Okay.

Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the April 15th Workshop City Commission meeting.

Um, the purpose of this meeting is to give us our annual required ethics training in person rather than online, which we frequently do.

Last year, um, Longboat Key invited us to attend their in-person uh session, and it was so useful being able to being in a small group and able to ask specific questions that are relevant to our organizations here in Sarasota County.

Um, and uh Commissioner Alper could not make it today, but I know she's gonna take the required course online, like we frequently do.

So with that, I will turn the program over to Randy Mora, who by the way usually runs the Florida League of Cities online course for everyone in the cat in the state, and he does such a great job, so I'm very glad that he's here today.

So Randy, you can kick it off.

Um, as stated, my name is Randy Mora.

I'm with the Tras Daniel Law Firm, our firm partners with and collaborates with your city attorney's office to provide services.

I've had the joy of joining you folks before on on parliamentary procedure and other and some of your other boards on related topics.

So today we get the very exciting, exciting experience of going through the four hour training, two hours on ethics, one hour on records, one hour on meetings.

I will go in that order.

Those are classroom hours, so they're roughly 50 minutes for every hour.

We will take a break once we're through ethics as an opportunity for me to reset and for you.

And of course, just as a ground rule, while this is a meeting of your body and I defer to your rules, you guys are grown folks.

If you need to use the restroom or just stand up, do so.

The other part of that is I rarely get the opportunity to do this kind of presentation in such an intimate environment.

Uh normally navigating a room of more people, which is to say we have a little more time and cushion.

If you have targeted questions, let me know.

I I'd like to avoid very specific questions.

When we did this one hearing, should it have happened this way?

Not that, but just hey, guidance going forward.

Uh for purposes of today's presentation, uh, I will be your tour guide, and we are cruising at 30,000 feet, which is to say I'm going through Florida law.

Um there may be some things in Sarasota County or the city of Sarasota that are slightly different, or Northport, uh, welcome to our guests, um, that are slightly different.

And so I'm co-cruising with what state law is.

Uh, of course, happy to engage with any uh nuanced issues.

That said, my name is Randy Mora.

I'm the city attorney for the city of Homes Beech.

I've represented four other jurisdictions in Pinellas County.

Uh, in addition to serving as a city attorney over the last 12 years or so, I also um work with the Florida Municipal Insurance Trust as panel counsel uh for litigation when city issues go sideways, which is to say I have the rare uh benefit of not just seeing policy on the front end but how it resolves on the back end, and I'll bring that to bear in some of our examples today.

And then finally, this is my favorite part of my practice.

I I do travel and also um now much more webinars uh in presenting on issues of ethics, public records, public meetings, technology, and how all those things intersect.

It's my favorite part of the practice because the stress to billable ratio is much lower.

Uh and we're not starting in a place of crisis, we're just usually starting from a place of wanting to do better.

Uh so with that, thank you.

Um I I do recognize you've been voluntold to be here by the Florida legislature, but I appreciate your time and attention all the same.

Uh so with that, we'll start with ethics.

So when we talk about ethics today, I want to be very, very clear what we are and are not talking about.

Um we have these high-minded notions that government is a trust and the officers of the government are trustees, and both the trust and the trustees are created for the benefit of the people.

That's from uh Henry Clay, one of our earlier founding fathers and politicians, but we find that repeated in Florida's constitution.

And all of our presentation, all my presentations today will start in the Constitution, work through the statutes, talk a little bit about common law, which is just a fancy phrase for what judges say the law means over time, um, and then we'll get through some examples on each.

And so, starting in our constitution, this is to me, I don't care what topic you are presenting, it can be variances, it can be public meetings, whatever topic you're presenting with for local government, I think should start with this slide.

Because this is the um this is the North Star.

Uh if you're here for an ethics presentation, you're in the right place.

If you're here for DRC, there's another fun room going on, just so you know.

So much excitement for ethics today.

So I appreciate the enthusiasm.

So that said, a public office is a public trust, and the people shall have the right to secure and sustain that trust against abuse.

Let's break that down.

What that means is you do not hold your office for your benefit.

Yes, being a commissioner, mayor, vice mayor may give you a warm, fuzzy feeling in your heart.

It may help your ego, it may just give you an excuse to not be home on a Tuesday night, whatever the reason is, that's great.

But the benefit is truly for that of the public.

And that public is broad.

That is not the people who elected you.

That is not everybody who owns property or everybody without a criminal conviction, or everybody who is a Floridian.

It's everybody.

You hold your office for the benefit of all your residents, visitors, guests, business owners, investors in your community.

And your challenge, which thank you for doing your job, is balancing all of those interests to serve the public trust.

Myself, Joe, our peers who sit in the EC, we get the luxury of saying, man, that's a really hard decision.

You have to make one, go ahead.

And that's why we sit where we sit and say it depends.

Um but ultimately you folks have to figure out and balance that trust.

And then our our system is set up so that we secure and sustain that trust against abuse.

And the way we do that principally is through chapter 112 of the Florida statutes, which is the ethics code.

Um, and in the ethics code, we the law's nothing if not redundant.

It says we you hold your office for the benefit of the public, and the respect of the people in their government must be the foremost concern.

Um, and so as we navigate that, we continue to say it's declared to be the policy that no officer employee of a city government shall have any interest financial or otherwise, which is in substantial conflict with the proper discharge of his or her duties.

And so what that means is that we are concerned, principally, your foremost concern must be your public duties.

And a conflict of interest, not a voting conflict, just a conflict of interest at a core ethical level, is any situation in which regard for private interest tends to lead to disregard of a public duty or interest, which is to say, if you find yourself making a decision, and it's based principally on what's good for number one, you're probably doing the calculus wrong.

There are times, listen, I I I sympathize with you folks as elected officials because oftentimes you're up here, and when people sit try to try to, you know, say, hey, are you considering the public trust?

Have you what are you thinking about here?

This is all about you.

It's easy to forget, you live in the communities you're governing.

You also will benefit, or also will go through, oh, well, now everybody who does this has to get a business tax receipt.

Well, yes, and I'm a business owner too, and I will also have to do this thing, right?

Or this will just raise property values throughout the city.

Well, yeah, I live in the city too, I know.

Um so I will have to do all of this as well.

Um it's not enough to just say, well, if you're part of it, it's a problem.

It's if you're number one.

If your primary concern is, well, I don't like t-shirt shops on beaches, I feel like there's enough of them, and so I'm never going to approve something that involved t-shirt shops on beaches.

Well, that's not what your charge is.

Um, especially in that context where you might be in a quasi-judicial hearing, which we'll talk about.

Um, but that's what we're talking about at base level.

Now, when we talk about the ethics concerns, it's a I want I just want to check my flow here for a moment on my slides, but the the I want to start with the sources of our ethics code because I want to be very clear what we are talking about and what we are not talking about.

For purposes of today, ethics is a rule book written in Tallahassee.

I am not teaching you, nor am I qualified to teach you about Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, about what your pastor, Imam, rabbi, shaman, crystal seller would teach you about ethics.

That's that's not what this is about.

This is a rule book written in Tallahassee, which is why you get a lawyer to talk to you about it.

And so there will be times today where things may not be in complete alignment with how you think the world should work, um, as my therapist once said, you should not should on the world.

Um there is the way it works, and you can adapt, uh, you can't reject.

So, for purposes of today, we're talking about the law.

And so our sources of ethics are the U.S.

Constitution, of course, and how does that factor into ethics?

Well, you get your freedom of speech, your freedom of press, freedom of assembly.

We're gonna have to balance those things as we as we regulate and navigate our role in public government.

Uh the Florida Constitution as well.

Um I'm very famous with within my family, meaning my kids roll their eyes every time they hear the phrase, two things can be true.

Which is to say we are talking about chapter 112 of the Florida statutes.

That is where the ethics code is embedded.

But good news, if you're really good at committing ethics violations, you may also be committing crimes.

Um you have statutory law.

Uh, when you look at chapter 800 of the uh Florida statutes, chapter 800 is for those of you who are not just huge fans of our legislative system.

Uh chapter 800 is where the crimes are.

So you get bribery, fraud, and those things.

So you can commit an ethics violation, that is also a crime.

And if you're really really good at it, I'm talking like apex level, you may graduate to federal crimes, and there's honest services fraud and other kinds of regulations governing our behavior.

So, and then finally you start to work down to at the local level.

What does your city charter say you can and can't do?

Some communities, not this one, have their own ethics boards, and and have those ethics boards have their own rules.

For our friends on the Southeast Coast of Florida, some of them have their own office of inspector general, ethics board, ethics rules that are more strict than the state requirements we're talking about.

Uh so if you have peers in other communities or you've lived and served in other communities, you might be familiar with that.

Um but those are all the sources.

I'm not doing WWJD and Jiminy Cricket.

That's another presentation.

Again, I'm a lawyer, not qualified for those things.

Um, but as we talk about those ethics rules, what it how does that then get enforced?

If we don't have some local board, how is that handled?

Well, the ethics rules are administered by the Florida Commission on Ethics.

It's a nine-member body, they are ostensibly nonpartisan, and I say only ostensibly because they are appointed by partisans, they are appointed by the governor, Senate President, and Speaker of the House.

Their charge is to have bipartisan appointments.

Um they have two principal responsibilities.

They issue advisory opinions and investigate ethics complaints and referrals.

I want to pause there.

The Commission on Ethics does two things.

They issue advisory opinions and investigate ethics complaints and limitations.

Now, referrals.

So the ethics complaints and referrals, that's the sexy interesting one most people know about.

I want to start with the less captivating one, which is advisory opinions.

The Commission on Ethics will, with sufficient information and a written request, issue an advisory opinion to a community and its officers.

So if you say, for example, as we look at having non-advilorum revenue, we are considering transferring all of our assets into Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.

We don't know how to set up a wallet, but our city manager has one.

Can we use the city manager's crypto wallet?

Those are real words.

I got asked yesterday if those are real words.

They are.

Complaints and referrals.

Interesting to some, the Commission on Ethics does not have the ability to initiate its own investigations.

If you are one of those nine esteemed people in the state appointed to the Commission on Ethics, and you open the Tallahassee Democrat or Miami Herald or insert paper or blog here, and you see, oh, Commissioner Mora of Sunshine Beach is alleged to take bribes for housing development or something, you can't say, oh, well, then I'm gonna get my staff on this today.

Unless somebody with authority to give a referral, and it's up there, your governor, Florida Department of Law Enforcement State Attorney, a local ethics board, if you have one, unless one of those people refer them, or somebody makes a complaint, then nothing happens at the ethics level.

So there are situations in communities where people say, like, well, everybody knew, everybody knew, the streets were talking, everybody knew this happened, but nothing happened.

Well, did anybody make a complaint or referral?

Maybe not.

Um the other part of that is for those of you who have been in public service for a little while, and you're saying, why do I have to do this every year?

Sometimes the law changes.

And in the last two years, the law on this changed.

If you'd sat through a version of this presentation four and five years ago, I would have told you who can make a complaint.

Well, typically, ordinarily it was the same, generally, two people.

It was your adversary in about eight months out from an election season, uh, or it was somebody who regularly comes to the microphone and tells you how they feel about you.

Right?

And so that those were two ordinary sources, but we would say any person can make an ethics complaint.

That has changed.

Now, in order for an ethics complaint to be reviewed for probable cause and moved upon, that complaint needs to come from somebody with personal knowledge of the alleged violation.

And personal knowledge means you're not basing it on something you read on next door, or hey, commission on ethics, these streets be talking, or hey, commission on ethics, I was reading the paper and it said you need to have personal knowledge of the alleged violation.

And we've already seen the Commission on Ethics start to filter and say, this might be meritorious, it might not.

I don't know, because the complaint is coming from somebody who has no personal knowledge of the allegations.

Uh and so that is a meaningful change that the Commission on Ethics through the legislature, that was done by, I say, the rule books written in Tallahassee.

The legislature changed that by law.

Just right now in this session, there's another law that's been proposed.

I don't believe it's uh it's passed, but I don't believe it's been signed by the governor yet, that would require changes to this ethics training to include additional content.

So we will look to see how that goes, and then if it is, you'll get to do another exciting new fact next time.

Um so that's how all of this works.

That's what we're talking about.

This is the foundation for our discussion on ethics.

So before I get to the substantive topics, I want to check if any of you have any questions, concerns, observations, sarcastic remarks.

Yes, sir.

I saw on the previous slide.

Commission, am I correct?

Commission can't initiate.

Or file an ethics complaint.

That's the commission on ethics cannot initiate.

It can come from any person, but it's a good question.

I'll reframe what I think you're asking is can my city commission make an ethics complaint?

I would suggest it should come from a person.

If somebody on the commission feels so strongly or the spirit moves them, then they should do so.

I I say that from a bit of personal experience where within within, you know, with clients we've represented, they the commission has five members, and four of them don't like one person.

And one person is alleged to have done something, and they say, City attorney, I want you to file an ethics complaint against number five.

And you're like, well, wait a second, you're all my client, and this was before the personal knowledge requirement.

Um but any person can make it.

Why am I the person if one of you seems to have all this information know and feel strongly?

Um I'm not saying a body could never, but I I think a person, I don't know that a person is broadly defined enough to say the entity that is the city commission is filing the complaint.

And so that leads me to issue advisory opinions.

In the event a commission or a majority of the commission feels that a particular member of that commission is behaving in a way that potentially runs afoul of the ethics speaking behind the board.

Is it possible for that board, that commission?

I'm sorry, that commission to go ahead and request the ethics board issue an advisory opinion.

So the the question restating just for for purposes of the record, if you will, um the the question framed is well, if a commission has concerns about a member and is not trying to make a complaint, but is seeking advisory opinions, can the commission ask uh for an advisory opinion?

And I would say generally speaking, yes, I don't work for this to for the commission on ethics and candidly while I teach on this, I don't regularly make submissions to them.

So I I would have to check, you know, what boxes they require.

But yes, cities often request it, and usually they come from a city attorney, but the city attorney has to be in valid doubt as to what the result is.

It can't just be and also they don't use it as a way to vet a complaint.

Hey, I want to make a complaint, but before I make a complaint, would this be a really good one?

Um it really has to be an actual doubt as to I'm not sure how the law would work on this, or yes, I'm aware of this guidance, however, in this situation is I know that there's requirements against employing relatives.

Uh what happens if the mayor and the vice mayor are cousins?

Can we do that?

Is that a sunshine?

I don't know.

That sort of thing happens often in the form of ethics complaints.

But if you're using uh or advisory opinions, but if you're using an advisory opinion as step one in a potential complaint, I have a feeling the commission on ethics would say that's not what this is.

Uh so that's that's how I would frame that.

Yes, ma'am.

Um so of course, many matters come before the city commission.

And some of them we have a personal opinion on, and others we do not.

We of course try to set aside our personal likes and dislikes in favor of the greater good and based on information that's been put on the record.

However, when it comes to voting, doesn't there have to be a financial benefit component?

So your question is targeted towards voting conflicts, and I want to put a pin in that.

It is a it is a very um good question, and one that a substantial portion of the end of the presentation focuses on.

So I'd rather once we get to that substance that I address it, but it's a good question.

And yes, the voting conflicts calculus is different than just ethical conflicts generally.

And so you're on the right path, but I'd want to add some nuance to that as we get down there.

Okay.

All right.

Any other yes, ma'am?

Will we get these slides?

Yes, absolutely.

This is a public record, it's part of your city.

Uh teaser for the next presentation.

Um I will be sending them to Shayla afterwards.

Um I try not to send them in advance.

One, so it's fun and exciting for you as I can tell you feel it.

Um, but two, also I I made edits three minutes before this started.

I want you to have the final record.

Sounds like that was a public record.

So, yes, you will have these slides, they'll be available.

Thank you.

So, with that, um, and by the way, uh I know that some of the slides are very dense in content.

It is precisely because we'll provide them to you, and then you have a reference.

You have the statutory references, the language, this is the the oral portion is in t intended to enhance that and give you the value added, if you will.

So, with that, um we're gonna cover a few topics in ethics that are laid out in chapters 112.

We're gonna go through gifts, unauthorized compensation, misuse and abuse of public position, um, and certain uh regulations concerning employment and uh confidential information and uh nepotism and and all of that.

So that is to say, that's our roadmap for the rest of this part of the ethics presentation.

If you thought we were gonna cover another topic, the good news is you got disappointed early rather than later.

Um but we'll go through those, and of course, if you have questions on any of those issues or things that are tangential to them, let me know.

And so we're gonna start with gifts law, and there are four key issues that come with the topic of gifts and the questions that I want you to talk to to consider.

And this whole presentation, as with the records and the F and the meetings presentation, is intended to raise what I would call your ethical antennae.

We want you sensitized to these issues, not able to fully resolve them.

But to be aware when you're in a situation to say, hey, my spidey senses are going off, something about this seems like I need to talk to Joe and his team about it.

So the questions when it comes to gifts is considering in the first place, is this a gift?

Why are you getting this?

Um, you know, there's we're all familiar with the axiom that there's no such thing as a free lunch, right?

Who is this from and what is its value?

All of those things will inform how you go down this path.

So, what's a gift?

Well, a gift for purposes of ethics.

We're not talking about Christmas and your birthday.

We're talking about ethics code.

Um, gifts for purposes of the ethics is anything accepted by a donee or on a donee's behalf for which equal or greater consideration is not given within 90 days.

Fun legal terms that just mean if it's given to you, you're the donee, or to you on your behalf.

I don't give it to you, I give it to me or tries to give to you, but it's for you.

We know it's for you.

Um and you don't pay for it within 90 days, that's a gift.

Doesn't make it improper, proper, legal, reportable.

We're just saying baseline, that makes it a gift, that means we're gonna have to go down this path.

And we'll go through examples of gifts.

That is all the language from the statute on examples of gifts.

I don't expect you to be able to read that, it's there for your reference.

But real property is a gift.

If somebody gives you land, that's a gift.

Use of real property.

Someone says, oh, commissioner, commissioner, you were so helpful during the hurricane.

You've been working your your tail off, and I can see the exhaustion.

I have a place in Jackson Hole, you need to go put your feet up for four days, read a book, come back.

That's use of real property.

That's a gift.

Fly in my private plane, that's use of tangible property, right?

Those are gifts.

And we've seen no shortage of examples of those things coming to light, and I'm not saying that by themselves makes them improper.

I think the most troubling one for some people when they go through this list is food or beverages.

Yes, a cup of coffee.

Whether it's you know the $2 black coffee from the gas station or the $9 ice frapped mocha uba latte from Starbucks, both of those can be gifts if somebody buys them for you and you don't pay with for them within 90 days.

Whether it's an issue, we'll we'll go a little further in terms of your public service, but it is by its by its definition a gift.

So not everything, believe it or not, given how long that list is, not everything's a gift.

And the statute goes through a bunch of things that are not.

Um, you know, if you get an honor, you go to the you go to the um, you know, you go to some charitable organization and they want to commend you for your service and they give you a plaque, non-honorarium like that.

That's not a gift.

There's there's your salary is not a gift.

Um so those sorts of things.

Now, there is some guidance on indirect gifts, just to be very, very clear.

You cannot do indirectly that which you cannot do directly.

Or as I like to say, you can't commit a violate, you can still commit a violation with more steps.

Um it's uh the the attenuation doesn't solve it.

And so where the gift or benefit is ultimately received by the reporting individual, the gift is provided with the intent to benefit.

And for our purposes today, because all of you know are familiar with form ones and the form six of yesteryear and all of those things, that was me knocking on wood.

Um, but if you have a form one or form six, you are reporting individuals.

And so reporting individuals are subject to these heightened restrictions.

The gift law under the ethics code has another side of it, another side of the same coin.

That was 1123132 under 1123134.

There's another provision that's very similar.

It says no public officer or employee or their spouse or minor child shall accept anything of value when you know or should know it was given to influence you.

I want to compare that to the gift law for a moment.

And forgive me, I've updated these slides, so I'm going through the flow a little different.

Um twelve three one three two, the language restricting gifts, says no public officer or employee shall solicit or accept anything of value based upon an understanding that their vote action or judgment would be influenced thereby.

One fairly long sentence, a lot more content than it suggests.

I want to break that down by its parts.

First, no public officer or employee.

That's you.

You're the public officer.

If you look at the language of each of the provisions as we go through this presentation, you'll notice it includes your employees.

Shameless plug for a moment.

I think it's fundamentally unfair to hire people in public service, have them sign a bunch of forms when they're hired, say, I agree to buy your code of conduct.

Yes, I recognize I'm a public official or pub or employee and I'm subject to 112, and then never telling them what that means.

Or, said differently, misery loves company.

You're sitting through this training, have them sit through a version.

That is to say, you can't know you can't do better if you don't know better.

And so just a shameless plug to say, if your staff or team ever approach you and say, hey, we're thinking about you know training our employees, there is value in that.

Um about 20 in 2023, about 20% of the value of the noticed um complaints that the Commission on Ethics received involved employees.

And a lot of them were honest, honest mistakes.

I didn't know that I couldn't buy from my wife for my department, buy all the paper from my wife's paper company.

