by $19 million for FY2024.
Ward said the Reichert House, a program for at-risk youth that was founded over 30 years ago, “has done a great deal of good for the community,” but “we determined the best course of action was to discontinue the City’s leading role in delivering this type of program,” and the program was closed on May 31. Ward also went through other findings that were corrected and described changes in the Finance department that included new hires, training, and stronger operating procedures.
“We cannot compel nonprofits… to produce records that simply don’t exist”
Regarding Reichert House, Ward said he hoped the community would “take up the slack on that” and pointed out that the payments in question occurred between 2015 and 2018 and were payments “between nonprofits that had been supportive of Reichert House but not payments to the City… We cannot compel nonprofits giving money to each other, or receiving funds, to produce records that simply don’t exist… We have created a line item of $250,000, not for Reichert House, but for preventative youth services that will be available in a competitive process.”
Rep. Dianne Hart (D-Tampa) praised the City “for allowing that $250,000 to be a line item to help people within the community, especially our youth.”
Brodeur asked Ward how much “percentage or total cash” was saved by the budget cuts. Ward responded, “The budget actually increased by about a million dollars because we needed to increase police and fire as part of ongoing collective bargaining agreements. Each other department took a serious haircut.” He said the 125.5 positions saved “almost $10 million.” [Editor’s note: the budget actually increased by $2,062,797.]
“So despite all this, taxes still went drastically up”
Brodeur pointed out that the City must have increased revenue to make up the difference, and Ward said they raised property taxes by almost one mill, along with an increase in the value of local property. Brodeur said, “So despite all this, taxes still went drastically up,” and Ward responded, “Yes, that is correct. We felt that we needed to do that–again, as directed by members of JLAC back in February, comments from the committee… That’s what we had to deliver to make sure that we can continue to deliver value to the people of Gainesville.”
Rep. Yvonne Hinson (D-Gainesville) praised Ward for “making some bold moves. I’m very proud of the work that you’ve done. I’m sad for the citizens of Gainesville, that we are losing the services, but we had to do what we had to do, I appreciate you doing that. My greater sadness is for the Reichert House.” She said she hoped they could “reimagine Reichert House in a way that will be more sustainable and more accountable and more transparent because the work of the Reichert House is still badly needed.”
Hinson mentioned two programs that could help provide funds for Reichert House, both of which were championed by Governor DeSantis. One is the fatherhood initiative, and regarding the second program, Hinson said, “I’m surprised I’m saying this myself–universal voucher program that might be able to reimagine Reichert House as a charter school.”
Alternating Chair Sen. Jason Pizzo (D-Hollywood) said the amount of money dedicated to youth services might be low, given the population of Gainesville.
“These aren’t City dollars, never were City dollars.”
Caruso asked why the City couldn’t produce a court order to obtain the missing Reichert House records, and City Attorney Daniel Nee said the committee “might be conflating two different issues… These aren’t City dollars, never were City dollars.”
Pizzo pointed out that the Reichert House spent about $20,000 per client per year: “That’s, you know, more than twice what we spend on public education dollars per kid… Closing down, starting from scratch using best practices–you can probably run a more effective and efficient and cost-effective model, yes or no?” City Manager Cynthia Curry agreed that was one reason they had decided to close the program.
After asking some questions about the City’s governmental structure and establishing that the City Commission had the authority to hire or fire the GRU General Manager prior to October 1, Caruso referred to a letter from May 2023 in which GRU CFO Claudia Rasnick wrote that Ward directed GRU to delay issuance of bonds until the legislative session ended on May 5, costing GRU an extra $2.9 million. Caruso asked Ward to comment on why he “reach[ed] out to the GRU and [held] up the issuance of the bond.”
Ward responded, “First of all, I did not reach out to GRU management; they walk the halls when they do this sort of thing. They go to the Mayor and each Commissioner.” Caruso said, “They said you directed them.”
“I have no capacity to direct; it is my habit to say, ‘I am one vote.'”
Ward said, “I’ve seen that letter, and I’m at a loss as to why the CFO would have said ‘direct.’ I have no capacity to direct; it is my habit to say, ‘I am one vote.’… In that particular instance, we were in the process of discussing a sea change to the way in which we operate. I did not believe that it was prudent or honest for us to represent to lending agencies exactly where we were because we did not know exactly where we were.”
Caruso asked, “So you’re saying this letter’s incorrect?” Ward responded, “That is correct, sir. I am saying that I did not direct anyone to do anything, because I do not have the capacity to do that.”
