A Port Richey City Council majority should start its spring cleaning. It can use its newly discovered penchant for ethical concerns to sweep Bob Leggiere from the city's Code Enforcement Board.
This week, a Florida Commission on Ethics investigator said Leggiere, a former council member, one-time acting mayor and owner of Custom Windows and Doors in Port Richey, pressured building officials to issue construction permits to his customers and friends for projects that did not meet city code.
The commission is the third agency, following Port Richey Police and a circuit court grand jury, to investigate Leggiere's actions. Much of the Ethics Commission's report mirrors the grand jury's findings.
Leggiere denies wrongdoing, saying he acted on behalf of constituents. Right. How many constituents can count on a council member making 10 calls to badger building officials about a pending permit? His tired excuses conflict with the city's former police chief, prosecutors, grand jurors and now the Ethics Commissions staff.
His disdain for meeting building codes has been documented previously. Investigative reports show he advocated annexing a vacant grocery store into Port Richey so the remodeling work, turning it into a temporary City Hall, could escape county building codes.
Leggiere's interference in Port Richey led to the resignation of two building officials, violated the City Charter prohibiting council members from day-to-day involvement with city departments, threatened the city's flood insurance and brought untold embarrassment to the municipal government via the 2001 grand jury report.
Leggiere's reward was an appointment to the Code Enforcement Board in October 2001 and a reappointment last fall. Allowing Leggiere to sit in judgment of others accused of code violations is inexcusable governing. But that is the route chosen by a council majority in 2001, including still-sitting council members Pat Guttman and Phyllis Grae.
The current majority, Grae, Guttman and Dale Massad, which reappointed Leggiere a few months ago, has set their ethical bar high. Nearly two weeks ago, they declined to interview a city attorney applicant because the law firm's partners worked with Mayor Eloise Taylor more than 20 years ago.
All three said they feared potential conflicts because Taylor taught at Kent State with Gerald Figurski in the 1960s and worked less than a year at the Pasco County attorney's office under Ben Harrill in the mid 1980s.
The council majority needs to hold their political appointments to the same escalating ethical standards as their political hires. If a highly regarded west Pasco law firm can't measure up, how can Bob Leggiere?