I didn't know I couldn't do that.

Genuinely, I just thought it was a better price, so I bought it.

Um things like that that come up.

Um so adding to that, so that's who it applies to, then we're gonna say, shall solicit or accept anything of value.

When you're looking at any rule, law, ordinance, or restriction that that governs human behavior, under the canons of drafting, you usually have two core elements.

And of course, because we're lawyers and we need to make ourselves feel important, they're in Latin.

The actus reus and the mens rea.

The actus reus is the thing you did.

That's the the verb, the action word.

Here solicit or accept anything of value is the action word.

The second component is the mensrea.

The mens rea is what you were thinking, what your level of intent was, what was at issue in your brain when you did the act.

And we're all familiar with this because we've all seen at least one episode of Law and Order or something else, where they say, oh, this is manslaughter, this is first degree murder, right?

Regardless of what those things are actually called in any given jurisdiction, we're familiar with the idea.

Manslaughter and first degree murder have the same actus reus.

You moved your body in a way that resulted in the death of another human body, right?

That is the actus reus.

The mens rea difference between those two things is in manslaughter, you were reckless.

You had moved with a wanton disregard for safety, you were negligent, you didn't care what happened, or you weren't rationally thinking through what happened, and that was your level of intent.

That's manslaughter.

First degree murder is you had a plan.

You had a plan, you acted on that plan.

You may not have gone all to plan, but you had an intention to do that thing, and you did it or tried to do it.

And we treat those things different under the law.

And so when we talk about some of these ethics restrictions, I want to sensitize you, or I will sensitize you to the different mens rea that's involved because it does vary by violation, it's not all the same.

And later on when we get to public records, your men's rea doesn't really matter until we talk about penalizing you.

And so here, the men's rea is a little more abstract.

It's the understanding that your vote or action would be influenced by soliciting or accepting the gifts.

So, for my very very creative people in the room, I want to talk through some things that are not defenses to this position.

If you solicit and accept, those are separate verbs and violations.

You can if solicit and accept, those are two violations.

Sometimes people have raised the argument, well, yes, I asked for the bribe thing, and but they didn't give it to me.

So, no harm, no foul, guys.

Not a defense.

You've solicited with the understanding.

Oh, well, I solicited and I accepted with the understanding that I would grant their variants, but hey, buyer beware, I didn't grant the variance, so no harm, no foul.

No, you did it with the understanding that you would take that action.

Whether or not you took that action is not our concern.

Right?

And then finally, solicit or accept.

Yes, I accepted it, but I mean I never asked, and you know, by the time somebody scratches my back, I start wondering who else needs a back scratching around here, and I helped out.

Not a defense, right?

And so the solicitation and the acceptance are different forms of violation.

Um, and again, understanding that breath, we're really concerned with what you're thinking.

Now notice when you look at that gift language, notice what's missing.

There's no reference to a dollar sign.

There is no dollar sign threshold to violate the gift law.

What we're concerned with is again, are you changing how you govern how you serve the public trust based on what people give you or what you think they're gonna give you?

That's not in service of the public trust, and that's a situation where a private interest is leading disregard for public duty.

So that's what we're concerned with, which is to say, if Commissioner Batty is one of those folks who just collects the all 50 U.S.

state quarters, right?

And I have two Iowa quarters in my pocket, and try as he might, he cannot get those quarters.

He's got 49 out of 50, but Iowa has forever eluded him.

And I say, Commissioner Batty, here, listen, man, here's the deal.

I would like you to increase the city attorney's office budget.

I don't need anything from you beyond that, but I do want to help you out if you can help me.

I would like to give you these two quarters.

Now, to most people, those quarters buy you maybe a third of a Tootsie roll in 2026.

But for you, it's everything.

This is the thing that moves me.

This is how I bonded with my family member, and I want to complete this.

So those two quarters might mean nothing to anybody else in the world and everything to that commissioner.

So whether it's two quarters, a cup of coffee, a pencil, Lou Batons, a Tesla, a new phone, a free AI account, I don't know.

Whatever the whatever moves you in this world is what we're concerned about, not what society places a value on, but what you place value upon is what we're concerned with in the gift law.

Any questions on that?

Yes, Commissioner.

So does it have to be stated, verbalized, or in writing?

That we're agreeing on this, or can it be a wink wink or not even a wink wink, so that I know when you come to the commission table, I'm sort of expected.

So, excellent question, and I would say that's one of the places where the difference between the gift and unauthorized compensation provisions come in, because there's also an authorized compensation, which says no public officer or their spouse or minor child, so a little bit broader, shall accept any compensation payment or thing of value when you know or should know that it was given to influence your votes or other actions.

Read together, I would say no, it does not need to be that explicit.

And in the modern era where we have so much digital dust documenting where we've done, where we've been, what we've done, who we were with, what the Commission on Ethics is going to look at, pardon me, were they to receive a complaint, is first as a threshold question, they say, is there probable cause for a violation?

So they'll look at the circumstance and say, could there possibly be a there based on our rules?

And if you can, if someone can show, hey, they went, you know, he went out on his private boat on Saturday, you know, whether it's a temporal relationship or they have never once interacted before, they interact a bunch, agenda item, they never interact again.

Those sort of circumstantial things can be offered to get there.

I don't know that while many people in the modern era are audacious enough to say the quiet part out loud and you know explicitly put it in writing, I'm that's not a threshold requirement of the ethics code.

And so we're also now talking about perception.

You're so good, like you're you're you're you're locked in on all the right questions.

Not yet, but I'm gonna touch on that in a moment.

So when we talk about the the gift law, the we have we now have those two statutory restrictions gifts and unauthorized compensation.

I one of the third question I said is who is it from?

If your kid makes you a macaroni plate with a picture on it, or your grandson, you know, try draws a picture of you and puts it on a t-shirt, you don't have to run to the commission on ethics and tell them.

There's an exception for family members that are that are exempt from restrictions and reporting requirements.

But you folks are reporting individuals, which means you have a heightened standard.

And part of that is that you gifts from political committees are prohibited.

That's a gift to you.

I need to be very clear.

I'm not talking about campaign contributions.

I'm not talking about campaign finance law.

I cannot answer it.

I am deliberately ignorant of how campaign finance law works.

Um the tongue-in-cheek way I say that to my elected officials is I don't talk to wannabes, I talk to somebody's.

Once you're somebody, I work with you.

Because I know the law for when you're here, not when you want to be here.

There's a totally different set of rules.

Um, and those rules are very uh onerous at times, but also very flexible and built on a lot of legal fictions that our system tolerates.

So every time I do this presentation, someone's like, well, what if you know the paper company donates to their campaign and then they get on and they vote about that's a different thing.

I'm talking about just as an official, they give you a gift, not a campaign contribution.

Um gifts from vendors, lobbyists, and principles of lobbyists are restricted.

Um, it can't be more than 100 in value, and the reporting requirements are actually lower for that.

Um gifts from relatives exempt, as I stated.

So, where does the money come in come into play?

Where does the dollar sign become relevant?

The dollar sign becomes relevant for reporting purposes, for what you tell Tallahassee.

I could give you a $5,000 gift today, and if it involves nothing having to do with your official capacity, that's totally fine.

You may just have to fill out a form about it.

Right?

So said differently, when I do this in a room of a couple hundred people, I tell them, I'll be at the door at the end of the session holding 15, 20, 25 or other.

You know, give me whatever you wish.

Uh at that point, if you're doing that, you're giving me something that I'm not paying for within 90 days.

So it is a gift.

But you're not giving it to influence my services.

You're just saying, wow, it was such a treat to see this handsome man with a leathery voice speak to me for four minutes or four hours, rather.

Right.

So, right, so if you say that and say, I want to give you $500 about it, Randy, I may have to fill out a form about it, but that doesn't make it improper.

So I just say that to say some people say, look at the amount of that gift.

The amount is not our concern, but for a bureaucratic concern.

You fill out a form about it.

I'm a lawyer, I fill out forms for all kinds of things.

I'll happily do it for that much money.

I'm joking, please don't do it.

Gifts over $25 from vendors, lobbyists, or principles must be reported.

But remember, if it's over 100, it's prohibited as a reporting individual.

So that's where this comes in.

And so, you know, you get these they're try to try and bring some levity to it, right?

You haven't given me a gift, you give me an obligation.

Um, as was famously in a sitcom where a kid is given a gift card, they say, so you took money that I could take everywhere and turn it into money that I could take one place, right?

Now I have to take this to Tallahassee.

So the takeaway here is when it comes to solicitations of gifts, don't do it.

Right?

There's no reason to walk around and say, I'm a commissioner, give me something.

Also, don't be cute by half wearing a have you hugged your commissioner today shirt, and then say, I don't know, but at every diner, the coffee's free when I walk in with this t-shirt, I don't know what's going on.

Right?

You don't want to put yourself in the position of answering whether that's solicitation.

Now, the natural question I get from especially public officials is you folks are involved in the community ten ways from Sunday.

You're part of the church, the ASPCA, Florida Blue Key, like whatever you're a part of, and whatever cause is passionate to you, you're involved with, and you want to leverage some of your social capital, your influence, your knowledge, your people's awareness of you to say, I want to help this cause, I want to use that for good.

Um, be careful in terms of saying you're asking on behalf of the city of Sarasota, as opposed to, hey, you may know me from other places.

This is a cause that's passionate about me, and I would encourage you to consider giving to them.

That's a little different.

Uh but there's nothing that prohibits you from getting gifts for charitable causes, which is is the bottom line.

If you want to be out there holding a boot, you know, during Memorial Day or whatever holiday we do that, go right on ahead.

Um get March of Dimes donations, do all the things.

That's fine.

Just don't make it, you know, that all the restrictions on using the city seal, leveraging your official office, making it seem like this does have to happen because I'm the mayor, is where you start to have issues.

And we'll talk about what that can look like.

Um that said, whether or not something is a gift is defined by whether or not you pay for it within 90 days.

One of the core takeaways, I try to do things in threes.

The the core takeaways from this presentation and truly all three presentations you are going to be made to sit through today.

It comes down to three things.

The first is don't screw up.

You're gonna learn all the rules, follow them.

First rule.

Second takeaway, you're human.

To be human is to err.

At some point you're gonna make a mistake.

Face it, address it, fix it if that can be done.

Whether that is in this context, paying for the gift within the 90 days, in the context of a public meeting, oh, we didn't know the doors were locked, we're gonna do it over with the doors open, right?

Things can be fixed.

And we've seen plenty of officials run afoul of saying, by saying, well, ain't nobody gonna see that.

Right?

It's only an issue if someone makes it an issue.

Well, they might not make it an issue for five years, ten years, twenty, or five weeks, ten to ten weeks, twenty weeks, but it's going to become an issue.

Let's address it now.

And then the third one is just because someone says you screwed up doesn't mean you did.

And I think that's the hardest part about public service, especially as it relates to ethics restrictions.

It's never quite as black and white as people want it to be.

That's why we make a lot of money saying it depends to you.

Um, but the other part of that is, and this is to your questioner, to your question, Vice Mayor, is understand that I'm being uh sat here to teach you as an attorney about things that will be administered in an administrative body or a court of law in the judicial system.

There's another court system that I do not have a license to practice in, though occasionally I have to go there, which is the court of public opinion.

I don't know the rules, they're ever changing.

The only one I've been able ever able to discern is you're not allowed to change your mind based on new information.

Um that's a weird one, but that's the rule.

Um the court of public opinion is very different.

And remember that I told you the number one slide, if you remember none of them, is a public office is a public trust.

And the published shall secure and sustain that trust against abuse.

And so when it comes to public perception, there are things which may be permissible, but may not build the public trust.

And so my job, Joe's job, their team, is risk management.

If you've seen me do this presentation before, you'll you've heard me say, my job is risk management.

I'm here to tell you, here be dragons.

And your job is risk tolerance.

And some of you consider yourselves Don Quixote, ready to slay anything, including dragons, right?

And not all of those are windmills, and you're not as tough as you think you are, but that's fine.

That's your risk tolerance.

I've met with an official who I trained one on one and told me, Randy, I need you to know before we get started.

Wherever the line is, you'll find me two paces past that, catch up.

Said, okay, I don't love that.

I am very risk averse.

I think I'm going to make a lot of money representing you.

Um but the you know the idea is risk tolerance.

There are others among you, maybe even sitting at this table who said dragons.

I did not sign up for dragons.

I signed up for more swings in the park and ha a happier business community and a thriving economy.

I didn't sign up for dragons.

So wherever dragons are gonna be, just tell me and I'll go somewhere else.

So when it comes to things like gifts, I've told you you can accept something more than a hundred dollars, as long as it doesn't you can accept anything of value, as long as it doesn't influence you.

If it's over a hundred dollars, you have to fill out a form.

And some of you will say, Okay, so you said I could take that trip to Jackson Hole, and all I'd have to do is fill out a form about it.

I have no problem.

And others of you will say, like, I don't know.

Who knows what that person's gonna come to the city to request or ask you about six and nine months down the road when it's too late for you to pay for it, and I don't want that being leveraged over me or having to answer about it on social media or in the press, so I'm never gonna do that.

And both approaches have their own validity.

That's an individual decision.

When it comes to all of these ethics restrictions, those are individual individual decisions, which is to say when you're navigating an alleged violation, you're doing it on your own.

You're answering for your own behavior and decisions.

And so you have to make that calculus on your own.

So, Vice Mayor to your question, we're not talking about public perception.

We are, but how you respond to public perception is an individual calculus, and I would really caution you not to avoid public service simply because of that.

Don't fail to you shouldn't fail to engage with the position just because somebody might say this.

People are going to say it at some time, and at some point you have to be resolute in the way you acted.

Um, but public perception is certainly part of this, and I'd be naive, any one of us would be, as your legal advisors, to tell you, oh, that doesn't matter, we're just talking about the rules.

Yeah, you're a human person.

You're gonna have to navigate that at some point.

I get to be Spock and tell you that's not a problem, because it's not my problem.

But it is still yours.

So the last thing I would say on gifts when we talk about curing and public perception, just some words of advice.

The most common one that I see come up is not necessarily in ethics complaints, but in community discussion, is that meal that you didn't know was a gift.

You know, we're in Florida, so it almost happens the same way every time.

Um Commissioner Aaron Coco just use you as an example.

Jen's out there in the world, she's serving as a commissioner, and somebody reaches out from your past and says, Oh my gosh, you're in Sarasota?

Oh, you're a commissioner there?

You wouldn't believe this.

I know we went to college out of state.

I don't know if that's true, sorry.

I know we went to college out of state, but like my parents live there now.

I'm gonna be down there for the holidays, we should totally catch up.

And they find you on Facebook or Instagram or somewhere else, and they say, we should catch up.

And you go to lunch, and you guys, you know, you catch up and you talk about you know all the things you used to do, the parties you used to go to, the crazy things that you're really glad there wasn't social media for.

And now you talk about your life today, where you are, how your parents' health is doing, challenges being in the sandwich generation, all those wonderful things.

And then at the end of the meeting, well, the lunch.

They say, Listen, I invited you, it was so good to see you, you took such good care of me back in all those memories.

Lunch is on me, don't worry about it.

Okay, cool.

That's there's nothing wrong with any of that.

Then you're in the parking lot, and they go, by the way, my parents live on 16th Street, and it always floods.

They've made complaint after complaint, no one's ever doing anything about it, and they've applied to like change or swale, but I nobody's listening to them.

If you could just get it, I'm not asking you to get it approved.

Just get it to the top of the pile.

Have somebody look at it.

I don't know.

You know, you're responding to a constituent, but are you changing the administrative process, which could be interference?

Um I don't know, I feel wrong about that.

Well, you can cure that situation by paying for the gift within 90 days, right?

Determine what you paid.

And the beautiful thing in 2026 is you could write a check, you can send a Venmo, a Zell, a Cash App.

You can evidence your efforts to say, I didn't want this gift.

Unless you think I'm not practicing what I preach, I've been a big dork for a long time.

I met my wife doing YMCA youth and government in high school, where I taught parliamentary procedure.

Hey, remember me.

Um the other part of that was after I graduated college, I worked in a public university and I worked in fundraising.

And in those teams, all the staff are my fellow recent graduates.

So at one point we go to dinner, a very fancy dinner.

And we go to the fancy dinner, and at one point for like five minutes we talked about university business, and someone says, hey, uh, this is official university business, I'm gonna use our purchasing card.

And I was like, well, there was.

There was more, it was more than five minutes.

I'm you know, being tongue in cheek.

But that had me feeling weird about it.

So what did I do the next day?

I figured out how expensive my very fancy dinner was.

We went to P.

F.

Chang's.

Um it was at the time like 20 bucks, which, fresh out of college, was a very fancy dinner.

And I paid for it.

I gave a donation the next day to unrestricted giving.

Said I never want this to be an issue.

Right?

You can you too can do something like that if you have a concern.

I'm not saying you have to.

Um, again, risk tolerance, figure out if it's a gift or not.

But those are the sort of things that you should be considering when it comes to gifts, an unauthorized compensation.

Any questions on any of that?

Sir.

If you're an elected official and you're running for new office, okay, you're running.

And you're offered a contribution for your campaign from a party who may well or who in the past and most likely in the future will do business with the city.

Does that fall under this ethics rules, or does it fall under campaign contribution rules?

You really wanted to get me to go where I don't want to go.

Yeah, I did.

Yeah, it's you know, that's a challenging question.

I would say you need to use some discernment, for one.

Two, while I don't profess to know a lot about campaign finance law, I know that you have to open a very specific kind of account and you have to log your accounts and contributions, including in kind contributions in those campaigns.

So if you're logging it there, I think there'd be a good argument to say then it's bound by those rules.

If you're trying to act like this thing never happened, and my life just got better, well, now you have that challenge.

But you should really use, again, public trust discernment.

That comes in there, and that's more of the like here be dragons, Iceolate Dragons issue of it all.

For some you say, like the on the law, this is perfectly fine.

Yes, that developer contributed to my campaign.

No, that does not make me prejudice for the quasi-judicial hearing we're having later with that developer.

You will still be subjected to public scrutiny and comment about it.

Um, and so all of those things.

It's for me, it's more of an issue spotting than an issue resolving question.

Appreciate it.

Thanks.

Any other questions on gifts and unauthorized compensation?

All right, forging right ahead.

Our next topic is my favorite uh under the ethics code, which is 1123136.

1123136 is misuse of public position.

And it says no public officer shall corruptly use or attempt to use his or her official position or any property or resource to secure a special privilege benefit exemption for himself, herself, or others.

So in gift, it was to you.

In unauthorized compensation, spouse, minor child, and you.

Here, it's everybody.

It's everybody.

Himself, herself, or others is the scope of who this applies to.

It applies specifically to a public officer or employee.

Corruptly is that men's Rhea thing we were talking about.

So you can't negligently violate this.

You can't be like, oops, I accidentally misused my public position.

You're going to have to have moved corruptly, which is defined in the statute as acting with an intention that is in direct odds and in inconsistent with your public duties and public service.

And the challenge here is you the the task or the violation comes from using or attempting to use your official position, property or resource.

I want to break that down a little bit.

Position, property, or resource.

Right?

Position, you folks vote on things.

Right?

So that's that we'll talk about voting conflicts, but that's that's one of your core jobs.

But when you go outside of setting policy and you start deciding how things are going to run in the city, right, where you have a city manager's office, you have all these department heads, you have your own charter provisions about non-interference with administration, but still you can still violate this ethics code if you corruptly use your office to benefit others.

Reproperties and resources where this most commonly comes up, and often with employees, by the way, this is the violation that employees find most often because it is the broadest.

Misuse of public position is always the second included charge on an ethics violation, and where it's not, even in an advisory opinion.

So let's say you ask for that advisory picture opinion on crypto.

They'll say, like, oh, you guys asked about it as a question about gifts and unauthorized compensation.

They'll add a footnote that says, you should be mindful that while it was not your question, and we don't have enough facts to determine if this is a misuse of public position flag on the play, you're gonna want to navigate this one pretty carefully.

And they do that often.

It is mentioned in almost every ethics complaint and advisory opinion because it's the broadest.

Incidentally, the commission on ethics only has jurisdiction over chapter 112 ethics code stuff.

They don't have jurisdiction over the sunshine law.

They don't have jurisdiction over the public records law.

However, because two things can be true.

If you violate the public records law or sunshine law in some way that is a misuse of public position, that's the square peg in the round hole.

It's the broadest provision, and that's where that comes in.

Property or resource, I was saying a moment ago is the broadest and most common of these violations.

Let's say you were in northern Florida, take it out of any of the things that happen here.

Let's say you're in northern Florida, more of a semi-rural or agricultural community, and you have land.

You have land that's maybe a mile or two from the public works depot.

It's getting to be hunting season.

You need to get your land ready for hunting season.

Maybe you plant some things, some clove and other things, and you say, I need to use some machinery, I'm not gonna go to Harbor Freight or Home Depot or Lowe's and rent it when we've got a public works department a mile away.

It's a Sunday afternoon, no one's using it.

I have the licenses and capacity to use that hardware.