Caruso followed up, “Did you reference in any manner to the GRU that maybe we should hold off on this?” Ward replied, “Yes, for the reasons that I just said, sir, that I feel that it would have been imprudent and dishonest for us to move ahead with that, at that point, knowing that we were in the process of creating a debt repayment plan at the time and that you all were contemplating a sea change in the way the utilities operated. I can’t tell you more than that, sir.”
Ward said they did have a discussion about the potential of rising interest rates, but “we did not have a discussion about ‘Barclays will pull out if we do this.'” He said increased interest rates did not cost the additional money: “What cost us the additional money was that the leading respondent pulled out because of all the things that were going on at the time.”
“I’m disappointed in the bold actions that you think you took.”
Caruso told Ward that JLAC asked the City “to come back with and make bold, bold actions. Take bold moves. You know, I didn’t expect you to come back with a 29% property tax increase and put your problem on the backs of the taxpayers. I was hoping we would come back with a reduced budget for the City… We already have elevated GRU rates. I’ll be honest with you, I’m disappointed in the bold actions that you think you took.”
Ward responded, “Members of your committee in the last July meeting admonished us to raise our property taxes ‘by as much as a mill,’ I believe was the actual quote. We did as we were instructed, sir. I do not enjoy paying higher property taxes. I do not enjoy passing those on to my community… We chose to take a $19 million reduction in revenue out of the $155 million budget at the time. $156 million going into this year, and change. That feels like a bold move to me, but ‘bold’ is subjective.” [Editor’s note: the approved budget for the previous year was $154.36 million.]
Caruso asked about the salaries of Charter Officers and City Commissioners, and Ward said the issue of giving raises to Charter Officers was a “complicated situation” because many of the Charter Officers were in an interim status going into the fiscal year: “As we agreed to permanent contracts, there were increases.”
“See, I just don’t see any cuts here.”
Caruso said, “See, I just don’t see any cuts here. I see non-funding of positions that weren’t filled, but I don’t see any real major cuts in the overall budget at all. In fact, it went up a little bit… When you actually increase your budget, I don’t see that as a bold action at all. I’m very disappointed.”
Pizzo asked Finance Director Sue Wang to come up and asked her what percentage of the City’s budget goes to police and fire. Wang said she needed support from “Ms. Curry’s book,” but she thought it was 50% or 60% [editor’s note: it’s 48.5% (page 13)]. Pizzo said that left about $77.5 million dollars for “drastic cuts” and asked Wang about some of the other large expenses in the budget.
Wang said Public Works and Parks were big chunks of the budget, but “we did cut a lot of Parks programs.” Pizzo asked how much they cut, and she said it was a couple of million dollars.
Pizzo asked Curry how many of the City’s employees work in public safety, and Curry said she would have to estimate, but it’s about 350 positions. Pizzo said, “350 positions are accounting for 50% of your budget?” and Curry said she would need to take a look at her numbers. Curry explained that part of the increase in public safety was from an accounting change in which the City used to “true up” overtime costs at the end of the year but now budgets those costs up front.
Caruso asked GRU General Manager Tony Cunningham to come forward and asked him whether he was directed by the Mayor to delay the debt issuance until after the legislative session ended. Cunningham said his recollection was that a meeting was held at GRU “where the Mayor said something along the lines of, it would be difficult to issue debt based on coming out of the JLAC meeting and the request for a debt reduction plan. Prior to having that plan in place, it’d be difficult to issue debt.”
In response to a question from Caruso, Cunningham acknowledged that the bond issuance was ready to bring to the City Commission at the time of the March meeting, but they didn’t have their debt reduction plan yet. Caruso pointed out that the money was needed to replace other debt that was terminating, and Cunningham acknowledged that they did need the funding as part of the Capital Improvement Plan. He said GRU was aware that interest rates might increase, “and we had shared that with all commissioners one-on-one but had not brought that to the board as an item.”
“They all agreed to not bring the item forward until we had a debt reduction plan.’
Caruso asked whether “all the commissioners” had directed GRU “in the same manner as the Mayor? On a one-on-one basis?” Cunningham said he would “characterize it as ‘They all agreed to not bring the item forward until we had a debt reduction plan.'”
Caruso asked whether Cunningham had let the commissioners “know that other commissioners were in favor of doing that,” and Cunningham said, “Yeah, all we shared was that a commissioner, one of the folks on the board, had requested that, and we shared that with each of them.”
Under further questioning from Caruso, Cunningham admitted that the debt reduction plan didn’t affect the bond issuance. Caruso responded, “So it just boggles the mind that, knowing we have to do this, we put it off, knowing that we would pay more money for it.”
