Posted: March 14, 2015 - 12:16am
By SHELDON GARDNER
sheldon.gardner@staugustine.com
Mayor Nancy Shaver’s request for a review of 450th celebration contracts prompted debate among St. Augustine commissioners, but no review is planned.
The request came at the end of this week’s City Commission meeting. Earlier in the meeting, commissioners discussed and approved a license agreement with Mummy Cat Productions LLC.
Mummy Cat was hired to produce a video for the 450th Commemoration Department’s exhibit, “Journey: 450 years of the African-American Experience.”
Concern about the Mummy Cat contract is what sparked Shaver’s request for an audit at the end of the meeting, she said. Shaver said the term audit can be used different ways, and what she was asking for was a review to make sure the city’s contracts are in compliance.
Her request sparked debate among commissioners and sharp rebuttal from Commissioner Leanna Freeman, who quickly pushed for an end to the discussion.
With all of the money being spent on the 450th, Shaver said she wants to make sure the contracts are being handled correctly.
“What I was asking for was, I think, a simple request that I may not have asked for in a way that people understood very clearly,” Shaver said.
The city agreed to pay $10,000 for Mummy Cat Productions to produce a 12-minute video for the “Journey” exhibit. Mummy Cat then expanded the work into a larger documentary.
Lura Readle Scarpitti, executive producer, said previously that the video ended up being sold as a 30-minute documentary to more than 100 major broadcast-network affiliated stations around the country.
Mummy Cat’s contract gave the city intellectual property rights only to the initial video.
The license agreement approved Monday by the City Commission allowed for the “Journey” video to be used in the expanded production. Officials called it an after-the-fact agreement to get procedures in line.
Commissioners voted to approve the license agreement. Shaver, who wanted an opportunity for the city to get royalties, was the lone dissenting vote.
Other commissioners said they were satisfied with what the Mummy Cat license agreement provided, including an educational package that will be distributed to schools. Commissioners said the city had already received the benefit of widespread exposure to its history through the documentary.
Contract reviews
Later in the meeting, Shaver made her request for 450th contract reviews.
“I just wanted to add one other item to your list, which is the discussion earlier about Mummy Cat and the idea that this was an after-the-fact closure of a compliance issue in a contract. I’d like to ask, and I think we’ve discussed this before, for an audit of our contracts for compliance,” Shaver said.
Commissioners asked what that would cost, in terms of time and money.
“The reason I’m asking for it is that I don’t want this particular commission to continue to be embarrassed,” Shaver said.
Freeman replied, “Well, some of us aren’t embarrassed, so I think to say that is unbelievable. I’m really proud of what we’ve accomplished.”
Shaver said she was just talking about the contractual compliance.
“Let’s just make sure that we have a policy that we do it correctly going forward,” Commissioner Todd Neville said.
Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline agreed with Neville and said resources are limited, and she said she sees both sides of the issue.
“Is this meeting over?” Freeman asked, as Sikes-Kline spoke.
Freeman asked for consensus at the end of the meeting to move forward, and Shaver adjourned the meeting shortly after that. Freeman was not available for comment Friday.
Neville said Friday that the 450th anniversary will be here in six months and adding the task of reviewing the contracts would further burden staff. An outside legal review would be expensive, possibly $300 an hour.
“OK, we’re only six months out from this. Let’s focus on getting this done,” he said.
Vice Mayor Roxanne Horvath did not see a need for a review of 450th contracts.
“I don’t see a need to go back and review past contracts any more than we’ve already done,” she said Friday. “That’s a very expensive element if she’s talking about an outside audit firm.”
Shaver said Friday the intent behind her request was to make sure the city is getting what it is paying for.
“It was a really simple request to make sure that we were in compliance and that our vendors are in compliance on the 450th side of the house,” she said.
Shaver said she believes it is easy for people to interpret what happened at the meeting in different ways, but the commission is working hard and has difficult decisions to make.
“We have a very thoughtful, hard-working commission,” Shaver said. “When you’re working hard, sometimes I think everybody can get frustrated. I think we’re a great team.”
The video
Dana Ste. Claire, director of St. Augustine’s 450th Commemoration Department, said after Mummy Cat produced the short video for the exhibit, they moved forward with creating a documentary.
“We thought it was a great idea because it would reach an national audience,” Ste. Claire said.
Mummy Cat went through the process of getting the permission from the city.
“In the process of that, a contract was developed, but it was never executed,” Ste. Claire said.
That is why an agreement came before the City Commission on Monday.
Anyone in the public could use the short exhibit video produced by Mummy Cat because it is a public record, said City Attorney Isabelle Lopez at the commission meeting. But the difference was Mummy Cat Productions signed the agreement with the city saying it wouldn’t use the materials further without approval.
Lopez said at the meeting the she was not city attorney at the time the expanded documentary was being produced, and it was her understanding that there were ongoing negotiations between the city and Mummy Cat.
James Whitehouse, attorney for Mummy Cat Productions, agreed.
“There was continual discussion with the city to ensure we were doing the right thing all along,” he said.
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beefeater 03/14/15 - 10:00 am 10As plans are made
for the 6-months-away celebration, reading this and other reports makes pretty clear that we should simply plan to be embarrassed by the city's role in the whole event.
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LocalColor 03/14/15 - 12:09 pm 41*WHAT* 450th Commemoration?
Never has so little been done for $o much by a Certain Few...
Bob Fliegel
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Bob Fliegel 03/14/15 - 05:17 pm 10Why was Freeman so testy?
On watching the video of this meeting, I was puzzled by commissioner Freeman's curt and combative reactions to the mayor's request for an audit of 450th contracts. Is there a history of animus between these two or is it rather some unique sensitivity over the 450th planning process? As a retiree who lives outside the city boundaries, I haven't been following interactions among the commissioners, but I have the sense that this flare-up mightn't have come as a surprise to those in the know.
LocalColor
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LocalColor 03/14/15 - 04:46 pm 10It's interesting to note...
...that those CoSA officials who thought nothing of approving the spending of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for the imaginary "450th Anniversary Commemoration" - even more than the City Manager requested - are *now* saying an audit of said spending would be too expensive. Where was their fiscal "prudence" when the 450th budget was approved last fall, before Mayor Shaver took office?
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