So you say you take it there, I'm gonna clean it better than it was clean, I'm gonna refuel it beyond where it was refueled.

I'll take care of everything, but I'm gonna get my property ready.

Or I'm gonna install my kid's basketball hoop and I need a cement mixer, and you know, the city's got one.

I'm gonna bring it to my house, clean it off, do all the things.

Unless every resident in your city has the ability to, for free, use the equipment when no one else is using it, you cannot.

Right?

The misuse of public position threshold test, I'm not talking about full violation, should be a but for test.

But for my job, could I do this thing?

If I wasn't the mayor, could I be doing what I'm doing?

If I wasn't an employee in the city, could I be doing what I'm doing?

I'm a DJ on the side, can I just make flyers for my for my uh set on Saturday night in City Hall just because I have access to that copier?

I mean, that's the common one that people know about, right?

Or said differently, let's say you're a code compliance officer.

You get a complaint about a noise violation, it's a Saturday night.

You get to the end of the cul-de-sac, all right?

You get out of your car, you can hear the bass going all the way from your car, right?

It's gone.

It's gone.

All right, fine.

I'll walk up to the door, you get to the door, and you you can still hear the music going, it's getting louder.

Knock on the door and open the door.

Can we help you off?

Yes, we're we've had complaints about the noise.

If it is 1 a.m.

on a Sunday, that's pretty insane.

Our codes say this.

Can you please, oh yes, we'd be happy to do that.

Go listen, I'm here about a noise complaint.

But as I stood here, I listened for about two or three songs.

And I've got to tell you, if if this is a violation of the code, I don't know what it violates, but your DJ's transitions are terrible.

You don't go from journey to little John.

That's it's bad.

I do weddings, bot mitzvahs, here you go.

Here's my card.

And by the way, now that I've reached in, my sister-in-law's an interior decorator, you're gonna want her card too.

Right?

That can be, depending on how that's going, a corrupt use of your office for your own benefit or the benefit of others.

Right?

Not everybody's getting an opportunity to just waltz right into cities to people's homes at one in the morning and say, give me business, right?

And so those are the kinds of things you want to guard against, be aware of, be sensitive to.

Um the the most common, the most common equalizer in the state of Florida that we have are hurricanes.

Hurricanes don't care what zip code you're in, how affluent you are, what part of the state you're in, they might do different damage on the coast than in central Florida, but I've been through hurricanes in Central Florida.

They tear down oak trees.

It's crazy, right?

And that affects a community.

If you, for reasons that have nothing to do with the city business, say, hey, you're gonna clean my street first, you're gonna get, I don't care what has to be done at City Hall, I'm the mayor, and that oak tree needs to be gone by tomorrow.

Public will get public works over here.

They're first responders, I know they're on shift, right?

That could be, can lead to those kinds of accusations.

Earlier I said there are situations where the ethics code might not align with your personal code.

I don't know that this rises to corruptly, but I just want you to be mindful of situations where you're trying to be helpful, but you're only helping people based on their proximity to your sphere of influence.

So, what I mean by that, for example, is let's say there is a hurricane, and your city has, and I don't know that you have this, it's a hypothetical, because people watch this later.

Uh, a policy about sandbags.

If you come to City Hall with proof you or the public works building or the Rex department with proof that you live here, you can fill up to 10 sandbags, take them yourself and secure your property.

Now, you and I know at this point those sandbags aren't doing what people think they're doing, but that's fine.

We have that system in place.

Now again, you're the public works director, you're a commissioner, you're out there helping your residents fill sandbags, helping everybody out, and it's getting close to sunset, and you realize, oh my gosh, I live like a mile away.

My neighbor, she used to be my babysitter.

She's still in a house with for mica counters, shag carpets, and crank windows.

She is not ready for this.

She's gonna need more than 10 sandbags.

She can't drive over here and fill these herself.

So you go, hey, hey, staff, I I know we're gonna be here till 7.

If you guys around like 7.30, just fill 20 bags, put them in a truck, leave them in my driveway.

I'm gonna take care of my neighbor's house.

A great thing to do.

A mitzvah, a good deed, wonderful.

I don't know that it rises to being corrupt.

But now you're helping one resident based solely on their proximity to your sphere of influence.

And there may be, let's say her name is, I don't know, Betty.

Let's say Betty is there, there may be two dozen more Betty's in your community who are not getting that help.

And you can affect that same change by just being proactive and having a policy that says, before hurricane season, if you register with us, but this is it, what we'll facilitate for people in this at-risk community or population, this is what we do.

And that's the difference.

I don't know that it rises to corruptly, but it you do get into issues of the public trust.

And we saw this with COVID, right?

COVID restrictions and vaccines as they rolled out and accusations, oh, I want it, yes, it was our whole zip code, but I made sure it was my gated community first, right?

And those kinds of concerns raised these kinds of ethical inquiries.

And so there are situations where you might be trying to do a good thing, or what you believe to be a good thing, but may be misusing your position to benefit others.

There is another side of this, which is abuse of public position.

This was a Florida constitutional amendment that we voted on about nine years ago now, uh, eight or nine years ago.

I would submit to you that it is narrower than misuse of public position.

It's not it's not everybody, it's your family member, your corporate business partner, and disproportionate benefit is uh defined in a way which is the same as corruptly.

Um so when put to the voters, good on us, the voters that we approved more ethical restrictions, but I would suggest to you that it was already on the books.

Um so it doesn't really change.

I haven't seen a violation of one that isn't a violation of the other as it relates from abuse to misuse, uh, but I do want to make sure you're aware that there is that restriction.

Um this is what I call the Ron Burgundy violation.

Uh, when it comes to misuse and abuse of public position, this is all the things you normally see.

Misuse and abuse of public position really come down to the do you know who I am of public government.

And by the way, I recently did a presentation focused just on this provision.

So I went to the Commission on Ethics and I searched their website for past decision and I searched, do you know who I am?

Believe it or not, shocking.

Uh opinions came up.

One of the chief among them being a traffic stop.

Somebody in North Florida many years ago gets stopped for a traffic violation, turns to deputy and says, Do you know who I am?

Deputy says, No, and that's why I asked for a license of registration, right?

And the commissioner says, Oh, well, by tomorrow, you're going to know who I am.

And it turns out he did.

He found out that she was an official violating chapter 112.

Um, he ultimately a complaint was made, and there's no shortage of those examples.

The most classic example of misuse and abuse of public position is license and registration.

Man, why does that business card that say I'm the mayor always get stuck to it?

Right?

And there's plenty of now that in the modern era, plenty of wonderfully exciting YouTube videos to watch of people trying to pull a do you know who I am?

I would submit to you that while you are in service of the public trust, you're never quite as important as you think you are.

Um it is very, very true.

People in your community might know who you are ten miles from there, they've never heard of you.

You can walk through publics with full anonymity, trust me.

Um use of city seal, email account resources.

There was a really good opinion written by the Commission on Ethics recently, um, opinion 2601 uh that involved a county commissioner who was talking about, hey, I want to, I'm on the county commission, I want to endorse other candidates, so it's in a sort of a candidate thing.

What are the lines here?

What can and can't I do?

And they went through, you know, use of city seal.

Are you going to use official city letterhead and say that you're endorsing as a as an official of the county, or are you just saying, me who happens to be a commissioner, and I endorse this person, you know, and they went through where are the resources coming from.

And so it kind of broke all of that down and said, of course, you have rights to endorse, but you've got to be very careful about how you're using resources of this of the county or otherwise.

Um, free storage of resources, just in the same way as use of resources.

If you guys have a car park or a jet ski lot, you know, on a lake or a marina, and you charge people and you say, well, there's eight jet ski lifts, it's not 1995, people aren't using them the way they used to.

I don't need it in my backyard.

I'll put it there and tell the harbor master or the person in charge, if you get eight tomorrow, I'll move mine.

And you do it because you're cleaning things out, you forget it's there.

Months go by.

Somebody makes a request.

I want to see whose is that.

I want to see the rental agreement and what the lease is.

Oh, there is none.

It's a commissioner's, and we it's just kind of been there.

Now you're gonna get that kind of scrutiny, right?

Um, requiring employees to perform work for your family or private businesses, allocating public resources to people in your sphere of influence.

We've talked about that.

Any questions on misuse and abuse of public position?

Just crushing it.

So it's like so so invigorating, like, I want more content, Randys.

Don't stop, don't stop.

Yes.

Well, I have a lot of questions, but they're to be thinking about not answer here today.

All right.

Wonderful.

Well, as you think about them, you've got a city attorney's office who's always available to help and and help you guys navigate that.

And that's really, I'm glad to hear that, quite honestly.

I want the goal is for people to engage with the content, and it doesn't always happen right in the moment.

Um with that, um, as as slow and meticulous as the first little bit felt, this is going to move a little faster, but I do want you to be aware of some of these other restrictions.

There are conflicts, uh, a category of ethical provisions governing uh conflicts related to employment in your private business holdings.

One is doing business with one's agency.

This is a public employee or public officer acting in their public capacity, can't directly or indirectly buy stuff from the city and you can't sell stuff to the city.

I'm paraphrasing.

There is an exception to that.

And the exception is the rule restricts you buying or selling things from or to the city during your tenure as an elected official or employee.

That said, it's while you're an employee or an official.

So there's an and this provision, by the way, was written in 1975.

So the core exception to this provision is if the contract or agreement at issue predates October 1, 1975, which if it does get a new lawyer, that's insane.

Unless it's a lease, that's a bad idea.

And then two, if it predates basically you joining the city, then it's fine.

You can keep doing it.

So let me give you a tangible example.

Let's say you have a contract as a landscaper, a five-year contract starting in 2025 to cut the lawn at all the soccer fields and little league parks in the city of Sarasota.

Now it's 2027, you've been doing this job for two years.

You've, you know, you've had to replace at least three or four tires on holes and divots and all kinds of things in the field.

You don't think the parks and rec facilities are getting the kind of care they need, and you run on that platform and you win.

You say, listen, I'm one of you guys, I'm out there, I care about our kids, I care about our safety, I care about our community.

Please elect me.

You win.

2027.

You've got a five-year contract.

You can from 2025, you can keep doing that contract.

You can keep cutting the lawns.

Let's say you're still in office in 2030 when that contract comes up for renewal.

We can no longer renew the contract.

Even though it was totally fine for you to do two days ago, now you can't.

And the concern is your thumb is on the scale of the process, right?

In addition to enriching ourselves, the concern is you will enrich yourself because your thumb is on the process.

And we make it not just that you have a voting conflict, you can't have the contract.

So we can't say, oh, well, the mayor will bow out of the vote, but we'll all take care of the mayor.

No, you cannot enter into that contract.

The classic example that comes from 1975 was somebody who was elected to city office and had a paper company.

And the paper company, you know, they get elected to say, well, who buys more paper than government in the 70s?

Nobody.

Well, I'll sell it to I'll sell it to the city.

Heck, I'll come, I'll undercut everybody by a dollar, no problem.

You know, I'll give you a great discount because that volume, this is all good for me.

So we're gonna buy all our paper now from my company.

Right?

And I'm of course paraphrasing the facts and embellishing a bit, but that was what happened, and it was a response to that kind of setup like, oh, people might use these offices to enrich themselves.

We should prevent that.

And so that's what this uh provision is targeted against.

There's also some broader other exceptions I'll touch on in a moment, but that's the core exception to this one.

There's also a provision that says no public officer shall have or hold any employment or contractual relationship with an entity they regulate, or sorry, got a little click happy there, um, with an entity they regulate or um otherwise do business with.

And so if you do, you may have to recuse yourself, not just from the vote, but if your conflict in employment prevents you from doing your job, you may have to resign your position.

So let me give some color commentary to this clause, and there's a secondary clause I don't have on the slide at the moment.

But what this is saying is sometimes your job prevents you from doing this job.

And I want to pause, whether you're from Northport, Sarasota, Longboat Keep, Sopchoppy, Florida, wherever you are, and that's a real city, by the way.

There are in any given community, forget Jacksonville, they got like a crazy number of commissioners.

In most communities, you've got maybe five to seven people.

Five to seven people whose job it is to decide on something at any given time.

It's an incredible privilege.

And so if in your community you have five, and an issue comes up consistently that you're saying I can't do this because of my job, at some point you're no longer doing this job.

And we will ask you to step aside.

And under the Commission on Ethics Guidance, what they're looking for is a frequent or recurring conflict.

We don't see this as often on our commissions.

We see this a lot on your subordinate boards.

Your boards of adjustment, variants, community development boards, whatever name you give them.

Many of your communities have what I call a village people clause for those boards, where you say, we want one architect, one banker, one developer, one teacher, and you know, a candlestick maker, whatever you can get, right?

But we want a cross-section of the community when it comes to development.

But let's say one of those people is a has a pool design company.

And believe it or not, nobody's building kidney bean-sized pools and shaped pools, and now they want five and seven foot waterfalls and they want an LED laser-like display, and none of that used to be in your code.

So to do it now, you need a variance.

And so every time this person who sits on the variance board goes, hey guys, it's another pool, uh, as you know, my business is pretty prolific, I'm gonna have to sit this one out.

Third item on the agenda, it's me again, guys, another conflict.

And at some point, your employment is preventing you from doing the job.

And you will have to choose between that warm fuzzy feeling in your heart we talked about and doing and and paying your mortgage or whatever pays your bills, right?

So it can happen.

Now, there is an advisory opinion from the Commission on Ethics that relates to commissioners and gives a pretty good dissection of this.

It has to do with a situation where a sitting commissioner was the executive director of the chamber of commerce, the local chamber of commerce.

I want to be very clear.

They were the executive director of the chamber of commerce.

It was their full-time job.

Now, that means they're not I'm not just talking about like they had a business that was part of the chamber before people freak out or anything like that.

The executive director, their job is to get money for the chamber.

In this particular community, they in their budget gave money to the chamber of commerce for various endeavors or or celebrations or whatever else.

So there's a line item where we support economic development by giving XYZ to the chamber.

And so the question became twofold.

One, is this a legal conflict?

And two, is this a frequent or recurring conflict?

The legal voting conflict, they answered the question yes, and I'll break that down in a little bit.

But the frequent and recurring, they said, I see why you're asking this question.

Because for any of you who have been doing this a little while, you know that while you do all the commendations and things you you like, one of the only things you have to do any given year is pass a budget.

And they said, So this person is conflicted from doing like the thing we are here to do every year.

Is that a frequent or recurring conflict?

And the Commission on Ethics answered the question in the negative.

They said, no.

It's yes, it's a series of votes over several months, but it's just one agenda item out of dozens of agenda items in any given year.

So no, that is not a frequent or recurring conflict.

It is recurring in that you do the budget every year, but not frequent.

And so they would not have to resign the position, but it is in fact a voting conflict, and they shouldn't vote on that, where they're putting money right into their own that of their of their business functionality.

So that's how that one plays out.

I'll I'll admit to you, these don't come up a lot.

Um, and even when they do come up, there are several exemptions set out in 112-31312, or 112-31312.

Um, and there are exemptions for rotation systems, competitive bidding.

Um, I don't teach the exception, I teach the rule.

Uh the exception exists, but you should navigate those on a fact-intensive analysis as they come up.

My only word of caution to you is as it relates to emergency purchases or contracts.

That seems to be the new hotness.

You say a hurricane happened, now all the rules go out the window, and we can just give contracts to whoever we want and whatever amount.

That's not how that works.

Uh, there are rules and exceptions, but let's say you were on a barrier island community.

I understand that the city Sarasota is much close, much much bigger than that.

But let's say you were just on a barrier island community and you have that commissioner who has the landscaping contract.

They've got contract, they've got the equipment to do this stuff.

Hurricane comes through, can't get over to the island, and all our vendors are stuck on the other side.

You could reasonably say, we need this person who is part of the city in whatever capacity, to we wouldn't normally be able to give them this business, but we can now.

Go for it.

Okay, but only for the scope of the emergency.

You can't be like, well, they've been doing such a good job through the hurricane.

It's only right that we let them finish out the year.

No.

Uh there's an advisory opinion, or actually, I think it was a violation from the 90s after Hurricane Andrew, where there was a commissioner, post-Andrew, who said, Man, our community's been so devastated, so many things have been destroyed and broken, not the least of which is the gazebo in Sunshine Park.

And I'm going to see to it that my buddy who's a contractor gets the contract to fix the gazebo as part of an emergency purchase rebuilding from Hurricane Andrew.

And the Commission on Ethics said, well, first of all, all your procurement rules don't go out the window, and you can't just funnel this to a friend, a business partner, I don't remember the relationship.

Um, but also that's not an emergency purchase.

While the gazebo may be where you propose to your wife or have some special place in your heart, that's not an emergency purchase in a rebuilding phase of a local community.

And so you can't just fit everything into that.

So just a little bit of caution, uh, given the frequency with which we've seen some pretty devastating hurricanes of late, this uh tends to come up more and more in our local communities.

Any questions on the restrictions on employment before I move to the next topic?

Yes, ma'am.

I do have one.

So let's say this has to do with doing business with one's agency.

Yes, ma'am.

And let's say you, through all the right processes, obtained your landscape a contract to do landscaping with the city, and then you decide to run for office and you win, and while you're sitting in office, an amendment to your existing contract comes up for consideration.

That's a really good question.

I would that's not one that I would answer unequivocally now because I would want to see what is the nature of the amendment.

Are we changing where your business address is?

Are we changing it to expand it to several more parks or to give you more money?

Um I would certainly want to exercise some caution and in that situation look to see is there commission on ethics guidance on whether at that point we're doing business with or using the same contract.

I'd be very cautious.

Um I think your question highlights the big thing, right?

Is caution, and I would I can almost guarantee you if you took a survey of our 411 cities and 67 counties, that some have done that without even having a second thought, and others said, don't ever.

Um and that gets back to that risk tolerance part of the calculus.

And so when the question came to mind, I was thinking bigger rather than smaller.

What if this contract, the amendment would expand the services and the dollar amount of the contract?

I think that you'd be closer to an issue there for sure.

That's right.

Right.

Uh I I I think you'd be closer to an issue there.

Um obviously, you know, and and and again, I'd want to know what the genesis of it was.

If we, let's say you had a contract to uh to with a scope that said, and this is why people just love lawyers, right?

You've given a pretty oh obvious common sense question.

Well, what if your contract said you have a contract to mow the lawn in all recreational facilities?

But halfway into the contract, you guys build a multi-million dollar, several acre huge recreational complex, and I have all facilities, and it's fundamentally unfair to keep me at the same price when you have doubled my work and you assumed I would have.

So at that point, I don't know that that's really changing your contract.

And so that's why I would say these are fact-intensive issues that you would want to go through, right?

How is the contract written?

What are we changing?

Why are we changing it?

Um if we just say, like, oh, now that you're on the commission, we'll have you mow all lawn and repair all equipment.

Well, now we're fundamentally increasing the scope, and that causes more concern.

Any other questions on that?

All right, cool.

I'm just I I love it when I'm in a groove.

All right.

So our next topic is restriction on employment of relatives.

This is 11231352.

We're jumping out of the 313s, getting a little crazy with it.

Um until recently, there was not a lot of interest when I would teach this part.

And then for those of you who have an awareness of uh you know Hollywood discourse and social media discourse, all the talk around NEPO babies, people have a lot more questions when we get here.

Um but a public official may not appoint, employ, promote, or advance or advocate for an individual who is a relative.

And a relative can't have a public official or employee do any of those things.

So, and those are for just a recap for your seventh grade teacher, those are action words, verbs.

That's where the thing is.

The actus reus is appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate.

Let's take a pause there.

For most of your cities, this city certainly, you have a manager-commissioner form of government.

I don't know Northport's full setup, sorry.

I'm pretty sure you do.

Right.

So you have a manager commission or manager council form of government.

In most cities that have that setup, you have something in your charter or code called a non-interference clause.

And it defines your powers and duties and says, don't get in anybody else's business.

And your business is not, with the exception of a handful of positions, like the city attorney and city clerk and maybe chief of police in some communities.

Most positions you do not appoint.

Appoint happens from the city commission, right?

You appoint to subordinate boards, you appoint a city attorney, city manager, fine.

Outside of those handful of positions, you do not employ, you do not promote, you do not advance.

So for most commissioners, the place they find they run afoul of this is if you advocate for your relative.

Your relative can be involved in a city as long as you don't do any of those verbs.

Now, if they're in your direct line, you cannot appoint the city manager and have it be your son, for example.

And the way that is that language is written, it is written and since 1994 has been amended and understood to mean the entire commission has that conflict.

So we cannot just have you abstain and still do it.

None of us can appoint that person to a role that the that is a relative.

But if, for example, you had, let's say, a cousin or a nephew who is 19 years old, you're trying to get them off their parents' couch, and you're just like, they need a job, they like working with their hands, they need to be public works tech number nine.

They can do that as long as you don't go to the head of public works and be like, hey, I know I've told you how lazy this kid is.

I know they're kind of a disaster, but they just need a chance and they need some responsibility.

Please, please, please.

I need my sister off my back, do this.

That's where you're making a mistake.

If they had just turned in the application and handled it themselves, no problem.

