STEVE COTTRELL: Sunshine law spotlights Beach censure issue
Posted Mar 14, 2018 at 2:01 AM
Updated Mar 14, 2018 at 6:02 AM
St. Augustine Record
The name J. Emory “Red” Cross may not be familiar to you, but what he did as a Florida State Senator between 1958 and 1968 continues to affect how all city and county boards and commissions conduct their meetings.
Cross, who was 91 when he died 13 years ago, was known as Father of the Florida Sunshine Law.
In announcing his March 24, 2005, death, the Gainesville Sun noted, “Mr. Cross was famous for the white suit — and bright red hair that set it off — Stetson hat and string tie he wore most of his 16 years in Tallahassee. But in his six years in the Florida House and 10 in the Senate, he became more noted for pushing for Florida’s Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, which finally was passed in 1967 after a decade of persistent effort by Mr. Cross.”
Cross, a Democrat from Alachua County, introduced a sunshine bill in 1959, but it was quickly buried in a committee. Same thing happened to similar bills he introduced in 1961, ’63 and ’65.
But, on April 5, 1967, sensing a shift in attitude about secret meetings at all levels of government, he tried again.
Two months later, the Government-in-the-Sunshine Law was approved 43-0 in the Senate and 106-3 in the House, and on July 12, 1967, Gov. Claude Kirk signed the open-meeting legislation Cross had been fighting for since taking his seat in the Senate nine years earlier.
Cross made sure his bill affected all government agencies, to include school boards, water district boards, planning commissions and other elected and appointed bodies. A key provision prohibited members of any government body from privately communicating amongst themselves on matters under their jurisdictional control.
Members of the St. Augustine Confederate War Memorial Advisory Committee, for example, were advised at their first meeting that they could not privately discuss any committee business with a fellow committee member. That means that, although some committee members teach at Flagler College and might see each other on campus, they must avoid private conversations about the war memorial.
The law is restrictive, but Cross was determined to end secret meetings and secret deal-making in Florida. In Longwood, Seminole County, for instance, city commissioners used to meet privately on Saturday mornings and then conduct their official public meetings with remarkable ease and lack of debate. The Government-in-the-Sunshine Law brought an end to such shenanigans.
We owe a great debt of gratitude to Emory Cross for what he did to turn Mole Hole Government into Sunshine Government, but a recent meeting of the St. Augustine Beach City Commission demonstrated how the law’s restrictions can sometimes lead to thorny situations.
(Note: I have never met St. Augustine Beach commissioners Maggie Kostka or Rich O’Brien, doubt I would recognize either of them if we passed on the street, and have no dog in this fight).
Commissioner Kostka recently sought support from her colleagues to censure Commissioner O’Brien for what she felt were actions unbecoming a public official. The censure attempt cast a bright light on the need for decision-makers to address such concerns in public rather than meeting for lunch and having a private conversation over a juicy, five-napkin cheeseburger and cold bottle(s) of beer.
In order to comply with Florida’s 51-year-old sunshine law, Commissioner Kostka apparently felt the only legal option she had for confronting Commissioner O’Brien was to ask for open discussion at a commission meeting. O’Brien called it a waste of time.
Maybe it was a waste, maybe it wasn’t — that’s for St. Augustine Beach residents (and voters) to judge. But if Ms. Kostka had communicated her concerns to Mr. O’Brien privately, she believes she would have violated state law — the law Emory “Red” Cross spent several frustrating years fighting for up in Tallahassee.
As the old saw goes, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
It’s something Commissioner Kostka will not soon forget.
Steve Cottrell can be contacted at cottrell.sf@gmail.com
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