Board holds meeting at wrong location

The Heritage Isles board was supposed to meet at a downtown law firm. Instead, the meeting was held via conference call between a lawyer's home and an office in Clearwater.

By MICHAEL SANDLER

© St. Petersburg Times, published July 14, 2000

NEW TAMPA -- The Heritage Isles Community Development District held a public hearing this week to consider adopting the district's budget for 2001.

The July 10 hearing was supposed to give residents of this new community, east of Cross Creek, a chance to comment and object to anything in the proposed budget as well as maintenance, principal and interest expenses handled by the district. The board posted a legal notice inviting the public to attend at the offices of Akerman, Senterfitt & Eidson, a downtown law firm on the 15th floor of the First Union building.

But on Monday, no such hearing took place at the firm. Instead, Mark Straley, the attorney representing the board of Heritage Isles, conducted the hearing from his Tampa home. Three of the board's five supervisors participated via a conference call from a U.S. Home Corp. office in Clearwater, where all five are employed.

"There's never been anybody from the public show up and it was a Monday morning," Straley said. "I'm sincerely apologetic. It's my fault. Not much happened, but it was a public meeting."

By law, the board must advertise the hearing's location. In the June 22 and June 29 classified sections of the Tampa Tribune, the board posted legal notices announcing the firm as the location. An agenda for the monthly meeting, which included the hearing as one of its items, also listed the law office as the site.

"I have never heard of a board trying to conduct a meeting that is flat out not where the notice said it would be," said Jon Kaney, a first amendment lawyer in Daytona Beach.

Straley said he normally conducts the monthly meetings via conference call from his office at the firm. But on Monday, he said he changed the location and failed to notify his staff. He admitted switching the location after a reporter showed up at the law firm at 8:30 a.m. and was unable to attend the meeting. The firm's receptionist said no meeting was scheduled at the office that morning.

"I was running late," Straley said. "I had some personal issues. It was Monday. I realized, good grief, I've got this thing. (So) I patched myself in and I did it from my home."

At the meeting, the board approved minutes and invoices and discussed the possible purchase of a deck mower. The hearing was unresolved and postponed until Aug. 14 at 10 a.m., presumably at the law office.

The community development district was founded in October 1997. As is custom in new developments, seats are allocated based on land ownership, and therefore the board is controlled by the developer, U.S. Home. Still, the law considers it a form of government and, as such, it must conduct its meetings in public. While there are only three registered voters in the taxing district, 42 homes of the nearly 800 planned homes are occupied.

Straley was not the only person to participate from a satellite location. Tax district supervisors Mike Lawson, John Schajatovic and John Lashley participated by phone from Clearwater. John Daugirda, the district manager, was also in Clearwater.

Lawson said he believed the hearing met legal requirements, but he acknowledged that the supervisors should consider having someone at the official location.

"I can't argue with your point," Lawson said when asked why no supervisors were present at the law office.

"It would certainly behoove us that at least one supervisor make arrangements to be at Mr. Straley's office," Lawson said. "We will probably go ahead and do that so we don't have this kind of situation occur (again)."

Kaney said the law allowing conference calls was intended to provide individual supervisors the opportunity to participate under unusual circumstances, such as hospital stays and travel. (County Commissioner Ronda Storms was able to attend meetings via teleconference, for example, when a difficult pregnancy forced her on bed rest.)

Kaney went on to say that if more than one supervisor gathered at a satellite location, it allows them to conspire out of public view, perhaps by putting the phone on mute to go off the record.

"If you have the three sitting in an office in Clearwater and they noticed the meeting to be held in an office in Tampa, and you had been ushered into a conference room and been introduced to a telephone so that you could hear all the discussion, that would not fly," said Kaney.

"If more than one of them is at a given place, and that's not the place noticed for the meeting, I've got a problem with that."

Michael Sandler can be reached at (813) 226-3472 or sandler@sptimes.com.

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