So just a word of caution to you that those verbs are important.

The next part that's important is understanding that that also is a limit on your individual.

You it your actions can create a violation for you and your relative, which also creates a very awkward thanksgiving.

But beyond that, we need to understand the scope of this provision.

Right?

We again, just as we've been tracking, gift, you, unauthorized compensation, you spouse minor child, misuse of public position, himself, herself, or others.

So then we get to restriction on employment of relatives.

The law is, that's just an example, don't worry, I'm not asking you to read that text.

It's just an image.

But the law is reactive.

The law is does not capture every single situation that could exist.

And so, in order to make a restriction on relatives, we have to define your relatives.

And for this purpose, a relative is defined as an individual who is your father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, unclean, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, father-in-law, mother-in-law, son-in-law, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sister-in-law, step-four, step-mother, stepson, stepdaughter, stepbrother, stepsister, half-brother, or half-sister.

It is that is it is the exhaustive list.

Thank you.

I'm Dominican, it's not really that impressive.

My relatives would be embarrassed by how slow that was.

But the uh the the list is there, but it is considered an exhaustive list.

We have a concept in the law, another Latin phrase, I won't try to say it, but I'll just say it means listing some is to the exclusion of everything else.

Paraphrasing.

And so when you have a list in the law, we usually say if it's not on the list, that means we didn't want it there.

So if you look at that list, for example, your grandparent is not your relative under this law.

Now I don't know why that is.

It might be because we didn't expect four generations to be in the workforce or to you for you to be in a position where you could help somebody who is presumed to be senior to you, but for whatever purpose, that's not your relative.

Um the commission on ethics in the last few years has had some very interesting situations come up.

Uh your ex-stepdaughter is not your relative.

What does that mean?

Well, let's say you guys go full Brady Bunch vibes and bring a family together.

You have got a stepdaughter, but then you go and you modernize Brady Bunch to 2026 and you guys get divorced again.

That is that that stepdaughter of yours who has no blood relation to you is no longer your relative.

They are not your ex-stepdaughter.

That's not ex-stepdaughter is not on the list, right?

Your stepmother-in-law, another one that the Commission on Ethics looked at.

Your the stepmother of your spouse is now your stepmother-in-law.

Stepmother-in-law is not on the list.

Um, given all the cliches in the media, stepmother-in-law would make for a wonderful horror character.

Um, but they are not on the list for purposes of the ethics code, right?

Um, so when we have these kinds of restrictions on appointment of relatives, you're gonna need to look at two things.

The first is, are they your relative in the first place?

And then second, can you violate any of those verbs that come up?

It hasn't come up a lot for me, but I did have a situation where there was a community that was looking to replace the clerk.

They got a very, very narrow field, just a handful of candidates.

And about two days before the meeting where they were going to vote on whether or not to appoint any of these candidates, the public works director comes to me and says, hey, I didn't want to say anything and I haven't said anything, but one of those candidates is my stepdaughter.

Said, okay, well, is a stepdaughter on the list?

Yes.

Stepdaughter is on the list right there towards the bottom, second penultimate line, right?

So now let's look at the verbs.

Does the public works director appoint the clerk?

I don't know of a single city that works that way.

Public works director doesn't employ the clerk, doesn't promote the clerk, doesn't advance the clerk.

And so just keep your mouth shut and we should be fine.

And it seems like you've done a pretty good job of that because you're telling me right before the meeting.

Um all of that to say you everything is always a fact-intensive analysis, but it doesn't come up quite as much, especially with Florida's population being as broad as it is, but there's a lot of communities in Florida where you either still have the good old person's club or just hey, we've got, you know, local service is a family business.

And so with public service being a family business, I want to emphasize some of the exceptions.

This doesn't apply to appointments to boards other than those with land planning or zoning responsibilities with municipalities with less than 35,000, pretty sure we're over that threshold here, so we need not concern ourselves with that.

Um mere approval of a budget is not sufficient to constitute jurisdiction or control, which is to say if you are on the commission and you have a relative who is public works tech number seven, approving the budget that includes a cost of living adjustment for everybody is not doesn't trigger this concern for appointing, promoting, advancing.

The limitation is on the public official and the employee.

But one thing I want to be very clear about what I'm not saying, especially in a city as large as this with as many committed public servants as you have, it does not prohibit two relatives from being employed by the same city.

We have that in a lot of places, sometimes even within the same department.

It doesn't apply prevent two relatives from supervising or assigning work to a relative.

You have departments where you know the fire chief's son is on the fire department, right?

Or you have generations of law enforcement officers or any number of departments.

That's okay.

There are situations that may lead to having to navigate it with a really fine-toothed comb.

There was an example in one community where they said, okay, the chief of police has say over who gets promoted to this role in the department.

You've got a relative by definition of this code in the department.

It's not a violation for you to give them standard order operating procedures and all these things.

However, you can't employ, promote, or advance them.

So they are stuck at that level position while you are the chief.

You have stagnated their growth because you can't promote them.

You can still be there, you just can't promote them.

And so you get these sort of fine finer distinctions.

I had a situation where we had a, you know, where it person who you've been living with for 12 years romantically, but we don't like to put labels on it, not in the code.

Right?

That person who's like, you call your auntie but is really just your mom's college friend is not your relative.

And so there are a lot of modern human relationships that the law doesn't capture.

Um that's why they're and again that leads us back to just because someone says you violated it, doesn't mean you violated it.

And they'll come with a situation and say, well, that's like a mother to her.

Everybody knows that that's a violation of the code.

Well, it's not.

It might be a public trust concern, but it's not an ethics violation by itself.

Any questions on anything we've covered so far?

Well, all right.

Don't worry, that the break is ahead.

We're we're getting we're nearing it, I promise.

Um just a few one quick issue, one quick topic, disclosure, use of information, and then one longer topic.

As it relates to trends in ethics law or ethics administration in Florida, I would say you've got two main trends, and both of them should not surprise you based on where we are in the marketplace.

The first is the gifts and unauthorized compensation or misuse of public position.

The most common violation we're seeing, or seeing investigated at least, is purchasing cards, P cards, as they're called in some communities.

Right?

People with purchasing authority using public funds.

Whether it's a doge investigation or just communities looking at how their resources are being used in our current and modern economy, when people are saying, like, hey, every day I go to lunch and I eat what used to be a five dollar sub at Subway, and I look across the street and I see a bunch of people from this department going to P.F.

Chang's, I gotta wonder who's buying them that lunch every Wednesday at P.F.

Chang's.

And I make a public records request, and lo and behold, this department has a standing lunch in the back table, you know, reserved for PF Changs and the city's buy-in.

We're gonna ask, well, what city business is being done, whose decision was that, it leads to those kinds of inquiries.

Um there's that's where a lot of attention is being drawn.

The second is this one, which is disclosure or use of information.

You need look no further than modern trends of gathering and scraping government data to say, oh yes, knowledge is power, access to power is important, access to knowledge and data is important.

And so we have in our ethics code uh restriction 1123138.

This is a current or former public officer, and I just highlight there, you haven't seen that a lot.

Former, it's not enough to be out of office on this provision.

A current or former public officer may not disclose or use information not available to members of the general public but gained by reason of their official position.

Uh, this is twofold.

The insider trading side of local government.

If you have access to knowledge that, let's say there's no documentation or records yet, but you and the city manager have sat in a series of exploratory meetings with some tech mogul who's saying I'm going to bring a giant project to this part of your city that has laid fallow for years.

You're like, oh, I know what I'm doing for Christmas.

I'm buying all my nieces and nephews land in the old abandoned industrial park that nobody's wanted to buy, and you know, in three years, they're cashing in on it, right?

Um course we'll have to prove that attenuation and knowledge and all of those things, but that's the kind of thing that raises that level of scrutiny.

Trading on contracts that you're aware of in the city that the public doesn't otherwise know or have reason to know about.

Um, the other side of this, and the more recent example of this, uh, as commissioners, and we'll talk about this in the final session on public meetings.

Every now and again you're in meetings that are not open to the public.

Shade meetings, executive sessions about litigation.

And sometimes what will happen, if for those of you who are unfamiliar have not had the pleasure of sitting through such an experience, in those kinds of meetings, there's a very limited group of people who's available who's allowed to be there.

It's the commission, their legal counsel, your manager or chief executive, and a court reporter.

Nobody else.

Sheila doesn't even get the pleasure of going to those kinds of meetings, right?

What a joy, right?

So it's a very exclusive list.

It is, but I told you the last person in attendance is a court reporter.

It's a public record later, when the case is settled, closed, and done with, right?

Or not settled, but resolved by judgment, appeals, resolved, done.

Once the case is done, that transcript is a public record.

And there was a recent example with the Commission on Ethics where a member who attended one of those was not pleased with what happened or otherwise felt the public should know.

Well, by law, this is a confidential meeting.

And so they leaked the transcript prematurely to a third party.

And the Commission on Ethics found a violation of that, of the ethics code for that leak.

Now they appealed that, and interestingly, the appellate court said, no, it's not a violation.

Yes, they disclosed information not available to members of the public.

But the language at the back end is again for his or her personal gain or benefit or benefit of any other person or business entity.

So it is as broad as misuse of public position.

And what the appellate court said was on the evidence we've been given, not it doesn't exist, just what we were given, there's no evidence of who benefited.

You're treating disclosure as prima facie evidence of benefit.

You've got to go a little further.

And I suspect if we see more violations like that, that record will be better developed by people making the complaint or the commission on ethics as they make inquiry about such a and investigate such a violation.

But it's enough to show that there is a path there.

And with the talk of draining swamps, holding government accountable and all of that, the use of confidential information, say you guys don't know what they're doing.

You need to know is leading to these kinds of violations.

And in fact, when I've met with some of my commissions of late in executive session, whether it's litigation counsel or city attorney, I will tell them in advance, you are attending this meeting.

Please be advised that disclosing the contents of this meeting that's going to be confidential may subject you to violations of 1123136 for misuse of public position or 112-3138 for disclosure or use of information.

Be mindful, that's out there.

So that is another trend, and a good sort of segue as we're getting closer to the public meetings, public records of it all, because so much is open.

It's very rare for something to be closed, so you should be sensitized.

Like if you're being handed something and told, yes, we are very comfortable that this is confidential information, then you know, treated as such.

More broadly, as it relates to employees, LEOs, that's law enforcement officers, and otherwise, I told you two things can be true.

It is a violation of the law to disclose the identity of minors who are victims of certain crimes and other things like that.

That is the other place where people run a foul this.

I know Joe knows this from his working with the police department in the past.

People accessing databases that are supposed to only be used for a very specific purpose.

You say, yes, I recognize that I'm in the police department and I'm in records, but my baby go boy or girl is about to date this family.

I don't know anything about them.

I'm going to search every database I can.

That's a another that would be an ethics violation and potentially a crime, or at the or at the very least, a personnel violation.

Um so that's how those sort of things align.

Any questions on disclosure or use of information?

No.

Already?

Yes, there is caffeine in that.

Um, our last topic.

Um, when I present to employees, I get to skip this topic for you guys, you just get so much more.

It's one of those bonuses of public service.

Um the last topic, and we alluded to this early on, is voting conflicts.

I think voting conflicts is good to have at the end for two reasons.

It harmonizes a lot of the information we're we're doing.

But also when you think of yourselves and the flow of what you do, you go to you you meet with your constituents, you get out and have lunch with them, you take information, you do all these, you go to meetings, you meet with staff, you get information that might be confidential, and what is it usually culminate in?

A vote, a decision.

And so I think it's appropriate that as we talk about this as our final topic, it's sort of the apex of what all of your public service comes to.

And with that, I want to reiterate what I said before, and bring two things together.

One, only four or five people in your city get to make these decisions.

Two, thank you for being one of those people who are willing to do that.

And I know I've said a lot of cynical and tongue-in-cheek things, I mean that from the bottom of my heart.

This democratic experiment does not work if people do not volunteer their time and give of themselves to sit through meetings like this and do this work.

That said, now that you're here, we need you to do the work.

It's hard work, it's frustrating work, it's often thankless, it's usually paired with an accusation that you're part of a conspiracy or something, and maybe it gets you an ulcer, but thank you.

So, with that, what does the law require?

Now, I've told you this whole time we're talking about chapter 112, chapter 112, chapter 112.

Chapter 112 is the ethical situation, is the ethical statute, but it's paired with and works with our other statutes.

Now, chapter 286 is where we will get into public meetings in sunshine law.

But in chapter 286, it says a member of a municipal government present at a meeting, that's you guys, may not abstain from voting unless there is or appears to be a possible conflict of interest as defined by law, is the bracketed summarized version of that.

So let's break that down for a second.

I know that some of you are just so dedicated to C SPAN.

You watch it all the time.

And you've seen that when they have votes on the floor of the house, a lot of them aren't there, they have their friend press the button, or they just vote present or abstain.

You do not have that luxury.

As it works for local government, you are little brother and little sister.

And the rules are different for little brother and little sister, which is to say, in local government in the state of Florida, you cannot abstain.

You must vote if you are present for the meeting, unless you have a legal conflict.

And we'll talk about what a legal conflict is, but I can very clearly tell you what it is not.

It is not, I feel really uncomfortable about this.

Or, well, I did take her sister to prom back in 93.

Um, or uh my kid is on their little league field, and I don't know, I want them to get playing time.

Those are not legal conflicts.

Those are not reasons to abstain.

Also, you said earlier that we try to subordinate our personal interests as we come to a vote, and I think there are situations, and we'll talk about quasi-judicial hearings and the like where that might be most appropriate.

But the reality is that all of you got to office, whether appointed or elected, because there's something you cared about.

And you told people, I care about this thing, and this is going to be the thing I take care about, you know, and watch as a commissioner.

Whether it's government waste or parks or roads or drainage or stormwater or you know, whatever the thing was, there's something you are passionate about.

I hope.

I hope you have a why for sitting here other than just getting time with me, right?

So if there's a why, it is not by itself a conflict for you to say, I'm very passionate about parks.

In my tenure, we will expand our maintenance and number of parks we have in the city.

And something comes up for votes on a park, they say, oh, Commissioner Mora has to has to abstain.

He's already said he cares about parks.

No, no, no, no, no.

That's not a conflict.

That's a passion and a commitment to follow through on your electoral promises, if you will.

That's not a conflict.

So then what is?

Under chapter 112, it provides that no municipal official shall vote in an official capacity on any measure which would inure to his or her special private gain or loss.

And I know you guys use in your a lot, so you're already with me.

But it can't inure to your special private gain or loss, that of your principal, corporate principal, or relative or business associate.

Now, what does that mean?

Let's break it down by its component parts.

In your to their special private gain or loss.

Really, in yours, just anything that makes your money go up or your money go down.

Right?

It's it's it's the economic benefit issue that we're concerned with there.

Which you know or should know what in your dispecial private gain or loss of your principal, business associate, or relative.

So when we're looking at these, I told you we track the um the scope.

Those are the terms I'm not going to read them to you, except for relative.

Just a moment ago, I told you your relative was this very long paragraph.

Here it's father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, brother, sister, mother-in-law, father-in-law, son-in-law, or daughter-in-law.

I didn't even need to take a big breath.

Right?

It's a different scope.

So your relative for purposes of voting conflicts is not the same as your relative for purposes of appointing, employing, promoting, advancing, advocating.

So you need to track these things.

But let's say you figured out your relationship to the person.

What are we really looking at?

We're looking at the nature of your interest.

How are we determining whether something is a voting conflict?

We need to look at a few things.

One of the things we're going to need to look at is the nature of your interest.

What is your interest?

Is it yours?

Is it that of somebody in your personal sphere?

Are they any of those people we talked about?

There are tests that the Commission on Ethics has given us to determine this.

As I told you on the front end, rising tides lift all ships, and you're a ship in the harbor, right?

You're part of this community.

So everything necessarily affects you in some way.

It's not enough to say you have an interest in it just because you're part of the city.

The Commission on Ethics Guidance on this has said we look to whether or not you have a 1% or more interest in something to determine if you have a voting conflict.

And you come to me and you say, But Randy, my sister-in-law owns a parking lot in the downtown, or my husband or wife owns a parking lot in the downtown.

Do I have a voting conflict?

Well, yes, this is an issue that's voted.

We're voting on parking in downtown, and you've access to that, but we need to know.

What's your relationship to your sister-in-law?

Are you a corporate or principal of that business?

Do you actually have an economic interest or is it just familial?

Right?

That's going to come down to that.

And then what we'll look at is size of the class.

How big is that parking lot relative to the area that we're regulating?

How big is your interest in that parking lot?

The more traditional example we give is let's say you're voting on something that's for some reason, I'm you're voting on a rule or regulation that affects 95 houses, all of similar size, stature, and value, which never happens, but for our purpose it does.

You own one of those houses.

As a lawyer, I can confidently tell you that's a 1% interest.

Um it's more than a 1% interest to have one out of 95.

And so we would say in that situation, you have a voting conflict that prevents you from voting on this because this could in your chair, special private gain or loss, and you have a 1% or more of interest.

Change the hypothetical, now there's 105 houses.

You no longer have a voting voting conflict as defined by law.

But when it comes down to the here be dragons of it all, you can go back to that language and say, wait, wait, wait, wait, Randy, that language was is or appears to be a possible conflict of interest.

And while I trust your lawyer math that one out of 105 is not 1%, you're also telling me all things being equal.

And what if we find out after the fact that it's not?

That's a pretty close call.

I think it appears to be a conflict of interest, and I'm not.

I'm going to disclose that because I'm close to an actual legal conflict.

Right?

That's a situation where you would work with your city attorney's office and determine do I have a potential or possible conflict of interest that warrants abstaining on this.

And then the other test that we have is remote and speculative.

Remote and speculative means if you're playing six degrees of Kevin Bacon with your voting conflict, or six degrees of separation for the more learned among us, with your with your ethics violation, you do not have an ethics violation.

Now there's a reason why I'm passionate about this.

I told you the system only works if you guys do the job.

When I was a wee baby city attorney, and I was covering a meeting for one of my colleagues, he said, Hey, I need you to cover this board.

It's an advisory board, so there's only so much you can screw up.

They gotta have a quorum, they gotta vote, make sure that the clerk's taking minutes.

Go, learn.

Cool.

So I go to the meeting and I go to learn and grow and do all the wonderful things.

Which is to say I sat through most of the meeting doodling and recognizing that I had nothing to do.

Okay, they took the roll, I can shut my brain off.

Uh because I'm not debating and I'm not voting.

I'm just listening as the umpire.

Are they still doing due process and all this stuff?

And then we get to the end, I'm pretty much, you know, that kid at the end of class already packing up my laptop, we're about to take the roll.

I I have a voting conflict.

I remember him saying something about this.

He said they have to vote.

Um, and so I when he told me that I looked up why and I knew what what I had to ask.

So now I have to pause the meeting.

Say, sir, you're saying you have a voting conflict under Florida law, you have to vote if you're here unless you have a legal conflict.

What is your legal conflict?

Well, they were voting on changing like sign code rules pre-the big sign code change.

This is like way back in 2012 or 13.

Um we're we're voting on some sign code change in a in a uh commercial um plaza.

Said, okay, well, I own a I I'm a tenant in a commercial plaza in the city.

Say more.

Like, well, the landlord for this commercial plaza is the landlord for my property.

Sir, do you own a unit in this same plaza?

Oh no, mine's on the other side of town.

So help me to understand, like, let's not be cute about this.

What's the conflict?

Well, you see, if I vote against this, and my lease comes up in a year, and I get more favorable, I get less favorable terms or I'm evicted or not renewed because of this vote, like that's not great.

Alternatively, if I vote in favor of this and somehow my lease turns into better, it could be said that that was because of this vote.

And so, is your lease up for renewal right now?

Oh no, it's not like for three years or something.

It's like, okay, you do not have a legal conflict, sir.

That is a, if your legal analysis starts with it, um, that's a legal term in Florida.

Um, if your analysis starts with it, and you're not, you're likely not on the road to an actual violation.

You're on the route to an uncomfortable situation.

Right?

And I've seen those situations.

I've when one of my cities we worked in, we regularly met with officials as they were leaving their term in office, especially if they announced I'm not gonna run again.

And we'd say, what's working, what's not?

City manager, city attorney, finance director, we would sit with them.

What's working, what's not, why are you leaving, you know, or just what tell us about your time here?

Sort of a debrief exit interview.

And one of them said, you know, they came on as the voice of dissent, and then as they were leaving, we noted they only voted against them the commission two, maybe three times.

It was a 4-1 vote.

And that was only three times.

Well, when they got on the council, we thought they'd be Dr.

No.

Um we asked them about that, and they said, Well, the first time that I voted no, I lost friends.

The second time I voted no, I lost business.

I didn't need there to be a third time.

That's not a voting conflict.

That's the discomfort of public service and maybe the culture of your community, and that's not great by itself.

I think there's really real good merit in having dissenting votes, but it's not a voting conflict.

Um, and that was one of the things people said, like, oh, you have a conflict.

No, I'm just against what you're doing, right?

Um, so if you're going through, if you're getting attenuated conflicts, then you don't have a conflict.