“Expensive salary adjustment” for Equal Opportunity Director
Brodeur asked about an “expensive salary adjustment recently that was in the news” for the $172,500 salary for Equal Opportunity Director Zeriah Folston. Ward said the City had done a salary survey, and $172,500 was the midpoint “for a similar position, although there really are no similar positions because what we ask of that job is more than any other city that we can find.”
Caruso cut off the discussion at that point to leave time for public comment, although he only gave each speaker one minute to talk. Angela Casteel thanked the committee for “bringing things to light with the audit”; Jim Konish said he would like to know if the City Attorney is helping with the Gainesville Residents United lawsuit against HB 1645 and said GRU’s budget “is full of political, social, and ideological interests, contrary to the Charter”; James Ingle spoke on the behalf of the City, saying “this new administration [came] in inheriting a mess… and I think they’re on the right path… Me and many other people… are very happy with our City government”; Armando Grundy-Gomes spoke about the City’s “structural budget deficiency” and high salaries for the Charter Officers, particularly the City Manager; Amy Trask thanked the City “for doing what they’ve been doing to mitigate the damages that we are now facing and to our Mayor Harvey Ward for everything that he has done to be a beacon of light during these really dark times” and said the GRU Authority “feels like it’s unconstitutional, and it’s a violation of our social contract”; and Kristen Young said she is a “great admirer of Ms. Curry [who] came in and really listened to the concerns here and made huge changes for the city of Gainesville.”
Motion for follow-up audit
Rep. Peggy Gossett-Seidman (R-Highland Beach) said she didn’t think the City’s actions adequately addressed the real issue. She made a motion “to request the Auditor General to perform a follow-up audit of all the matters of the audit report. Second, I would like for the Auditor General to investigate why the bond issue was delayed and investigate the resulting almost $3 million of additional costs. In doing this, we’d be asking the Auditor General to confirm all the actions and interactions of the Mayor, the City Commissioners, City Manager, and the Manager of the GRU and any other members of the GRU. This should include a review of all communications between the parties for purposes of seeing if the City Charter was violated, if it was, or if the Sunshine Laws were violated. In both of these requests, request the Auditor General to carry out the audit with the provision that the audit-related concerns of Chair Caruso and the committee are considered.”
Pizzo objected, stating that Gossett-Seidman had read from a typewritten prepared statement, “which presumably, unless there’s a printer here on the desk… was created and drafted prior to this meeting, where we had findings and a presentation. So those feelings and that sentiment was held by the Representative or the Chair or somebody else prior to this meeting, with no opportunity whatsoever for the presentation given here, the answers in good faith, and the questions being asked and posed here in good faith.”
“What are we doing?”
Caruso asked whether Pizzo had a question, and Pizzo asked, “What are we doing?”
Gossett-Seidman said she had been a City Commissioner for five years, “and I have very strong feelings that there were Sunshine violations here in the past actions of the Commission of Gainesville.”
Pizzo asked whether she had prepared the motion prior to the meeting, and she said she and Caruso had prepared it “because of my major concerns with these violations of the Sunshine Law.”
The motion passed 6-4 on a party-line vote.
“I think what we just did here is very offensive.”
After the vote, Sen. Tracie Davis (D-Jacksonville) said, “I think this is offensive. I think what we just did here is very offensive. And I think that what we just asked the Auditor General’s office to do is really out of their purview.” She said the City of Gainesville had corrected some findings and were working on the rest, “and they brought what they had to show us, that they’re doing what the Auditor General’s office said to them, and here we are punishing them.”
Caruso said he had heard concerns about whether City officials had followed Sunshine Laws, so “[looking] into these matters is warranted.”
Hart said she would love to know which member of the committee had told the City to increase the property tax millage, but Caruso adjourned the meeting, saying he had a “hard stop.”
Can you say “F I S C A L L Y I N C O M P E T E N T ?” It’s clear, as in crystal. As some have pointed out about others, this group has never managed a business and it’s quite questionable whether they’ve worked in a successful one.
They continue to betray the public trust and have undoubtedly utilized GRU financial resources to further their own political, (and warped), political ideologies.
They need to be removed and unfortunately, the Gainesville voters have neither the cognitive abilities or the intestinal fortitude to do just that.
As indicated by a couple of the hearing’s citizen commenters, a clear majority in the city of Gainesville is perfectly happy to keep fleecing the non-represented GRU customers via city commission mismanagement of GRU ad infinitum.
Not the majority, who are non-voters.
