BILL COTTERELL

Sometimes, open government can be ‘embarrassing’

Bill Cotterell
Democrat correspondent

Two important traditions that Floridians cherish above most other rights – government in the sunshine, and packing guns – looked like they were headed for a forensic showdown last week in a little Volusia County town.

Fortunately, city officials in DeBary backed down from an earlier decision to close a council meeting in which the mayor was removed from office by a unanimous vote of his four fellow commissioners.

Details of the city’s dirty laundry are not important here. Basically, the town council and some city administrators felt that Mayor Clint Johnson was working like three men. Unfortunately, the three men his service most resembled were named Larry, Moe and Curly.

DeBary, a town of about 20,000 about halfway between Orlando and Daytona Beach, sounds like a lively little community. The Daytona Beach News-Journal reported that, in the run-up to the city council meeting, Johnson posted a social-media note calling his removal a “vendetta” and saying, “I would urge civil discourse! If there is no justice, there shouldn’t be any peace. Shame on the arrogant leadership of our embarrassing town.”

Well now, there’s one for the city’s welcome signs. Let Miami be “The Magic City.” Let Orlando be “The City Beautiful.” Let Tallahassee be “The ‘Scott Maddox For Something’ City.”

Maybe they could put signs on U.S. 17, “Welcome To DeBary. We Can Explain.”

Interim City Manager Ron McLemore initially posted a notice on the city’s website, saying the commission meeting on the mayor’s removal would be closed to everyone except public officials, lawyers, witnesses, and citizens who had signed up to speak on the agenda. In a note to the newspaper, he cited Johnson’s Aug. 15 no-justice, no-peace comment and a June 21 remark, “calling on all law-abiding citizens in DeBary to purchase, practice and carry a firearm.”

McLemore said that “struck an alarming nerve” with some people.

Well, Johnson did say “law-abiding citizens” and called for “civil discourse.” His message didn’t ask anyone to “carry a firearm” to the commission meeting. His lawyer, who happens to be a Volusia County council member, called the decision to close the meeting “the sort of craziness I’ve come to expect from DeBary.”

Well, which is it? Embarrassing City, or Crazyville?

In fairness, it should be noted that McLemore wasn’t trying to hide anything – although it’s apparently pretty hard to embarrass denizens of this little Mayberry on Lake Monroe. The council planned to live-stream its meeting to a nearby building, where citizens could watch.

Good intentions, but not what the law says.

State legislators keep putting clouds in our Sunshine Law, exempting this or that for the convenience of some industry or the government itself. But they haven’t (yet) allowed official bodies to meet behind closed doors when pondering impeachment.

The same Republican-run Legislature that can’t seem to leave well-enough alone with the people’s right to know has been ever-vigilant in broadening our access to guns. So maybe it was inevitable that concern about concealed weapons would run up against a public panel’s duty to handle provocative topics – in public.

“If he’s worried about security, then he needs to make sure there are plenty of law enforcement officers on hand,” Barbara Petersen, president of the First Amendment Foundation, told the News-Journal. “They can heighten security by having people open their purses. He (McLemore) can hold the meeting at a facility with a metal detector….”

What the city can’t do, she said, was to tell citizens they can’t go into a meeting of public officials discussing public business, like unseating the mayor. Petersen, an attorney, said she understood what McLemore wanted to do – protect everybody at the meeting – “but he just can’t do it” by excluding non-participants.

The city changed its mind on Monday, a couple days before the meeting, after some backlash and an intervention by the state Attorney General’s Office. Aside from the awkward appearance, what might have turned things around is the prospect of invalidating anything the council did in a meeting not open to all.

There can be ethics complaints and civil actions taken against public officers who conspire to evade the Sunshine Law. On top of that, any laws they pass, contracts they award or other actions they take can be invalidated in court – and they’d have to do it all over again, this time in public.

So if city officials had gone ahead with their initial plan – even with regular citizens watching a live video stream, right down the street – they might have removed the mayor, only to have him reinstated by a court because of a Sunshine Law violation.

And that would have been embarrassing. Even in DeBary.

Bill Cotterell is a retired Democrat reporter who writes a twice-weekly column for the paper. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com