Um, you have a tough situation or something that might warrant attention or working through.

You might have a risk tolerance issue, right?

But it's not by itself a voting conflict.

So one of the things that often comes up, especially in in bigger rooms or rooms where there's more public in attendance for these presentations is well, then how do they vote on their raises as city commissioners?

Every so often it comes up, you know, you guys get paid big bucks to live off the fat of the land as public officials.

How do you vote on that?

Um, whether you get a stipend of a hundred dollars or you get a thousand dollars a month, whatever a community does, there is a provision in the statute that contemplates a commission can vote on the commission's um compensation or an ordinance that would address the commission's compensation, and it's not a conflict.

Um, some communities address that differently or in the charter or code.

What you sometimes see is the curative method is we can vote on it, but it won't apply until the next election cycle's over, so it's presumed some people are no longer voting on their own interest uh or something else, but that's not required by law.

The law specifically makes uh provision for that.

So if we know what a voting conflict is, and we know how to analyze those issues, how do we do this in practice?

How do we navigate these?

Well, I'm gonna pause for a second.

I think some of you have already heard me give this speech, but I just I want to sound a little bit like a youth pastor for a moment.

Navigating voting conflicts requires you to do a radical act at least once a month.

I need all of you to do one radical act.

Do you have it in you?

Sir, do you have it in you to do a radical act?

Okay.

I don't know.

Don't you might not know what you're signing up for.

It's in all caps on the next slide.

You gotta read the agenda before the meeting.

It's crazy, it'll change your life, transform the lives around you.

Just read the agenda before the meeting.

Why do I want you to read the agenda before the meeting?

Because if you read the agenda before the meeting and you conceptualize that you might maybe if and have a conflict, you get to talk to the city attorney before the meeting and work it out.

Why is that important?

It's important for two reasons.

One, the city attorney exists to give you informed legal advice.

If you're asking me on the fly, I'm filling the space with words in hopes that they maybe mean something, right?

And I'm also trying to get information from you, and I don't trust anything you're telling me in this moment.

But more importantly, goes back to the first slide.

Building the public trust.

Let's say you never go to city commission meetings.

You're here tonight because you want to let the city commission know all the waste baskets in the dog park are broken.

Nobody's doing anything about it.

You just showed up on a lark.

And you sit through, and your chance to do that might be towards the end of the meeting.

But halfway through the meeting, you say, Oh, they're voting on something, a land use thing, and the commissioner says, I have a conflict, and the city attorney pauses the meeting, and they go into recess to ask about I have a conflict, that's my brother-in-law's property.

City attorney doesn't know who their brother-in-law is.

Nobody talked about this before the agenda.

This agenda came out like a week ago.

Also, like, you're gonna reset what's happening behind closed doors?

Or differently, you don't do it behind closed doors.

You do what I did in that meeting, and you sort of do a deposition at the dais.

Well, now they're grilling them.

These people do not know each other, do not talk to each other.

I don't have trust that they're gonna be able to take care of my garbage cans if they can't take care of this.

Right?

That was on the agenda.

It's not building the public trust to do that.

And it also puts, frankly, your city attorney in a bad position because they're not giving their best advice, they're doing the best they can, but it may not be their best advice because we're limited, it depends comes down to the facts you tell me.

So I'll give you an example of that.

Two situations.

I did have a situation where my firm analyzed an issue about paid parking in a downtown area, and one of the commissioners, father-in-law, owned a lot, and we had to do all that analysis.

Thankfully, they asked ahead of time.

And we could, when it came time to vote, everybody knew their father-in-law owned this lot.

It's got their last name on it.

So it wasn't really a hard thing to figure out.

So when everybody was like, well, what about that commissioner?

Like, we looked at that.

Here's the analysis.

And we want you to know we went through the full, and here's the here's the things.

You know, I think I can't remember if it was reduced to writing, but it was here's an opinion that sits it out, and I can set it on the record.

Um, another situation, another commissioner, there was a community where the city had a preserve.

The preserve backed up to a church.

Full disclosure, my kids go to that church, my kid goes to that school with the churches, right?

So it backs up to a church.

The church has had, has been there for decades.

And they have scrub land behind the church immediately adjacent to the preserve.

It's got a chain link fence that's deteriorated over decades.

Which is to say a lot of people thought they were the same law.

And they're not.

There's a corner of the preserve that's actually private property and belongs to the church.

At some point, the church determines we don't need that land anymore.

And they offer it to the city, and the city says, well, based on our resources and capital outlay needs, we don't we don't need that preserved land.

Thank you.

We would have loved to, but that's not where our resources need to go based on budget priorities and otherwise.

Well, then they say, okay, so we're gonna sell it, and who's gonna buy it?

Leonard Holmes or KB Holmes or some developer is gonna buy it to put up more, you know, multifamily housing.

And then that church gets picketed by like save the gopher tortoises, don't destroy the environment, don't sell the preserve.

It's not a preservation, everything's preserved, right?

You go through all that.

Well, one of the commissioners is a parishioner at the church.

So the first time that the city gets that vote, they abstain, not because they have an actual conflict, but the appearance of a conflict.

Now, mind you, the money never goes into their pocket.

I've been a member of the Catholic Church for a long time.

The money generally goes one way, right?

I might get services, council, need peace, but I'm not getting checks from the church.

The church's getting checks from me.

So as a parishioner, say I don't want this to be perceived that I had an interest because maybe the church takes this and the money it gets from the sale and puts it into resources that generally benefit my family.

Size of the class, there's more than a hundred parishioners, but fine.

So after all the picketing and everything, the developer to their credit says, I don't want this smoke.

I'm gonna give the city one more chance.

You can buy it and we can put this to bed, but if you don't, at that point we're gonna do what we're gonna do because that's the marketplace.

And the city says, you know what?

We didn't realize how important this gem was to the city based on community feedback, and we've looked at our resources, we will buy that lot at whatever rate.

Well, when it comes up the second time, the same commissioner who abstained based on the appearance of a conflict, said it was an appearance.

It wasn't an actual conflict, only five people get to make the decision.

You get you deserve to have your full commission, not four, all five voting, right?

And so that happened from reading the agenda and discussing with the attorney and saying, here are the contours.

You can vote if you wish to preserve the integrity of it, cool, but also you may recognize that there's a necessity to your vote.

So that all happens from working with the city attorney in advance of a situation coming up.

Um if the attorney determines there's no voting conflict, you may request, I can't say you can compel, but you can ask, are you willing to put that in writing?

Do you have time to put that in writing?

I might say, that's a very simple thing to address.

I teach this stuff, I can say it into a microphone in three minutes and not charge you the time it takes to prep a whole memo.

Um they may say you may ask them to state it on the record.

Usually the way that works is under the um under the ethics code, there are a few things you have to do.

Once you've done the radical act, and you've worked through, you've read the agenda, and you've worked through it with your city attorney, say, yes, I in fact have a conflict.

What you have to do as a matter of law is announce the conflict and its nature, right?

I have a conflict, it's the downtown, my wife owns the lot, I have an interest in it that prohibits me from voting on this.

I'm not voting.

You abstain from voting, so no vote.

When they call down the line and say, Abstain, I disclose the conflict.

And you file the form with the clerk for the bureaucrat super nerds in the room.

I think it's a form 8B.

They're all available on the Commission on Ethics website.

And that form gets filed as part of the minutes.

You're supposed to file the form, by the way, within 15 days.

Um, and then the clerk makes it a part of the minutes when the minutes get done.

Um, and it's documented why that was a four-zero vote, and we have five members.

Um that's what you have to do as a matter of law.

Notice I said you have to abstain from voting.

There is nothing in Florida law that prevents you from discussing the matter.

Um that said, my advice, just some dude, not your city attorney, um, risk tolerance risk management, take a break.

Say I have a conflict, and for purposes of this hearing, I'm gonna go into the hallway until it's done.

They can come get me when they're done.

So rarely do you get a break in this job.

Take one.

Say, I'm gonna walk out of the room.

And here's why I I recommend, not a requirement, why I recommend you do so.

I recommend you do so because one of two things are likely to happen.

One, you can't help yourself.

I'm going to abstain from voting.

However, I'm either going to explicitly say we should be voting in favor of this thing that I have a conflict on, or maybe you're a little more reserved.

You just wait until you know your commissioner next to you starts talking, you go, Skype.

We know how you're voting.

And maybe depending on your social cash cachet or capital, social capital on the council, that might mean something in your community.

It's enough that we realize, oh, he doesn't trust their advice or doesn't respect their position, we should probably go here.

We should probably go here.

Again, not a law violation, but as far as the public trust goes, like you tell me you can't vote, but then he told he he gave a 30-minute speech with demonstratives and everything.

What are you talking about?

Right?

So the spirit of the law, if not the letter.

And the public trust.

The other reason is the things you can't control.

So let's say Commissioner uh Mayor Trice is as has abstained.

The clerk goes down the line calling the role.

Commissioner Batty.

Yes.

Commissioner Vice Mayor Oliver.

Yes.

Mayor Triss.

No, I'm abstaining.

Commissioner Koch, uh, no.

But did you see it?

You have to be watching.

I can play back the video.

It's like a Zapruder film.

You watch it.

Yes.

Yes.

They already told us they're going to abstain.

But they pointed next to themselves, said, no, I'm going to abstain.

And the next person who they pointed to said no.

The fix was in the whole time.

Right?

They knew what they, you know, they were instructing the votes.

Now, again, that goes back to the risk risk tolerance risk management.

I'm not saying make your decisions based on what somebody on social media is going to say.

But if you don't wish to be part of that discourse, or as uh as as Taylor very famously said, I wish to be removed from the narrative, right?

Um, that's Taylor Swift for those of you who think that there's gonna be another Taylor.

Um leave the room and you're never part of that moment, right?

You're never part of that moment, that moment doesn't happen.

And then you preserve the public trust.

Now, um that said, I'm a father, I'm a husband.

Some of you may have heard this before, but I'm a father.

I'm a husband, I'm an attorney.

Which is to say, I give advice for a living, and it's regularly ignored.

Okay.

That's advice I've given.

I think I've seen it done twice.

Um, do with it what you will.

As it relates to all these ethics things, it's risk tolerance, it's your personal decision on what you're going to do and how you're going to navigate these issues.

So some closing thoughts on ethics.

Um things to ask yourself.

Are you acting in the interest of the public?

The public trust, right?

Is the situation one in which an observer might think I'm tempted to do something dishonorable?

Now, no point have I said the calculus is based on honorable and dishonorable.

Those are very subjective things.

But unless you're like a complete sociopath, it might lead you towards a path of concerns.

Um is there a potential conflict between two competing demands?

Which one is my private interest?

What is the public interest?

Do those align.

And what will this look like as a headline?

Again, I told you that is not the be all end all of an ethics analysis, but you'd be you'd be foolish to never consider it.

Because the reality is, even if I tell you eight days out of seven, you win this.

It is not a violation.

The accusation or the initiation of the complaint is front page or now I would say text alert news.

Right?

And the thing that says, oh, never mind, that's not a thing, there was no probable cause.

That is three hyperlinks or you know, across 7B, 8C, you gotta go to three different sections of the paper to read it, right?

Um and you only get there through a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of angst, and it, you know, you have to ask yourself, is it worth it to just prove the point that you were technically right, right?

Or legally right.

Um the perhaps the most important slide in this and and the other presentations, um, before I get well, before I get there, any questions on voting conflicts or any of the other topics we've covered at this point.

I guess like, dude, just let me go.

All right.

So the most important slide is in the end, ask your city attorney.

Um, you are not navigating this alone.

Ask your city attorney's office.

You've got a great team, a collaborative team, and even if they don't know the answer, I know that they pursue and find the resources to get you guys the answer.

So you're not navigating your this yourself, and as as smart as you might feel at the end of this two hours, I promise you you're not equipped to solve all of these questions by yourself right now.

Um so work with people whose job it is day in and day out to navigate those as you do it.

So with that, thank you very much.

It is, I'll call it 1055, it's 1057.

Um we'll get back here in 10 minutes if that works for you guys.

Uh, take a little break, and then on the back end we'll do records and meetings.

All right.

Okay.

Thanks so much, folks.

Thank you.

The back of my giant bald head, wonderful, huh?

So with that, folks, um, we've covered ethics in the first half.

We're now transitioning to the second half, is going to be public records and public meetings.

Now, for those of you who are familiar with superheroes, the DC comics, the Marvel Comics movies that are all the rage, I would submit to you that the a lot of the most compelling movies in those franchises have to do with the origin story of the superhero and where they come from.

And I can tell you very confidently that my superhero is far cooler than any of the ones you folks might be into, and their origin story is way better.

My favorite superhero is the inimitable Florida man.

Florida man does incredible things like throw an alligator through a drive-thru window, or very recently gets into a gunfight over how many eggs a chicken can lay in a day, real story.

Um Florida man exists, and you get all the articles and and and links from your relatives and friends in life about all the crazy things that happened in Florida, and their origin story is not a spider bite or something else, though I'm sure that's also the case in Florida, but it's it's chapter 119.

It's Florida's public records law is the origin story for Florida man.

Florida's public records law is very, very broad, broader than most in the country in terms of its reach, breadth, and how immediate uh data becomes available.

And I can give you a real-world example of that.

When you take a few years back, back in 2016, uh, there was a serial bomber in Austin, Texas, right around the time of South by Southwest, which is their one of their biggest economic and cultural events in that community.

And it became a real concern.

And the police force identified a suspect and that they fled, and as bombers are wont to do, um, blew themselves up while in pursuit.

And afterwards, um the city the the investigating officers identified their residents, went through everything, and they held they held a press conference.

And the press conference held by the sheriff in the community, um, you know, after after a nearly a month-long search, said, you know, it went something like this.

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm here um on behalf of law enforcement of our community.

We've done our investigation, and our our targeted suspect has neutralized himself.

They're no longer a threat to the community.

We are confident they were acting alone, and there's no ongoing threat to the safety of our community.

You've noticed um that I've said the suspect, I will not be saying their name as their name has no redeeming value.

Um it's the names of the victims that are important here.

In conducting our investigation, we've identified their location, and we found a video manifesto.

As long as I am the sheriff of this community, that video manifesto will not see the light of day.

It has no value in civilized society and will not be seen.

And they continue to answer questions.

Now, cut to a version of that same press conference.

The sheriff is up there.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have identified um a suspect, they've neutralized themselves.

We believe there's no continuing threat to the community.

Late breaking news, we have the official video manifesto of the it's different.

Florida is different that way.

And yes, there's exemptions for active and criminal investigations and the like.

But we've seen those sorts of situations.

Like, how did that happen?

And what's interesting is Florida's public records law is so broad and so much at the forefront that it becomes a part of almost every major news event, even if you don't realize it.

Right?

When we had the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas and Parkland shootings, one of the main disputes that came out of that beyond the dissection of where was people and what happened was that school has video cameras.

That's a public school.

Media and investigators want those records as public records, not as part of subpoenaed records.

So, okay, well, do we really want videos of you know mass casualty events involving minors to be public record?

And so we've addressed the public records law.

Very famously in the state of Florida, we have the Daytona Speedway.

Dale Earnhardt, um, who many may remember as a very famous race car driver, met his end at the Daytona Speedway in a in a in a in a in a vehicle collision.

And the medical examiner was a public official who took photographs as part of the autopsy.

Somebody made a public records request for the autopsy photos.

And we're like, oh, we didn't think that would happen.

And the law changes.

Which is to say, and even in my one of my communities, a coastal community, where Helene and Milton came through, washed away much of City Hall down to the studs, and the manager says, We've got so much to do, what should I be worried about?

And I said, You've got a lot of things to be worried about, but you just told me that up to four feet in City Hall had water in it.

I need you to make sure that before people go and clear everything out to the studs that the clerk gets to tell them what room certain documents were in, and we need to keep a schedule of what was destroyed by the storm.

And that's so it's not the biggest thing.

I told them some other things, but is one of the things that we need to be concerned with.

And so why is that?

Well, I can already see by some faces that you might be feeling, why am I sitting through this?

That's a really cool speech, Randy, but I'm not Shayla, I'm not the clerk or the reporter.

I don't know why are you telling me this?

And I would I'd submit to you it's a few reasons.

Florida's public records law is what I call the Costco hot dog of the public trust.

Um it is the low expense, very accessible way that we tell people you're going to be able to get what you need from us, and we're going to be transparent about how we conduct things.

And also, incidentally, it is not going to be where you make money in your city.

Um, and we'll talk about that.

But I'm also telling you this part of the public trust, because I want you to hear that, and hopefully by the end of this conceptualize, that public records requests and productions are a service we provide as part of Florida's constitution, but they're a service we provide, like keeping the lights on and streets clean.

And if you transition your view for some this is a way for people to attack me to this is a service we provide, it gets a lot easier to do, right?

It gets a lot easier to do.

You take the why out of it.

It's it's just what we're here to do.

Um so with that, let's talk about where we're how do we get here?

Well, I told you, we'll start in the same place we start every time.

Florida Constitution.

It provides that every person has the right to inspect or copy any public record made by this city or your city, sir.

And so every person has the right.

That is a constitutional right.

And notice that very important legal term I taught you in the last session, if in is not there.

It's an uncon it's an unconditional constitutional right.

Every person has that right.

And by the way, again, every person, not every resident of your community, not every registered voter, not every Floridian, every person.

Your city clerk's office, which just plugged to this city clerks, do a lot more than be receptionist and type meeting meeting minutes, and they get records requests from people who you think would have no interest in anything going on in your city.

Why are they getting a records request from Minnesota?

It happens all the time.

It happens all the time.

In fact, one of the most common records requests we see is what I call middlemen in the marketplace.

So, for example, in the state of Florida and nationally, there's this vendor out there called Municode.

Municode allows cities to centralize and post their codes and ordinances.

And they also have a subscription plan that says you can search across all ordinances.

Well, let's say I build pools.

I say, you know what?

I am the Southeast Florida's biggest pool distributor.

And rather than pay Municode to search a bunch of things that you don't need, you can pay me, and I have collected all the codes regarding pools in Florida, Georgia, and Alabama.

Pay me a fee.

Well, all you're doing is paying them to access something you can get for free.

But it's a lot easier for you to get it all in one place than have to make a request or go link by link, what is Sarasota say, what is Longbook Key say, what is Soptoppy say?

You get it all in one place, right?

And so a lot of public records requests are just that.

Um and an emerging trend we're seeing in terms of public records requests, uh not emerging trend, I think we're here now.

Um, your body worn cameras of your law enforcement officials.

Anyone here have a Netflix subscription?

There's a documentary on there that was very, very popular for a little while on there called uh the good neighbor, or something like that.

It is made entirely of body-worn camera from a police department in the state of Florida.

There's no interviews, there's no nothing.

It's just body worn camera from law enforcement officials.

You get that as a public record, and maybe they need to get some commercial waivers, I don't know for the purpose they're using it for, and then they say, hey, these are public records, publicly available information, we've edited and made a narrative for you.

And here you go, and we've monetized it now.

And there's one from Florida, there's one from Arizona, and I can tell you that's going to be, if you're a butting filmmaker, it's a low-cost way to get to film, right?

And so that's a way that we're seeing our public records.

Every person has the right to do this without condition.

And so our correlating statutory obligation from chapter 11 says providing access to public records is a duty of each agency.

And spoiler alert, as you go through chapter 119, you individually are an agency, as defined by law, not just your city.

And so when I say, Why are you here?

There's the altruism of it.

I want you to change how you think about it, but also this law applies to you, and depending on what information data records you create and where you keep them, you might have some of these responsibilities.

It goes beyond your clerk's office.

So because this is a constitutional right, there are a few things you cannot do.

You and your city cannot require somebody to identify themselves to make a public records request.

Anonymous public records requests come in all the time.

They usually come from concerned citizen at a domain you didn't know still existed, like Hotmail or Lycos or that.

But they still have them, right?

So you get concerned citizen at or I'm just asking questions at.

So you cannot mandate that they give you their identity.

You can't mandate that they give you their motive.

You can have it, just put ten toes in the sand and say with your whole chest, why do you want this?

Why do you need this?

You cannot do that.

You cannot make it a condition.

We do not have flat fees, our public records requests.

I told you are the Costco hot dog, they are not the Miami Nightclub.

There's no flat cover charge to get in.

Um you can't say it's $50 before I get started, absent certain other circumstances we'll talk about.

But it can't be a flat fee regardless of the nature of the request.

I just want to see that piece of paper right there.

I'm sorry, it's $50 before I move my hand.

You can't do that.

Um, you cannot require a single medium for public records requests.

A lot of communities have started to invest in different software or platforms like just FOIA, OpenGov, Acela, Insert Vendor here, that's not an endorsement, those are just some.

Um what you can do is certainly those are great because they facilitate access, they help people track the progress, they help your clerks out of us keep track of everything, and then if we have to reproduce it, we've got the official previous record right there, so it's great.

But there's already guidance saying you cannot tell them that they have to make their request through that system.

And if you're using it to track all your metrics, you can encourage them to use that, or you can put it in yourself if they refuse.