An overabundance of ignorance and lack of common sense possessed by Gainesville voters may have more to do with this group staying in office than anything.
FISCALLYINCOMPETENT 👍🏾
Happens all the time. Everyone has an official email. Everyone has one that isn’t. Guess witch one is real…the one where things really happen.
Not the city or county email. Its the Gmail or Yahoo or whatever they use;
They all have “burner phones” as well. There really is a serious need for someone with the authority to investigate the city. Just look around the country. Where there are people that believe in law and order, the Democratic house of cards is tumbling. Will things ever get better? I doubt it. The system is too entrenched and comfortable with cashing in on the status quo. I am a lifelong Democrat that is just about ready to abandon the party. The city of Gainesville will throw anyone under the bus when their cornered. Let the show begin. Share your story in an op ed without the personal attacks if you really believe in justice. It the right thing to do for all of us.
Democrats are fueling a civil war between Democrats and Repupilacans right before our eyes
Anyone remember back during Covid, the County Commission rescinded the mask mandate in the morning, then put it back on a couple of hours later in the afternoon?
I’d like someone to take a look at potential sunshine violations from that fiasco. It was clear to me one commissioner was trading a mask mandate for something else from another commissioner. However, there was no discussion about this on the Dias. They went into that meeting with a plan. The question is – how was the plan implemented behind the scenes?
In regards to email accounts/communications, I’d like to see an investigation of that as well.
The fix is on. The state is going to use this as a precursor to dissolve the City of Gainesville and take ownership of the city.It’s Disney on steroids.It is obvious.
Keeping my fingers crossed…
A big can of worms is opening up. When you say subsidized slush-fund non-profits “don’t keep records”? And “daisy chains” don’t fall under Sunshine Law ??
No wonder politicians and their family members love NGOs here… 👹🤡🤡🍦🍦🍦🍦🍦D
Notable quotes from the person who may have been elected to be mayor but is far from leadership material. (Other than leading people over a cliff).
The Reichert House “has done a great deal of good for the community.” I’m confident the expenditures on the Reichert House has done more good for certain people’s financials than it has for the youth it was intended to serve.
“I have no capacity to direct; it is my habit to say, ‘I am one vote.’” So he’s pretty much a useless waste of budgetary expenditures.
“What cost us the additional money was that the leading respondent pulled out because of all the things that were going on at the time.” Speaking of pulling out, maybe his daddy could have saved many of us a lot of money and trouble.
“I can’t tell you more than that, sir.” That’s the usual answer when one’s hand has been caught in the cookie jar.
“I do not have the capacity to do that.” He’s also demonstrated he lacks the capacity to do basic arithmetic. Is anyone else questioning the reason for having a Mayor in the first place?
Maybe TV20 can start a new series…”Our Idiot Mayor.”
No, TV 20 is in their back pocket.
“….He (Caruso) noted that the City Commission served as the governing board of GRU until October 4, when the GRU Authority, appointed by the Governor, was sworn in….”
Hellloooo! The board is illegitimate as only one of the 4 are qualified to be members by the rules that are part of the very law which created the board. Any court without kangaroos should easily throw out any of it’s “decisions”.
What is wrong with these people?
Other than that, note the 6-4 party line vote for the audit and the fact that the motion was clearly written before the hearing by Caruso and submitted by one of his stoog … I mean fellow Republican members because as chairman he is not allowed to make motions. The hearing was just a stunt leading to this motion.
Don’t know if you’ve been keeping score of late but I feel it’s safe to say that 90% of everything voted on by government entities is along party lines.
As far as the representative who had something ‘prepared,’ shows she was better prepared than the local idiots who went to Tallahassee.
But seriously, local leadership has for years now had their minds made up prior to hearing the voices of residents as well. You’ve just been to busy to notice.
how was Caruso not violating Sunshine Law?
Chairman and Vice-Chairman on the committee can communicate.
No, they can’t. I’ve been a committee chair under the Florida Sunshine Law and that is false.
Sunshine Law does not apply to the legislature: https://www.myfloridaelections.com/portals/fsase/documents/Sunshine.pdf
Yep – anyone on that committee can talk outside the meeting.
Jizzy is one of those people who enter a room and immediately give off the ‘I am a know it all” vibe.
It’s ok. He’s having a hard time taking this much losing.
I was thinking about the same thing. He’s done this, done that and appears to be a genuine jack of all trades, masturbator of some.
By now he’s probably an expert at pulling Harvey’s panties out of his crack.
Didn’t know this was a gay fantasy talk group – not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Homophobe. Blatant and disgusting.
