The Hillsborough County Commission on Tuesday voted to suspend County Administrator Pat Bean and County Attorney Renee Lee for three months, while not acting to do anything yet in terms of County Auditor Jim Barnes.
Mike Merrill, the assistant county administrator for utilities and commerce will replace Bean on an interim basis, while assistant County Attorney Don Odom does the same for Lee.
Those who voted to do so spoke about how they are confident that they should know the results of an ongoing Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation the next time they will discuss the issue in June.
At yesterday's BOCC meeting, it was mentioned that the FDLE should be concluded with their investigation of the two regarding their 1% pay raises back in 2007, and recent charges of looking at e-mails that they shouldn't have because of a previous FDLE investigation.
But will the FDLE's work be done by then? Christian Wade of the Tampa Tribune spoke with special agent James Madden, who wasn't guaranteeing anything.
"We do not anticipate this taking months, but it depends on what we find during the interviews," Madden said. "We are doing this in the most expedient way possible, but we want to make sure we get the facts and coordinate with the state attorney's office."
One of the best lines of the three hour plus meeting came from Commission Chair Ken Hagan, who said that the last he heard, the FDLE was still investigating Buddy Johnson.
(Which, not to go off on a tangent, is not a bad question to ponder today. Are they still investigating Johnson? It's something that needs to be asked and answered, as the former Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections left office in late 2008 under a cloud of suspicions, as law enforcement agencies were given reams of potential allegations to investigate due to the investigative reporting most specifically of Jeff Testerman of the St. Petersburg Times. But a year and a half later, we've heard nothing).
Commissioner Kevin White -sensitive about county taxpayers dollars not at work – did not support suspending Bean or Lee, saying that it didn't sit well with him that the two would essentially be given paid vacations.
Commissioner Mark Sharpe also beat back charges by Commissioner Jim Norman that by calling for the head of Bean, he was acting without all of the facts (i.e., no FDLE report yet). But Sharpe said (accurately) that his disappointment with predates emailgate, and believes that it's best for her and the county to part ways. Rose Ferlita then tried to put a happier face on the situation for the county administrator by saying that if she voluntarily quit she should be able to keep her $448,846 in severance pay. After a near half hour break where Bean consulted with her attorney, she said she was not ready to step down.
And Jim Barnes? He appears to continue to be on shaky ground, but no actions were called to fire him. When Commissioner Hagan asked all three officials to resign in a letter earlier this month, it in a way gave Barnes more support from some members of the community than he might have ever enjoyed, as he has become in a way the whistleblower regarding the e-mail controversy, and it looks bad to want to can him at the same time as Bean and Lee. But separately, issues of his work performance appear to be legitimate, and the board could act regarding his status in the coming weeks.
The editorial pages of both the Times and the Tribune today appear unsatisfied with yesterday's actions. Both pages essentially say the actions were better than doing nothing, but they, like Sharpe and
This article appears in Mar 24-30, 2010.