I recently made a public records request of a city down in South Florida in Dade County.

And I made it because their website said if to make a public records request, email this address or use.

It's like, yeah, I don't want to create a username, I'm just gonna email.

And I emailed, and they responded back and acknowledged, and we'll talk about all that.

But then I got at the last line.

We have populated this in our system.

If you wish to, we encourage you to log into this, and you can always track where it's at and what's produced.

And in the future, once you've done that, you can make all your requests through there, and it'll collect them in one place for you.

And so they didn't tell me I had to, but they tried to sell me on the benefits of doing it, but they didn't make it a condition.

If I call your clerk's office and say, I'm looking for resolution, I did this to one of you on the team just a few days ago.

I'm calling and looking for this resolution that was adopted two years ago.

Now I fully recognize I could go find the agendas and minutes, I ain't got time.

Can you just send me the resolution?

They can't say, oh, sorry, Randy, that's a public records request.

You're gonna have to email my supervisor, we're gonna have a team meeting.

No.

Okay, I understand what you're needing.

Really wish you would have just emailed me, but fine.

Right?

So that's how that can work.

Um you cannot make conditions.

Now, I am not saying that an employee or personnel facilitating a records request can't be a human person who asks questions.

That is to say, sometimes people walk right off the street into a city clerk's office, say, I'm looking for this, and you say, I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name.

That's a normal reaction.

I'm just trying to connect with you.

If you say my name's not important, okay, box checked, antenna up, they don't want to identify themselves, I'm not gonna make them.

I walk in off the street and say, I want this records request.

Okay, can I have the email address you want me to send this to?

Oh, I'm not giving you that.

I'll just come back in a week.

Okay, might not be ready then, but I can't tell you this is the one true way that you will receive this.

So just understanding how this works in a broad sense.

So that is an unconditional right.

Now, if we know what the right is, we need to know what the right extends to.

And very broadly, a public record is defined in Florida statute as all documents, and I'm paraphrasing, regardless of physical form, made or received in connection with the transaction of official business.

Which is a lot of words to say, the only way to know if something is a public record is to look at it.

It depends on the nature of the record.

It doesn't matter what medium it's in, it doesn't matter what device it's on, doesn't matter if it's electronic or hard copy.

What matters is if it is made pursuant to law or ordinance or in connection with the transaction of official business.

So what if the common law or the courts said about this?

Well, the takeaway, the three-part takeaway for public records, is perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge of some type.

If the record perpetuates, communicates, or formalizes knowledge of some type about the public business, it's a public record.

So what I mean by that is it's not just documents.

I think we're all very comfortable saying a memo from the city attorney's office is a public record.

The minutes are a public record.

The recording of this wonderful, exciting session, public record.

I've been in a situation where someone says, hey, we had this situation, and there was something in a police report that talked about a shiny silver object, and it says it was collected in evidence.

I want to make a public records request for the silver object to inspect it.

That's a well, that silver object is documented in the police report, it formalizes the officer's knowledge.

That's a public records request.

So I went into a room that was much smaller than this table and stood with somebody, two other lawyers who picked up a little evidence baggy, snapped a picture on their phone, walked out the room.

Public records request fulfilled.

So a public record may not does not necessarily need to be ones and zeros or letters on a page.

The public records act is to be construed liberally in favor of openness.

It is not limited to paper documents.

And it it when in doubt, it is generally resolved in favor of disclosing the documents at issue or the records at issue.

Any questions on the definition of a public record or the or the baseline duty?

I'm looking at you, Kathy.

I know you got something.

Come on.

Yeah.

I do.

Go for it.

So I'm thinking with increased transparency, it might lead to increased public trust.

And these days, a lot of communities are using dashboards, even live dashboards, to convey numbers and what's happening to the public.

And so what if you're doing that and somebody makes a public records request for something that's readily available on your website?

Are you allowed to redirect them to the website or respond with a link and say, here's the information you requested, just click on this link and you'll get it.

Or do you actually have to send them all the information?

Excellent question.

And I think there's a few parts to it.

The short answer is this is about the public trust, as you said, and ultimately public service.

I would say that the guidance on this is a little bit like we are asked to be employees of publics.

What I mean by that is when you go to Publix and you're in aisle 12 looking at chips, and you see somebody and you're like, ah, where's the salsa?

They don't say it's in aisle 7.

Oh, sir, I'll show you right now, and they walk you right over to it, right?

Kudos to Publix, you're crushing it on that way to go.

Um that said, the same is true for our city.

You can tell them, hey, it's available here, but you cannot absolve yourself of the responsibility saying it's on our city website, get a brain in some time and find it.

Right?

No, you can't do that.

You can say we have a dashboard, and that will allow you to track this in real time.

Here's the link.

That said, you have asked for this.

If we have it, here it is.

Which is the next part that I was going to say, which is we do not have to create records that do not exist.

So, in the same way that we have dashboards, I've seen this in a lot of communities.

Well, you have this dashboard, you could easily synthesize it in this chart.

Here's this chart.

I have a chart here that has all your employees' names on it.

I want their date of hire, the department they're in, their current title, their annual salary, and the name of who they had their first kiss with and who their favorite Ninja Turtle was.

Go.

The appropriate, totally legal response to that is there are no records responsive to this request.

We do not have this chart.

Now, we do not make this chart.

Now, if you wish, we are not saying we don't know who our employees are or what they make or what department they're in.

We have org charts, we have personnel records, we have a budget, our budget's on the website by law, all those things, right?

We have records we can give you that will help you make parts of this chart.

I don't know how weird your city is if you're surveying people about their first kiss and their Ninja Turtles, but we could say, hey, about most of this chart, we have records that you can do and make any chart you want to your heart's content, but we're not making that chart.

So we don't have that obligation to create the record, and the same is true of the dashboards.

There's a lot of times I've again, a lot of my experiences working in smaller uh coastal communities.

And people will say it's 2026, everything's a database, everything's a thing.

So I want the report on all code enforcement violations on these three streets in the last four years.

Give me the give me the table.

And you're like, we don't have that.

Well, query your database.

Our database is Carl and his filing cabinet.

So we're gonna have to go through every drawer and see and find out which violations, like we don't have something that just searches that, even if you think we should.

Um so that's just we don't have to create records that don't exist.

And I know that's a long-winded answer, but it addresses different aspects of your question.

And what about sending the link?

Here's the link to that information.

Also a great question.

We produce records in the format they exist.

So that is to say, let's say it only exists as a link.

It's only on our website.

I say, no, no, no, I want a hard copy bound for some reason, right?

Somebody says, I like tangible stuff.

We might charge you for printing that because we don't maintain it that way.

Right?

We don't maintain it as a bound book.

So yes, it is enough to provide the link.

But if somebody says, I want it on a CD drive, I want it on laser disc.

Okay, we're gonna we might be able to do that, but we're gonna charge you.

We don't have to write on a laser disc, buy the equipment, find somebody who even knows how to work those things anymore.

Like we're gonna have to, it's gonna cost us money.

And we may recover that money.

But we do not have to create it in a medium that we don't exist at our own cost.

Gotcha.

Thank you.

Yep.

Um I have one.

It it's okay.

SPD is doing something now where it is requesting private citizens who have ring cameras.

If SPD finds that there has been an incident and they're trying to catch the perpetrator, will approach the residents with those ring cameras in that location and say, hey, could we have access to your video so we can try to track down this perpetrator?

Does that ring camera video then be that is that SPD is given access to, does that then become public record?

Short answer, yes.

Um that's a very easy one.

It is perpetuating communicating and formalizing the knowledge of the department as it investigated, even if it's not showing the perpetrator and it just shows a really cute bunny hopping by at 1 a.m.

that's still video that we have that shows our investigative file.

In fact, I often tell communities when we get newer elected officials, they say, you know, the one thing we're missing is community engagement.

We need to start a newsletter.

My hope, my HOA has one, my my women's league of voters has one.

We need a new, we need a newsletter that really reaches people.

And so NSA, well, very quickly, just to any member of the public who, you know, a few of you have already expressed you really like that, just want you to know the only way we're gonna send you a newsletter is if you give us your email address or mailing address.

When you do, that's a public record.

And when you're surprised that middlemen in the marketplace have your app your your contact info, understand it's coming from public record.

Now they could get it from the property preacher website and any other number of places, but depending on what you don't put in those systems and you are putting in ours.

Yeah, all the time.

When you're giving us data, and we have this often where someone will contact the city and say, here's my email, I have a complaint or concern about this.

Please keep this anonymous.

Signed very truly yours, Randy at 123 GOAT Boulevard.

And you're like, well, that's this is by itself a public record, right?

Um, yes, that's a very, very easy one.

Randy, if you wouldn't mind if I could follow up.

Okay, because I was gonna probably ask that follow-up question.

Also, I don't know if that was a trap to something else.

You're actually trapped now.

So I think that that bears a little bit more of a technical uh look into the actual agreement because I'm not 100% certain we retain the video and it's actually a usage agreement between ring and the PD, that we don't hold that data.

It's not captured, so it can be requested.

I think the mayor's question is more along the lines of if that agreement exists, and uh, Randy at 123 hopping bunny lane has that agreement.

Can I ask, hey, I want to dial into Randy's ring camera.

So, yeah, and so here's here's the it depends of it all.

And I don't want to have uh an operational debate because remember I'm your tour guided 30,000 feet.

Too late.

What I what I will say is there's a difference between vendor agreements, retention, and and third-party agreements, versus I, the citizen have surrendered this to you.

In the same way when a citizen comes in and does a presentation and they say, I've taken a bunch of pictures of all the flooding on my street, give us those pictures, those are now part of the public record.

Um and so to me, um that's you know, there's an operational difference versus if we have the ability to log in and accent.

And also, the attendant question that usually comes with this sort of thing and gets to a concern you guys have is you say, Well, Randy, you're saying that my text messages can be public records.

Absolutely.

But that does not mean your phone is a public record subject to inspection by anybody at any time, right?

So it's limited to that scope.

Uh so in the same way, like if you give me one video from one Sunday, you just volunteer, forget the city even approaching them.

Here, I might have something that helps you.

Here's the video from Sunday afternoon.

That doesn't mean that now your ring camera is officially part of the city's network and everything on it is a public record.

So sometimes the concern.

I think we fall back to uh Randy's original slide was uh ask the questions of your city attorney.

For sure.

And we can get into the weeds on that because I think again, I've been asked the same question, and I've had that conversation with the PD, and and basically it is an a and I I don't want to get into the weeds on the whole thing because I don't have the plan right in front of me.

But I think that that's been the concern is if that there is an agreement that you know anybody can just dial right into Randy's ring camera.

Well, no, I was more thinking the specific of SPD wants a 10-minute segment from that camera, which has been turned over to SPD.

I would think Oh, it would be public record at that point.

If it was turned over as evidence, it absolutely to Randy's point.

The people that have talked to me are like, well, that they can like watch me coming and going from my house point.

Well, I mean, uh but see, then actually it's you can watch people coming and going from the house across the street and the house across the street did not sign any kind of an agreement.

But the other question is I'm under the impression that with the body worn cameras, there's some stuff that's redacted, like I I think I think.

We're getting we're getting we're getting a little more granular, but they're all proper questions and and and really meaningful questions that are worth engaging with.

Here's what I'll tell you.

I I just had an occasion to present on this recently.

And when I say I've been a big dork for a long time, I really mean it to my core.

I'm very nerdy.

I remember the moment in law school where I'm like, oh, I'm gonna enjoy this.

We were learning about criminal law and civil law, and they said, you you know, often the law is archaic, but its application is modern, right?

And so in the early 90s, when the internet became a thing, one of the things that was very common to do was what we call DDOS attacks to flood somebody's server with data to make the server fail.

And they said, well, how do we use the law to address this?

This never contemplated a flood of ones and zeros.

And the way that early on that they addressed that before it was a crime, was they sued people for trespass.

Said you're putting st your property on my property without my permission.

And it's the same thing as letting your goat war roam into my pasture back in ye marry old England.

And this is the same concept.

And so when it comes to new technologies, I've already given the example of body worn cameras, and yes, there are statutory exemptions of you know blurring out the interior of a residence and the vision and the faces of minors and other things like that.

So, yes, there are exemptions, and I'll I'll touch on that in a moment.

But the same is true, you know.

Um I've looked at Commissioner Batty a few times, stylish glasses, very, very, very fashionable, and I don't mean to pick you out.

I was going to ask you separately.

Are those metaglasses?

Yes, sir.

Okay, so they're metaglasses.

And I will often I'm in a room where it's a little bigger, I might ask, is anybody in here wearing metaglasses?

Are they recording?

Please be advised, you may be creating your own public record about this presentation.

If you're and I'm gonna ask you if you are, I don't care.

But if you were, understand that that recording that backs up to whatever server you have may be creating a a separate public record of this exchange, right?

Um and so that's one of those, you know, all the all the things with technology are current, the new hotness that everybody's talking about and is very hard to pin down about AI.

If you're using AI to write your community speeches, those prompts may be public records.

Every time you modify it and say, hey, that's really good, but make it a little funnier.

Make it a little shorter, I only have three minutes.

All of that may be a public record, a draft.

Which again is a wonderful segue.

Yes, sir.

Just photo record, I'm not recording.

Okay, I wasn't trying to put you on blast men.

I was just but uh, you know, it all the technology goes that way.

And so when you talk about that, for example, the the the AI prompt, and I don't mean to speak over you, Mayor.

I just want to get this one one thing out, is drafts and notes, very different from the private sector, can be public records.

You know, and in in the private sector, you say, well, the Board of Trustees met on Tuesday, they're not meeting until next week to finalize and approve the minutes, so no minutes exist yet.

In the public for forum, the draft is a public record.

You folks recently um, you know, in any number of times you you negotiate employment agreements for people and positions.

I had a situation in community where somebody where the city manager left with a separation agreement.

First first thing that happened, the meeting after it happened, I would like a copy of all exchange drafts and communications concerning that agreement, you know, as between the manager and the city attorney's office.

It's all public record.

Now, where that becomes a little different for you folks sitting at a meeting, I told you earlier that I've gone to many a meeting and I had one meeting where somebody said, Randy, you were like locked in.

You were taking notes, like you were in the zone.

I said, No, that was Mickey Mouse.

I was not listening at all, right?

But those notes you take can be a public record.

And it really comes down to we have to look at it and its nature and its substance.

Right?

Does it perpetuate, communicate, or formalize knowledge of the body?

If you're drawing poor renderings of, let's say, non-protected IP just on some random thing, right?

That's fine.

Um, but if you have on there, for example, um, oh, we're gonna talk about pickleball.

And I've done research on there's a partnership between the city of Austin and this pickleball complex and in Anaheim, they've banned pickleball.

And in Kansas City, Missouri, they've done this other thing where they've created pickleball hubs.

I'm making this stuff up.

Don't go researching that.

But you do all that to say to get ready for a meeting where you're gonna regulate pickleball.

Well, those notes, even if you're not sharing them with anybody, very much public record.

It's your fact-finding informing the way you make policy, especially if you get to the dais and say, I think we should do the Anaheim model, and I've got some facts about it.

Right?

Well, where did you get that?

Where's that information?

You made your personal notes, maybe making public records in that same in the same way as your personal recording or anything else.

Yes, Mayor.

Well, I I was just gonna go back to the body worn cameras.

If we have regulations that protect or some of that information, shield some of that information, should we consider doing a similar kind of thing if we are accessing citizens' ring camera videos to somehow legislate?

No.

No.

It's a great question.

No, and I'll tell you why.

Access to public records is a constitutional right, right?

And so and and it's a statutory duty we have.

And the only way that something is not a public record is if by statute it says so, right?

So unless we are further documenting that which is already the law, we cannot create exemptions and protections that do not exist.

Um so I've been in litigation on the litigation side where you enter into a settlement agreement and somebody say, We're willing to do all this, but it's got to be confidential.

Buddy, you sued a city.

That's over.

This settlement is going to be a public record no matter what we try, no matter what I want to do about it.

I have no say on the matter, right?

And so you would not, as a city, be able to unilaterally carve out and create um, you know, the the nuances and and borders of that kind of policy.

You would all you would really be doing is articulating that which is already the law.

Um so I would not encourage you to be the community that tries to figure that out.

And and you know, just candidly that.

Thank you.

So, with that, again, when you look at judicial interpretations, the reach of the act is to those records related to the employee or officials' public responsibilities.

The purpose of the law is to ensure that citizens may review government actions, and it would be defeated if we could shield disclosure of public records by conducting business on a private device.

So, what does that mean in practice?

What I'm trying to tell you there is the device medium or server does not matter.

Um, sometimes, especially when I'm teaching to a room much bigger and you've got a lot more newer officials, they say, Oh, Randy, but I've got that's on my phone.

That's on this phone, not that phone.

The city gives me a phone, I have my phone, and the text messages on this one don't count.

Oh, they count.

Right?

I I very famously have said in more than one room, I am a mama's boy of the highest order.

I leave meetings, I call mom.

Um, for those of you who don't do better, or I'm sorry on the loss of your parents, or I'm sorry you didn't have the relationship, I did, it's awesome.

Um she thinks I'm a prince, it's great.

So, which is to say, I call my mom all the time.

And if I call my mother, and at the end of our call, which has happened, I say, Mom, you know how you sacrificed so I could go to private school, encourage me to get a college education, pushed me through law school, and saw me make the career journeys I made, I spent three hours talking about drainage and pickleball.

Is that what you wanted, mom?

Um, and so I we we have that's a real conversation we've had.

Um, and at the end of it, if hours later my mom texts me and says, Randall, in this situation I'd be Randall, Randall, it pains me to hear when you're stressed.

I hope you find peace, I hope you find a way forward, good luck to you.

That's my mom being my mom, supporting me, great.

If conversely, she chooses to be what we call in our family aggressively helpful, not controlling, and she texts me and says, Randall, when you can't sleep, I can't sleep.

I stayed up all night and I found this example from the city of Austin and this example from the city of Anaheim and the Kansas City model, and I think these might be resources for you to find a path forward in your community.

That's absolutely a public record.

It doesn't matter that it's with my mom, it doesn't matter that it's on my pub private device.

And if I go to my city manager and I say, hey, I found the solution.

Wow, that's great.

Where'd you get that?

Never mind where I got that, right?

Like it's informing policy making and the legal advice and my decision making as an official.

It's the reach of the act as records related to my public responsibilities.

And so it doesn't matter that it's with your mother or family member.

It's what matters is the substance of the message, the nature of the message itself.

There are some things that don't tell you anything.

Um, and they're not consequently arguably public records, depending on what the thing is.

I'm not gonna parse all of those.

But they're a text message very clearly does.

And I've had public officials get a request for all their text messages for the last 60 days that are public records, not with any person, not about any topic.

And that requires somebody to go through all their text messages for whatever that period of time is and determine is this message with the mayor a public record?

And you would think, oh, well, very obviously if it's with the city attorney, it's a public record, for example, right?

Well, maybe not.

You say, hey, do you have the memo on the conflicts thing?

Did you did Randy send you the slides?

Easily a public record.

Um I'm not gonna be at the meeting, but I really want to talk to you about the development in the downtown.

Easily a public record.

City attorney, I I heard that you had a loss in your family.

I'm really sorry you're going through that.

I hope you find peace and solace and know that the the memories you had with them are very valuable, and that's what you should cherish going forward.

That's not a public record.

That's you being a decent person.

Next message, that's why I'm stealing your parking spot tonight.

Maybe a public record, right?

At the meeting tonight.

Right?

And so, like, you have to look at each message.

The person doesn't define it, the substance of the record does.

That whole mens rea thing when we were talking about the gift, and you have to look at the intent.

The same is true of the of the record.

You have to look at what it says and does to know if it is or is not a public record.

And the important part of this is the public records law defines a few things.

It's an agency, that's you guys.

It's the public entity and it's officers, contractors, employees, it can be an agency.

Another distinction the public records law makes is it has the custodian of records.

That's usually your city clerk or the various clerks you might have.

Right?

Sometimes police departments have their own clerk, building departments have their own clerk, but your clerks are usually a custodian of records for the city and department.

But the law also says every person who has custody, not just the custodian, but if you have custody, that whole nine tenths of the law is possession, if you got it, you got the responsibility.

Right?

So every person who has custody shall permit at a reasonable time, under reasonable conditions, for any record to be inspected or copied.

Right?

So it's up to you.

If you have the record, if you keep, I had I had a commissioner who went full doogie houser vibes.

At the end of each day, it was dear diary.

Today on my journey of public service, I met with the county commissioner, I met with the sheriff, and we talked about targeted patrols.

It's like that's potentially that's not just like I'm learning and growing, that's documenting what you did in service, and I had to tell you, hey, that's great that you do that.

I just want you to know that might be a public record depending on its content or individual entries might be a public record.

And if you're the only person who has it, if you are, you know, Commissioner Moras, and you, Commissioner Moore has a Facebook page, and I use that page in a way that says that this is my official commission page where you can find me and reach me.

Come to our meeting tonight, we're looking for your voices, I need your input on this and that.

I'm using it to engage with the public.