One person’s fantasy is another’s reality.
Don’t be fooled though – there is something wrong with that.
Thanks for that Nancy, but do we know if by “legislature” it means only actions taken in the act of legislating, or creating laws, or any and all actions by members of the legislature. One assumes this has been clarified by courts by now.
Whatever the case, the creation of this motion off stage and before this hearing, indicates a dog and pony show preordained in it’s conclusion and led by the chairman. The partisan nature of this most recent hostile takeover by the state GOP is all too familiar now and has resulted in the removal of local authority in many and sundry cases, and replaced by control in Tallahassee. Those applauding this nonsense will not be happy if the precedent – and specific laws, like those allowing law suits against local governments by private parties if they claim a ruling or law will cost them money, while disallowing such suits against the state – is used by future state politicians not to their liking. Remember, DeSantis one his 1st race by 30k votes out of 8 million cast.
Thank goodness for those 30k votes! It pains me to imagine Gillum waking up on the floor of the Capital with pills strewn about wondering where his clothes are.
Yes, there’s something wrong with that as well.
Dam jazz for once your right
This is what I’m wondering as well! It’s obvious now that all of this was just for show and they’ve had an agenda all along. Our commissioners, and commissioners past have done some damage, but why are we cheering on a state takeover of the city? Why are we rooting for more government? They’re all selling us out to line their pockets with money. We need to stop playing party lines and wake up -we are being screwed by both sides!
You would think one of the four Democrats on the committee would have brought up any questions about the legitimacy of the GRU Authority, if they had any questions. I’m sure you and others like yourself have been contacting them and forwarding “information.”
So, you think the rules on board members qualifications are not clear, or do you think the board “members” must be mistaken and don’t actually know where they live?
When did the D’s start caring about residency? Where were you last year when McGraw, Alfred and Wheeler got caught? So far the 4 members seem to have the experience and competence for the job. I’ll take ability over city residency as long as they do what’s best for GRU.
Dude, they were caught and removed. I expect the same here.
If the board members can’t understand or don’t care about clear rules on qualifications intended to provide at least a minimum level of accountability and local representation, I can’t agree that they are experienced and competent or even ethical.
Yes, removed because they lacked the character to do what was right.
Seems many politicians lack that quality – character. Then again, one doesn’t have to be a politician to be lacking but it sure brings it out.
Case in point, the Gainesville City Commission.
I just love the fact that one of the board members looks like he’s straight out of the original Dark Shadows television series. Seriously, I live in the city, and I don’t care. You don’t even live in the city, so why do you care? In any case, filling vacancies must be different – technically speaking – from forming the board in the first place. That should be obvious to even you by now.
JLAC, really? Be like, ‘Dude, like they just really dropped Reichert House? Do we like look into that felonious mess or like forget it man?’ For college educated folk, they sound like beach bums from Ridgemont High.
JLAC Auditors can only do so much. However, they can make referrals to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. That’s why when they say an item was ‘completed’ doesn’t mean it was resolved or that the item doesn’t merit further investigation, it’s just they’ve go as far as they can with the limited resources they have.
🛑 Is it just Me or is Tony Jones name Missing, Can someone help Me find mention of that Bum 🛑.
FY 24 proposed budget has 12 FTE equity and inclusion positions and 118 FTE Parks and Recs positions. Non-core gov’t functions should be cut further when running a large deficit imo.
I want to see some overgrown grass in some of these parks around town. The residents support these idiots – let their quality of life suffer.
Parks and recreation is not a necessity. FTE’s can be cut.
how was Caruso not violating Sunshine Law?
Because he was speaking at a public meeting. Duh!
Try to keep up Ed. He either dictated or cowrote the motion passed by the committee before the meeting but offered by another commissioner, because as chairman he cannot make motions. Nancy above has accurately linked the law stating that the “legislature” is not covered by the Sunshine Law, though how comprehensive that exemption is is not clearly stated.
In other words you’re grasping at straws. During the meeting Ward and Cunningham opened up a big can of worms and gave the committee the opening they needed – 1. By Ward denying that he ‘directed’ anyone to do anything. 2. By Cunningham admitting that this is what the 1 on 1 meetings were for. If you’re so concerned about Sunshine Law then maybe you should hold Ward and Co accountable first. They’re the ones who cost us another $2.9 Million, not Caruso.
And it came to pass in the City of Brokeville that the Mayor and his loyal followers said they “aggressively leaned into addressing” the damage they did to Brokeville and the townsfolk saw them leaning so hard that the Mayor and his leaners fell out of their seats.