Dade City won't cover cost of retiring attorney's trip
The mayor says funding a retiree's convention trip would send the wrong message.
By CHASE SQUIRES
Published May 29, 2003
DADE CITY - Retiring City Attorney Bill Brewton won't attend a three-day convention at a luxury beach hotel at city expense after all.
But he said if he did, he didn't see how it would be wrong.
City commissioners last week agreed to send Brewton to the annual three-day Florida Municipal Attorneys Association convention at Amelia Island Plantation. The money for the trip, expected to be less than $1,000, isn't in the budget, and Brewton would no longer be on the city payroll at the time of the convention.
Brewton said Tuesday he was surprised to learn the money for his trip wasn't in the budget. And he said he saw no difference in his attending an attorneys conference and city commissioners' attending Florida League of Cities meetings.
"If it's appropriate for the City Commission to attend the League of Cities meetings, and if it is appropriate for the city manager to attend the city managers' meetings, it should be appropriate for the city attorney to attend the city attorneys' meetings," Brewton told commissioners. "In other words, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander."
However, in the past, city managers and commissioners who have attended meetings have been in the city's employ at the time of the meeting.
The attorneys' meeting Brewton sought to attend begins July 10. Brewton retires June 30, after 16 years as city attorney.
Brewton told commissioners he does not read local daily newspapers and was not aware that his request had been a topic of an article in the St. Petersburg Times until Tuesday morning when he said someone brought it to his attention.
Mayor Scott Black wouldn't say whether he discussed the situation with Brewton.
"He came to the decision himself," Black said.
But Black did say that after voting in favor of sending Brewton, the decision appeared in hindsight to send the wrong message during a lean financial year for the city.
Using figures supplied by meeting organizers and the beachside resort near Jacksonville, the trip would have cost the city an estimated $658, not including Brewton's meals or transportation. Brewton said he had planned to take his wife but would have paid all extra charges for her.
He said he later learned his request had "apparently created some embarrassment for the commission."
Brewton reminded commissioners he served more than five years as municipal judge and never attended a judge's conference. He served eight years as city commissioner and attended only one or two commissioners' conferences. And in his 16 years as city attorney, he has attended four attorneys' conventions.
"I don't think I can be accused of taking advantage of a so-called freebie during my tenure," he said.