And the only person who has access to that Facebook page is me and my 17-year-old like nephew or niece who knows how to log in and when I lose the account, then I have custody of the record.

That's not the clerk's office role, unless I give them access.

So when it comes to records on your own devices, a few cautions.

One, no better do better.

Two, if you are in the here be dragons of it all, that you say, I don't want any of that, some commissioners say, here are my accounts, here's my logins, I don't care, go in, do whatever you need whenever you need it, just don't bother me about it.

And just don't log in unless it's in response to a records request.

Some people do that.

I'm not suggesting it, but that's they're like, I don't want to mess this up, here you go.

Others say, you come to me and I'll tell you what I have and I don't have.

And if somebody wants to challenge me on it, they can take me to court.

Right?

And I will print up or upload or download or whatever I need to do to get it.

In the day-to-day thing, what I would give you advice is if you get emailed, remember I told you early on, you're where you are because you're a community leader, which means people are already accustomed to finding you in certain places.

So if you have your old AOL account or your Gmail account or your whatever where people normally message you and they're like, Commissioner Hancock, happy birthday.

By the way, do you know when they're gonna do that drainage project on 15th Street?

And you're like, ruined my birthday, way to go, some friend, right?

But if you say, okay, you're on my Gmail, there's a few things you can do in those sort of situations.

What I encourage officials to do is don't make yourself the person with custody.

Make it the city.

And I don't mean make it Shayla, just make it the city.

I've already told you there's no fringe benefits to public service.

Right?

There's no like, there's no perks.

So when you got an email address for Sarasota or Northport or Sunshine Beach or wherever you are, that's not a fringe benefit.

That's there so some IT person can log in and search every time we get a records request, in part.

It's also there because that's now where you're supposed to get your ethics disclosures.

But that's what that's there for.

So use it.

Anytime you get a request, you can reply, thanks for the birthday wishes.

By the way, if you have questions about the city, I've copied my email my Sarasota email address in the future, please send them here.

You've copied it, now it's on that server.

You don't have to worry about if you accidentally delete it in traffic or something, right?

Alternatively, you can just forward it to that approach and respond from there.

Hey, I think you were looking for me over here.

Um, there's there's ways of getting that off of your responsibility and not being the person with sole custody.

Because if you so have sole custody of the record, it's your responsibility.

Alright?

Any questions on that?

Alright, I'm gonna move a little faster so we can still uh keep pace here.

Um so again, these are the questions to ask yourself.

Um, you know, do you have sole custody?

Are you able to transfer the records?

All of these will inform are you the sole custodian?

It's not whether it's not it's a public record, it's whose job it is to handle it that these questions will help you work through.

The one thing I want to caution are dynamic records, like comment threads on a post.

If you post something to social media and you print it, you're very diligent.

Randy, the moment I post, I click print, and it goes to my wireless printer at home.

Cool.

What about the comment section?

When you print it on Tuesday, there's no comments.

But a week later, people realize you posted that and there's a flame war, and there's 300 comments under it.

Do you have all those?

Are you getting them so people don't delete them and you have the record?

Um those are the challenges of so you know social media and what I would call dynamic records that can change in nature.

Um a little bit of what we were talking about on the body worn camera side with with um Mr.

Robinson and otherwise is part of the question is is it a public record?

The secondary question is how long do I have to keep it?

Not all public records have to be eternally preserved.

If I pass you a sticky note that says the next break is going to be 10 minutes, you don't have to preserve that in carbonite or bronze it or something and put in laminate and say, this is an official record from an attorney for the city, it's a public record.

No.

Most records, um, all records, I should say, generally, fit into certain categories.

The good news and bad news of how long do I have to keep it, Randy?

Um, good news.

There's a very easy to read 94 page PDF that breaks down how long you have to keep it based on its content.

Bad news, there's an easy to read 94 page PDF.

That is to say, there's rarely a uniform answer to this question of how long do I have to keep it.

Oftentimes the courts are not parsing whether it was three years or five years, because if it gets to that situation, usually it's something more extreme.

It's under this schedule it would have been three years.

Under that schedule, it would have been five years.

We need not arrive at this issue because the commissioner deleted it after 90 days.

Um and that's usually how that goes in terms of the retention side.

But this is where we get into there are retention schedules and how long you have to keep something.

And so if you say we destroyed it, or it was destroyed by some cataclysmic event or catastrophic event, you should be documenting that.

If you're following the retention schedules that says you only have to keep this for five years, if Ms.

Griggs' office is deleting something, they're saying, pursuant to this schedule, this was deleted at five years and a day.

Or here's the category of records that were all in, we do this once a year.

Anything that's more than five years gets deleted.

Here's the schedule of all the personnel records that were more than that, and we deleted them.

Right?

And you and you document that.

So in that example of the hurricane, I said, hey, the division of library and information services that makes that PDF has a chart where we can keep track of this.

So just have the clerk say, in that office, I had all personnel records on below the three-foot line.

And personnel records are supposed to be kept way longer than this.

So if somebody comes asking why we don't have it, we know why.

It was because in September of 2024, this happened.

And that's how we do that.

Now, the the one little bit of piece I want to give you, and I'm not suggesting you navigate this yourself.

Many records are also transitory records.

And under the division of library and information services, that's an actual category, transitory records, and transitory records only need to be kept for as long as they're administrative value.

So let's say we were supposed to meet here, and instead we were in the room where all our friends for the DRC went, right?

Let's say there was some issue here, and we said, oh, meeting moved down the hall, and we put a note on the door.

The note on the door doesn't get preserved.

That's a transitory record.

It's administrative value is there.

For as long as we're having the meeting, people go somewhere else.

We can throw that paper away at the end of it.

If I call you and say, Commissioner, give me a call.

Probably a transitory record that need not be kept.

That said, if I call you and I'm the public works director, say, Commissioner, I'm over here at 15th Street, there's a sinkhole opening, um, there's already one building down, we've got five people.

That's probably gonna have to be kept longer.

It's documenting real-time events, what we knew, when we knew it, how we were responding.

So the fact that it's a voicemail isn't determining it, it's substance is determining it.

Does that make sense?

Any questions on any of that so far?

No?

Alright.

So now that we know what our duty is and how we fulfill it, uh let's or rather, we know what a public record is, we know what our duty is.

Let's talk about how we process public records requests.

The first thing we have to do is generally promptly acknowledge requests.

Usually for most cities, this is one to two business days that we try to acknowledge requests.

One of the good perks about these new automated systems is they generally automatically prompt and acknowledge.

Yes, you have made a request, yes, we know.

And so somebody's not left wondering is anybody actually working on this.

Um there's no uniform way to promptly request uh or promptly be acknowledged.

I've made five requests to five cities in one day, and one of them was basically, yeah, we got this.

And the other one was like an entire speech of you have made a request for switch at chapter 119.

Please be advised.

There may be charges.

Any charges will be disclosed.

Any sons not used, we'll be reimbursed to you.

We do not have to create records that do not exist.

They give you the whole law, and then like, and you've asked for this.

That's also appropriate.

Both work.

Obviously, one is set up by a different lawyer than the other one.

Um, but both suffice to acknowledge a request.

The concern is a little bit like therapy, a little bit just in the law and due process.

We want people to know that they've been heard and not leave it to chance on whether or not it's getting fulfilled or ignored.

The next um, so now that once you promptly acknowledge, the next thing we have to do is gather the records and review them for any confidential or exempt information.

So when we have confidential or exempt information, the statute is very clear, both in the Constitution and the statute that the only things that are exempt are in the law and or in the statutes or constitution.

So there is not a 11907 that lists all the exceptions.

It's an Easter egg hunt for our own excitement and joy if you're looking for an exemption.

I have I teach this, as you can see.

If I get asked, I still go back to the statutes and search or the handbooks as a starting place.

I have been two hours into a request and learned oh, column J Z on the Excel spreadsheet is actually exempt, and that we're gonna have to block out.

I did not know that.

Um and so you you nobody has an encyclopedic knowledge of all of them.

When we do that, as I sort of alluded to, if we have a record that has confidential or rather exempt information, we only withhold that portion with it which is exempt.

So, for example, in the in the BWC or body worn camera, there's a statutory exemption for the interior of residences.

So, what law enforcement agencies often do is blur out all that out, but you might see the officer moving through the room.

But you won't see necessarily what they're looking at other than possibly another person.

Right?

The same is true of if I ask for your personnel file and it has your social security number in there, we're gonna black out your social security number.

We're not gonna say, hey, there's some top secret stuff in here, so we can't give you any of it.

Once we black that out, we have to state the basis of the exemption that we're claiming applies to the record.

So we can't say, like, well, this is on a need-to-no basis and you just don't rank.

We're gonna have to say, pursuant to 11907, what you've requested is this, and this meets this category, and so that's why it was withheld.

So it's not just enough to say, well, this is exempt, you have to tell them why.

And if they challenge it, they have the ability to have you state in writing with particularity how you got there.

Because sometimes communities are, I wouldn't say are refusing exemptions, but sometimes you're in a weird position as counsel or community where you're saying, I think this might be exempt, but I'm not sure.

So, for example, it has long been held in Florida law that the security apparatus of a of a structure is exempt from public record.

We don't have to show you where all our security cameras and everything are and what they showed.

That said, what about your IT infrastructure back in 1998 or even 2010?

Um, you'd say, well, that's something we would not want the whole world to have clear access to, and we have security parameters about that.

This talks about security cameras and law enforcement stations and whatever, but it's not talking about like where your firewall is and you know whether you have two-factor authentication.

So you know, you might say, like, well, I consider this to be security, and if somebody's gonna say it's not, I'll have a judge tell me it's not before I put this out there.

And you you know, and run the risk of all the things that come with um uh a legal review that way.

So when it comes to exemptions, don't make those calls yourself.

Um, it's not based on your own sensibilities, it's based on what the statute says.

That is to say, work with your clerk, city attorney's office, and and and similar officials to navigate that.

Um when we respond to public records requests, there are a statutory language on the charges we can assess.

Don't make that call yourself.

There are very specific things.

What I would like to emphasize here that a lot of officials concern themselves with is like some of these things take a lot of time.

Under the statute, you can charge for the extensive use of IT resources or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance.

And you can charge the reasonable charges associated with that.

Two points I want to make there.

One, we disclose that up front as best we can, but um when it comes to that, we one, it still applies to inspection.

Sometimes you get people who think, well, copying, they're saying the charges.

Inspection must be free.

Well, no, not necessarily.

Because we still have to gather what your request was, determine if it has confidential stuff in it.

If it does, we're gonna have to make a separate version that is redacted for you to inspect.

That comes with time, cost, money, and we can charge you for that inspection.

Alternatively, if we're very comfortable that what you're going to look at and wish to inspect is not going to include any of that.

We may, and if you're saying I want to inspect the originals, we may have somebody sit in a room with you to make sure you don't get an appetite for public records or burn them, which are real things that people have done.

I'm gonna eat the paper so it's gone now.

Um so we can charge for extensive use of information technology services, which is one inspection doesn't necessarily mean free.

The other thing is it's about the actual production each time.

So if uh Mayor Trice makes a request and it takes $3,000 to do it, um, we can charge you the $3,000 if that's the actual extensive use and we provide you a reasonable estimate on how we got there.

Um but then if Commissioner Batty makes the same request, it's not $3,000 now, it might be three.

Hey, we're charging you for the USB drive, we dropped the PDF on.

You know, we're not doing $3,000 worth of work the second time around, right?

So just understanding that is what I mean by this is the Costco hot dog.

This is not where you're making money, this is not where you're finding new efficiencies.

This is how we we lead with only the actual cost we're incurring if they're extensive.

And by the way, extensive use of personnel or clerical and supervisory assistance in some instances has been defined as 15 minutes, 30 minutes or more.

It doesn't have to be 40 hours or some crazy threshold.

Um so one of the questions that often comes up is so do I start, do I get the money?

Do I start gathering what I do?

And I would say, like, why not both?

Work on dual track.

But if it's going to be something that's like $3,000, the conventional wisdom is get a good faith deposit.

Um and also do not release the production until you have the funds finally for the production.

If it is, in fact, $3,000, don't say here it is, and we're invoicing you.

Because what happens, and it's rarely $3,000, it's often $200, $400.

And then if you have a checks in the mail situation, what happens is your staff is put in the position of, well, we're we're invoicing them, they're not paying.

What are you gonna do?

City attorney, I want you to write them a letter.

I want you to pursue the $400, like, well, do you know what my cost is per hour to do that?

How much are we really pursuing that, right?

So um we teach you, I I take this from uh what I would call like the good side of the show, The Bachelor, which is I want you to be here for the right reasons.

I don't teach you based on penalties, but there are penalties for violating the public records law.

They all come down to different um violations uh come down to the men's REA that in terms of what the penalty is, what was your level of intent.

If you were supposed to have 12 text messages and you only have 11, and let's say the way we usually prove that is I asked for all of your messages with her and all of her messages with you, you give me 11, she gives me 12, and you're like, yeah, I know I didn't delete it or anything, it's just that my phone wasn't backed up and I got a new phone, I don't have the one.

Well, you were supposed to have it, you may have been in violation of the public records law.

You may be held responsible and incur a fine not exceeding $500 for that, right?

Not you specifically, Commissioner Batty.

Uh but in that situation, right, that that can happen.

That's what we call a strict liability law.

The public records law does not care about your intent in terms of whether or not it's a violation.

Your intent only becomes an issue for the penalty.

If you go full Enron vibes and you willfully and knowingly, you know, destroy and burn and shred everything you've got, well, that's a criminal violation, that may be a felony or a misdemeanor, depending on what you did and how you did it.

And the reason that this is important is that especially in the teens and aughts, there was this trend in public records where people were making requests that were designed to functionally trigger a violation.

Um jumping to the example, the town of Gulf Stream, very small coastal town on the East Coast, in one year they got more public records requests than the entire Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

And they would be asked for, I want thr I want 30 years of permitting records or something crazy like that.

And they'd work night and day, they hired temps, literally, they hired temps to do this, they get it all together, nobody comes and picks it up.

But in the time that they were working on that one, they failed to do seven others.

And so they would get sued.

And the court said, and they would say, hey, strict liability, you didn't do, you didn't respond in a reasonable time, you didn't prompt me acknowledge, you're like, well, I'm drowning.

And so the way the legislature responded to that is they said, if you have a notice that looks something like the one at the top of this slide, it's prominently posted in your city offices, often on your website as well, then the court now has to shall, first of all, they have to give you five days' notice before they sue you.

And usually in those five days, you're trying to figure out what's our stance on this.

Because if they're asking for first kisses and turtles, you know, then we can tell them no record exists, we stand by that, go ahead, do whatever you want in five days.

But if it's like, oh, I didn't know that you asked the lawn tech out on the street and he didn't tell us, and we we have to do something about this, we'll get on it right away, you know, and try and solve that issue.

Um but at on uh in addition to that, the court said, uh, or rather the legislature said that now if you sue on a public records violation, the court must, shall determine whether that request was made for a frivolous purpose.

And a frivolous purpose is defined in the statute as designed to trigger a violation or to maintain the action for an improper purpose.

Um there's not a lot of guidance.

There's two cases, and I'm working on a third one, where the argument is being made whether or not something is an improper purpose.

The two cases where a court has found an improper purpose were both pro se litigants, um, that's people representing themselves, who the court looked at the record and said, wait a second, they tried six different ways from Sunday to comply, and you were never satisfied and never, and in some instances kept insisting it was a violation, mostly based on your animosity of this person and not the substance of their requests.

And the court said, Well, that might um that's leaning much more to an improper purpose where you're settling scores and not just trying to get records.

Um there's not a lot of guidance on that.

And it's it presents an interesting quandary.

Because I started this by telling you why somebody makes a request, it doesn't matter.

Just do it.

But it does become relevant should it be litigated.

Um, because the court has to make that determination.

It doesn't mean you necessarily have to argue it, but it does have to maintain that.

So one of the things we caution is look out for traps.

Um, right.

Um, if you have uh if you are find yourself saying somebody comes in totally anonymously to one of your employees and is saying, Hey, this is a city marina, right?

I want to see the slip agreement for slip nineteen.

I'm sorry, what?

Slip nineteen.

Uh, who are you?

Oh, you need to know who I am?

Yeah, no.

And then they walk them through that whole vibe, you know, they make them write it.

They say, Oh, you need me to write it down, oh, you need to know who I am, oh, you need to know why I'm doing it.

That trend that I was talking about, that's what they were doing.

And they had a camera, and then they would send it to your city and say, Hey, uh, looks like you folks don't know.

Um, so I'm not saying that people are trying to trap you, but I'm saying understand that it's easy to be walked into violations of the public records law if you're not engaging with the requirements of it.

Um, so best practices are as far as this know who the custodian is, promptly acknowledge requests, don't insist they identify themselves, don't insist they reduce it to writing.

If there are charges, they have to be reasonable, no flat fees, all the things we've talked about.

So remember when it comes to this, perpetuate communicate formalize.

Um so that takes us through public records.

Again, you're grown folk.

If you need to stretch or something, go ahead.

But out of respect for your time, I'm going to move on to the next topic.

And if you have any questions about public records, I can chew and walk at the same time.

Um, let me know if you have any questions while we transition.

Anybody?

Well, I was just going to comment, you just explained why the plaque is on the wall that says the clerk and auditor and clerk is the custodian of the records, and this is how to get them.

I never understood why that's on the wall.

Yeah.

Until you explained.

Yeah, and that's and and and and again it goes to transparency, it goes to Sheila.

Way to go, you're doing your thing.

Um But it's uh, you know, it really comes down to that compliance, and that creates a protection for the city in litigation or otherwise.

I'm just waiting for this to do what it's supposed to do.

Awesome.

This one presentation is not going to go.

Um, if you will give me give me five minutes, I'm gonna get it from the the other side of the house.

We'll take a little break here.

Alright, folks, we'll get started in just one more minute here.

And to each and every one of you, I've learned I've probably mispronounced all of your names at different points.

Thank you for your patience with me.

I should probably know that by now.

Cosh, yes, I sorry about that.

Brandy, you got mine right.

And I am always amazed when people say, well, is it treaty?

Come on, you're doing too much of that.

Alright, so I'm gonna try and get you out of here as as close to one as humanly possible here.

So with that, our last uh hour we're doing Florida Sunshine Law.

Um Florida Sunshine Law is not just good branding for the sunshine state.

It actually comes from an old jurist who very famously said actually in a love letter to his beloved that he i if if the sun were to shine in on men's affairs and publicity enhanced, then less corruption would happen.

I'm paraphrasing, but I'm sure all of you are swooning as you hear it.

Um but the idea is that you know that that that that aphorism that that we all know, that cliche, that let the sun shine in, and sunshine is the best disinfectant for corruption.

That's where this comes from.

And so when we talk about Florida's public meetings law, a lot of times people just talk about talk and think about the idea of being heard.

Um this image here, by the way, is from the show Parks and Wreck.

Uh it says, I found a sandwich in one of your parks, and I want to know why it didn't have mayonnaise.

Um if you haven't watched Parks and Rec yet, I strongly as as somebody in public government, you should.

It is a better documentary than anything Ken Burns could ever try or dream of doing.

It captures the sincerity, the absurdity, all of it.

Um a lot of the clips when I use them are are just even from the first few episodes.

It's great.

Um, I'm not paid to do that.

Um so we're starting where we start all of our presentations again.

Uh Florida Sunshine Law.

Uh if you'll notice some of the font and formatting of this one's a little different.

I had reformatted it and for whatever reason it didn't want to work.

So uh roll with me here.

Uh Florida Sunshine Law.

We have a constitutional duty that all meetings of any c collegial body, that's you guys, shall be open in noticed to the public.

Except with respect to certain exemptions.

We talked about one of those earlier.

I want to pause here for a moment and say earlier when I was talking about enhanced engagement, and we talk about newsletters and things like that.

Um another thing that often happens when you say we want more engagement.

We got people who are passionate, Randy.

We got people who care about the arts, who care about libraries, who care about the marina.

We need to create committees and get these people plugged in.

The challenge with it is the moment you create these boards by ordinance or resolution to make them part of your community, what you're also doing is subjecting them to all of the things we've been talking about today.

Chapter 112, the public records law and the public meetings law.

And we'll talk about the essence of the public meetings laws that two members of the same body cannot talk about public business outside of a public meeting.

And you take the five most we got we got the the curator for each of those museums on the board.

What you just did was make it so those five people cannot talk about the arts in the city of Sarasota outside of a public meeting.

Um take a step back and you say, well, we're gonna make a pickleball committee because we're trying to figure out if we want to get into this.

Sorry, I've been scarred by pickleball.

Um we're gonna make a pickleball committee, you get the five most passionate people in pickleball, and now they can't talk about pickleball in the city of Sarasota outside of a public meeting.

And there's nothing that prevents those same very five passionate people from meeting on a cul-de-sac on a Saturday night with a nice bottle of wine and working it out and sending the city an email, a report, a survey, a findings.

You can still do that as a resident.

You don't need to put all this bureaucracy on top of it for it to be legitimate, informative, valuable.

Um so understand that when you have all these boards, this does not just apply to the commission.

This applies to your other boards as well.

And so it is a statutory duty that public meetings are open to the public at all times, right?

And so that again applies to meetings of this body.

Um under Florida Sunshine Law, the way this has been interpreted in the common law, is any gathering of the members where the members will deal with some matter on which foreseeable action will be taken.

The statute should be construed so as to frustrate all evasive devices and must be broadly construed to affect its remedial and protective purpose.

Paraphrased, if you think you have found a way around the sunshine law, you have likely found a way to violate the sunshine law.

And at this point, it's probably not even original, you hack.

Um it's been done before.

Uh there is no way around it.

We construe it broadly to ensure that we capture and preserve the public trust and the transparency we're trying to do and trying to advance.

Now I want to focus on the first one of those a little more.

It says any gathering of the members where you'll deal with some matter on which foreseeable action will be taken.

A lot of times when I present, I get asked, what does that mean?

The foreseeable action will be taken.

Well, I'll tell you what it doesn't mean.

It doesn't mean that the moment you vote on an ordinance, the three of you or two of you can go to Applebee's and just talk all the live long day about that ordinance.

Because, as all of you may know from this experience, you pass it, three months later there's an election, and now two or three new people want to undo the thing you did.

And now it is foreseeably coming before you.

So foreseeable does not just mean you know that it's on an agenda.

When I think the better interpretation, and the way that this is often administered, is you look at what are your powers and duties.

And if your powers and duties say this could come before you, then it is foreseeable that that action will be taken.

So some communities have a citizens' advisory committee where the town elders or long-time residents or just people who are respected in the community, exist to be a sounding board for the commission.

Hey, we want you guys to vet this before we do.

Well, the citizens advisory committee's powers and duties are usually to review anything the commission sends.

So everything that's within the commission's powers and duties is in their powers and duties.

And now those five people can't talk about that.

But if you have, for example, a library board of the city, well, the library board can talk about the marina in pickleball all day long, unless there's some initiative where those things are gonna partner, right?

Because that's not within their authority.

It's not reasonably going to come before the library board whether the marina should add another slip.

It's not their powers and duties, those five members can talk about that.

Any questions on that?

Because that's really a a core threshold thing to establish.

Yes, Commissioner.

We just decided to recreate a student advisory board.

I was on one.

I bet you'd be surprised to know that.

Recently.

When I was in high school.

Oh, okay.

So these students are gonna be bound by the same.

If you're creating that, yeah, those students are are are you may wish to make sure now, obviously, they may not be making binding decisions, but you may wish to make sure they're aware, hey, if you're meeting as the advisory board, you're not meeting in the lunchroom, um, we're gonna need if this board's function is to advise the city commissioner, the city, and especially if you're creating it by ordinance and resolution, I would certainly suggest you at least have your city, your city attorney consider what reach does this have to that and what limitations are we using.

So if we know that the sunshine law can apply to the boards and certainly apply to us, what does it mean to say I can only do this at a public meeting?

How do I know if I'm at a public meeting, a proper public meeting?

Um the first, there are there are, I would say three and a half court elements.

The first is notice, the second is location, the third is minutes.

The half, I'm gonna save for a moment.

Um let's talk about notice.

A board or commission must provide reasonable notice of its meetings.

Notice has to be reasonable under the circumstances.

What does that mean?

The notice that you give to say we're gonna turn all the cow pastures in Lakewood Ranch or adjacent to I-75 into high industrial and do manufacturing and oil and and and smelting out there, is very different than the notice you give for we're gonna change the hours of the skate park by resolution.

Right?

There's all kinds of notice for land use and other stuff.

Similarly, or conversely, however you look at it.

If you're sitting in a community in September of any given year and you're on a spaghetti or fettuccine or did a leading model and a wobble happens, and now you're having an emergency meeting, you're not giving a week's notice.

You might be giving 24 hours notice, right?

If you need to have some emergency meeting to activate a policy or do something, then that notice is reasonable in the circumstances, maybe less than 24 hours.

You're not taking an ad out in the paper for that.

Um that said, if you go into chapter 286, you will not see anything about the agenda.

The agenda is not a legal requirement of the sunshine law.

So when something's not on the agenda and you talked about it, you're not violating the sunshine law necessarily, right?

The agenda and its contents are usually a function of your rules of procedure.

And in some communities, your rules of procedure say to get on the agenda, it has to be received by the clerk the Wednesday before the Tuesday.

That's how you guys choose to govern.

Now, I represent I presented to you folks about your rules of procedure recently.

You amended them last in April of last year, I believe.

Um I'm already working with your city attorney's office to look at aspects of that and things to say, what have we realized might warrant changing, revisiting, or for you folks to consider.

But those are your rules of procedure.

Now, I want to be really clear.

I'm not saying get rid of agendas.

Absolutely do not.

I don't go to meetings that don't have agendas.

Because as Yogi Bearer is at least alleged to have said, if you don't know where you're going, you'll end up somewhere else.

Um, we had to read the agenda.

Right?

And I told you, do the radical acts, right?

You can't do a radical act if it's not there.

Um have the agenda, and the and the guidance from the attorney general's office and otherwise is the agenda is the best crafted way to provide reasonable notice to the community on what is going to happen.

Now, invariably there are things that come up that might not be on an agenda or it comes up in commissioner comments, and some some boards have a additions and deletions.

Hey, this came up Wednesday, today's Thursday, we need to tell the county by Friday, so it's been added.

Right?

That happens.

Um, but that's not a function of the sunshine law.

You will not see the agenda must have.

I I had a clerk who was very, very vigilant about her agenda, and she would call me, Randy, does this go on old business or new business?

Does this go here or there?

I go, I don't care.

Just put it somewhere on there, and we'll talk about it.

And if our rules say we need to move it, we'll move it.

My concern is that people know we're gonna talk about it.

Right?

There's nothing in the you're not gonna get of uh a legal claim because something was under new business instead of old.

Incidentally, most rules of procedure have language that say any deviation from these rules shall not be a basis for a cause of action.

This is just guidance to ensure shared expectations.

But the sunshine law just requires that you provide reasonable notice.

On occasion, a statute might require enhanced notice.

Many of you are familiar when you're doing comp plan reviews or charter amendments, there's different kind of notice you give for those sort of things.

And your clerk and your attorney's office are very knowledgeable about these things and very capable of helping you navigate that.

That usually doesn't fall on you folks to do by yourselves.

But what I will say is there's a difference between legal notice and actual notice.

And I love and appreciate how much our commissioners want to make sure every single resident gets actual notice.

Um, as is very famously said in the movie Cool Han Luke, some folks you just can't reach.

Um, and and no matter how much you want to get the 20s and 30s somethings in your meetings, and you want you want to make sure you I was in a community where for 14 months we agonized over a short-term rental ordinance.

And at the final reading, somebody comes in and goes, This is the first I hear about this.

You guys are not telling people, you were trying to do this undercover at night, and you're like, and the whole standing room-only room kind of looked at them like, what are you talking about?

Right?

But there will be there will be people that you don't reach.

And and and be mindful when you're whether you're in a quasi-judicial hearing or otherwise, of turning to your city attorney and say, Well, we haven't given people notice of this.

Our notice has been all wrong.

We've done it all wrong, no one's here.

Like, well, we did it right.

It may not be effective for the purpose you're trying to achieve, but that doesn't mean it's improper, right?

And so just be mindful of that.

Thank you for saying it.

So notice is the first, I promise we didn't coordinate.

Umtice is the first thing, the next one is location.

Um I'm gonna go through these in sequence one of the revisions I made I lost in this.

But um, no chilling effect.

All persons are prohibited from you you can't hold meetings in places that restrict public access.

So let's say we were in Georgia of yesteryear and you were having meeting at the Augusta golf course, which very famously didn't allow women on it until at least my lifetime, right?

That might be a place where if you were having a public meeting, you'd say a portion of the government may not of the community may not be welcome here.

It's 2012, I think.

Yeah, there I I believe you.

I don't remember, I can't remember if it was the 90s or the 2000s.

Um but um you know that's that those sorts of things.

ADA accessibility, there is a provision in the law.

If somebody asks for reasonable accommodation with a sufficient time, you have to make a reasonable effort to provide a manner to accommodate that person to attend.

And now in 2026, we have a lot more ways of doing that, right?

Whether it be by Zoom, audio, all kinds of other ways.

The out-of-town meetings guidance, I will say there is some guidance that says meetings may be held out of town with demonstrated rationale outweighing the usual meeting location access.

I would strongly encourage that if you're having a meeting out of town, you have a very compelling reason for doing so.

You know, I've had commissions where it's uh, you know, we're destroyed, again, coastal communities, we're destroyed by a beach by a hurricane, we have to move a quarter mile up the road to where there's a building that was elevated and can accommodate people.

I would not just say go meet all around the state of Florida for funsies and take a tour as a commission.

Um but there is at least some guidance to say with compelling demonstrated rationale you can get there.

Um size of the meeting location.

If a large turnout is expected for a particular meeting, it's recommended, not required, that you take reasonable steps to accommodate.

That's prudence, not the law.

Um we've seen that, you've seen that in communities where you say, we know there's gonna be 500 people here.

Um and sometimes you don't have time to adapt.

It's just we're gonna be here, but what we're doing is we're making sure there's a live stream.

We're making sure people can appear via Zoom.

So if you can't get in the room, there is a way to be present.

We saw a lot of this in COVID in communities much less fortunate than yours, where the space is only big enough for the commission, there were you know, proximity restrictions.

We can fit 12 people in the room, that's the commission, the staff, and two officers, and now the public's barely there, right?

And so you we found ourselves meeting in nearby churches and other schools and buildings to accommodate that.

Any questions on the meeting location?

Um there, by the way, just a fun fact, in in some communities in the Florida of yesteryear, um it used to say that there's one at least one community in Panellas where it used to be that the city hall for purposes of meeting was the home of the mayor at the time.

Um so that's where things would be, you know, think many years ago, but like the meeting would be held in their living room or in their backyard, and so you know, that's that in the modern era, you wouldn't see that, but you know, that would create a need for them to be able to accommodate those kinds of people.

Um Florida Sunshine Law, the last thing I told you that is a requirement is minutes.

Minutes shall be recorded and open to public inspection.

It does not say when and does not say how.

Um I've had commissioners say, Well, we don't we we that board hasn't had minutes for four months.

That board hasn't met for like six months, right?

And so if we had to call a meeting to make sure there were promptly minutes, let's say your board is about the golf courses.

You meet in February, you don't meet again until September.

In September, you approve the February minutes.

And people are like, well, why'd you let it go so long?

Well, then think about it the other way.

We have to meet in March to approve the February minutes.

No business is conducted because there's no business to be done.

But we're gonna meet in April to confirm the minutes of the March meeting where all we did was approve minutes.

You know, it it works an absurdity.

So they have to be promptly recorded, that is to say, prepare them, um, and they are open to public inspection.

Even if they've not been approved by the board, as we talked about earlier, they're a draft, which remain a public record.

Um that said, there is no one way to make the minutes.

The minutes are not made by court reporters, unless we're talking about shade meetings or other things.

There are some where there are court reporters, but your clerks are doing what they can to capture the essential business of the meeting.

There are some minutes that read called to order, members present, agenda item, motion second, voted on.

That's it.

I think it satisfies the threadbare requirement to quote office space, it's the bare minimum flair.

Um because at some point, some poor schmuck, 12 years later, is going to be asked, why did they approve an ordinance for waterfalls on pools only at three feet?

I don't know, let me go back to the minutes.

Well, they definitely approved it.

I have nothing here.

Um I I would suggest the more prudent, not necessarily legally required, is to capture the essential business, right?

If you have a community that's debating parking on the roadway, the most robust way is to make it documented every single person who comes to the micro microphone, their name, their address, and what they said as best you can.

The other way could be to just more broadly summarize uh motion approved, uh significant debate concerning the division between the aesthetics of parking being allowed in residential streets and grass versus the need for first responders to get through roadways and the aesthetics of the community overall.

Um and with with understanding of the limited size of roadways constructed decades ago.

Okay, I can see what was going on there.

They there are some clerks who I think miss their calling as authors.

You know, it says a uh commissioner made a motion.

A hush came over the room, right?

Commissioner Cox makes second, piercing the silence.

Right?

Like it's very compelling, it's also not required.

It makes it much more interesting for everybody involved.

Um but it's not required.

And finally, there's no transcript required.

I as you've probably surmised by now, I use words like surmised, which not a lot of people do.

I had a uh bet, a going a running gag with one of the officials in one of my towns where he'd give an over-under on how many Randy words there would be in a meeting.

Um sometimes I played to the number, um, and so I would, you know, do that.

And to my clerk's dismay, then she'd come some weeks later and say, Randy, when that person came to the mic, you used some L word that had like five syllables.

Well, what was that?

I said, Oh, they were circuloquacious.

I was like, well, what is that?

I was like, well, they they said a lot without ever saying anything.

I was just saying that.

But it was a fun word.

You don't need to capture that in a minute.

Uh you don't need to capture every single word precisely that's used as long as you're capturing the thrust of what was done.

A brief summary of the events of the meeting is sufficient.

Um, they don't have to be verbatim.

If there are transcripts of the meeting, those are public records.

If the transcripts exist in our possession.

If you are here on your own as a resident and you bring your own court reporter, which sometimes happens, that court reporter's transcript is not a record unless and until they communicate it to the city.

Once they've perpetuated communicate formalized, community communicated to us, if they send us the transcript, well, that is an official record of the city as well at that point.

Oh for the record for purposes of understanding in the public understanding if anybody questions what's happening with our minutes.

Um we are we're tasked to do action minutes that was voted on by this not this commission, but a commission.

Um and the reason why, because I our minutes were like a novel, um, which were unattainable by having one clerk.

Um reporter.

Um but the reason why we we it was approved for us to do that is because we also make public the transcript and we also make the video public.

So our minutes are action, even though they're a little bit more than action, just to kind of appease some people.

Um but they are technically supposed to be action, but we provide the transcript and the video for the public, for everybody on the website, readily available, right in next to the minutes.

So there's there's you know, it's I don't want people to know that.

No, it's great to add the context of how they're done here, and what I would want to add just from an educational standpoint, is there's not a legal requirement that a city audio or video record or stream their meetings.

Um that happens as a matter of practice to ensure that the poor SAPs who make the minutes have something to check it against and to ensure if there's any dispute over what the minutes should or did say that you can go back to another source.

But there's no legal requirement.

I just I say that to say, and we've gotten so accustomed to it that people think you have to have it.

There's nothing that legally requires a meeting be audio or video recorded.

However, comma, the moment you do those things as a city, you are creating public records, which the minutes remain the official record, and if you need to amend the minutes, that's the thing you can do.

Um but the minutes are the official record, and those are supplemental records that document the events of the community.

Uh yes, uh Vice Mayor.

If you do um, in addition to the minutes, have a video recording.

How long are you required to maintain or keep the video recording?

That's a fantastic administrative question that I don't know the answer to.

Um because the lawyer doesn't get, I just know it has to be kept.

I would go the the 94-page PDF is where I would check.

Um because our videos are kept on a third-party website in Granica's they're there for forever.

Right.

And for forever has its limits in terms of technology.

Yeah, but but they're not deleting or purging them, is what she's saying.

Um I only say that to say there have been times where I've been asked to go back to, as my kids would say, all the way back to the 1900s to figure out why something was done.

And invariably that is the one time the audio recording failed or the video has been corrupted, the VHS tape is you know no longer windable with a pencil uh or anything else.

Um and so those sorts of things happen.

Um, but again, you know, in terms of the city's practice, they're not actively purging them.

So I told you there were three and a half.

There were three and a half ways to know you're at a public meeting.

Up until, and again, up until 2014, so around that same time, 2012, um, the public did not actually have a legal right to comment at public meetings.

It's been happening for decades here and in other places.

But in the statutes, it said these are open meetings, and by practice, most communities opened to public comment because, hey, if the people are here with their sharpened pitchforks and their bright torches, we should probably let them have a microphone too.

Um just to say, you know, it you want to make it clear that you're getting the engagement from your community.

But what happened was there was a situation at least in one community where they said, hey, nothing says they absolutely get a public comment.

And the community didn't do it, and they got sued over it.

And the court said, I don't like the result, but they're right.

There's nothing in the statute that says public comment.

And so in in the last 10-15 years, the legislature amended the statute to provide that the public has an opportunity to be heard.

And they shall be given a reasonable opportunity to be heard within during the decision making process, within reasonable proximity before the official action is taken.

It does not prevent you from having rules of procedure and otherwise, but that's a really important note.

The public gets an opportunity to comment before official acts are taken.

And I'm gonna jump on my own little soapbox here, and I I was in my community yesterday and talked about this for much longer than I have the benefit of doing now, uh, which is to say many communities have or have come to use something called a workshop or a work session.

Florida's sunshine law makes no distinction between the two.

It makes one place in 286, 011 sub 9 and 8, where it talks about if you're having communication media technology access at a meeting or a work session, you should provide that.

Um but it makes no um mention of the difference by definition between a work session and a public meeting.

They're all just public meetings.

So from a city attorney standpoint, it is sometimes very frustrating when you're sitting in a meeting, and I'll speak to your rules of procedure here in Sarasota in a moment, um, where you're sitting in a meeting and they say, Well, this hasn't been workshopped.

We need to move this to a workshop.

It's like, well, we're here now.

What can we do at a workshop that we can't do right now to at least advance this?

Now, if it's saying I want to move this to a later date where we'll get more information and staff will do this research, and I won't I will do my own research, that's something else.

But if you're saying, well, we're doing it wrong because we didn't go to a work session, there's nothing under the sunshine law putting aside individual community rules.

There's nothing under the sunshine law that even contemplates having work sessions, much less requiring them.

Now, the reason some communities have work sessions is like in your rules, it is pretty clear that the public's the public does not have an absolute right to public comment during a work session.

And the reason for that is the public gets an opportunity to comment before official acts are taken.

If you have already signaled in your rules of procedure or otherwise, that no official acts are taken at a work session, then you do not have a legal requirement to have public comment there because you're div you're you're in a jam band trying to figure out your next hit.

Right?

We're jamming, we're figuring it out, maybe we'll get to an ordinance, we're considering if we want to be a golf cart community, and I'm learning from this from the city attorney that we have to identify the streets we're gonna use, and there's a difference between a golf cart and a low speed vehicle, and I I want to talk all this out.

We might have three work sessions about it before we get an ordinance.

And the public can comment at the ordinance, but they don't have an absolute legal right to comment before that.

Now, some communities have in their rules that the public does get to comment at a work session, in which case there's really no difference.

Um this is just my soapbox.

Um, and in a moment to just I I I want to spread this wisdom.

Like they're all public meetings, which is what my my core concern from the public trust side, they're all public meetings.

And if we're all here, let's do the work.

And if we need more information, that's one thing, but if we're just saying I want to move it to another public meeting because this doesn't feel like the right one, often what I see in those situations is where the electeds or of uh or board members or whatever are saying, I need the security blanket of knowing that when I talk tonight, I'm not making a decision.

And I want it to be at a meeting where the public knows I'm not making a decision, so I can talk a little more freely.

Um and that's often how that gets used.

Yes, sir.

And uh for what it's worth, just for record, in the city of Northport, uh, we treat workshops and commission meetings the same.

Public commenters can come in.

Not only do we allow public comments before we move into agenda items, but at the very end of the meeting as well, and for each agenda item.

Right, inclusive of our workshops where we may not make final decisions, but we tend to give consensus.

And we, you know, even a majority consensus is still a consensus.

So, you know, we go as far as I know we could possibly go to allow for public input because if not, we get enough brain damage over it.

Well, and and to your point on on the on my next slide that just came up, the this is largely untested in courts.

I'm not gonna say it's totally untested.

Um again, that was one of those slight modifications I made right before I walked in.

But the um it's it's rarely tested in the courts, and the conventional wisdom is the more opportunities you give, you're never gonna have to debate whether you should have or shouldn't have, right?

Um the and I am not suggesting, I want it to be very clear.

I'm not suggesting eliminate public comment in any context, but I'm just saying be intentional about the distinctions you're making.

If you are adjourning a public meeting to have a work session where the public gets the same rule right to comment and everything, just keep it on the same meeting.

There's no point in adjourning.

You're just having a public meeting.

Or if you're waiting, we do the work we do the meetings on Tuesdays and the work sessions on Thursdays, you're just having meetings on two days.

Just call it that.

That's sort of where I'm coming from on it, but that's not a core legal concern.

Um, that said, there are some provisions in the law that do not require public comment.

Public comment in emergency situations, if doing so would cause unreasonable delay.

Like, hey, there's a wobble where there's there's evacuation procedures, we have like an hour to make this happen.

We're not taking public comment or we're taking it for 10 minutes.

Um ministerial acts, that's why you usually don't see unless somebody specifically requests it, comment on approval of the minutes, and you know, some s again, some cities do it.

We're gonna recognize the you know, coming for the cure month, we're gonna recognize all these different things through proclamations, and they take public comment.

You don't have to, but you can.