Putting Residents First

Madeira Beach Residents Invited to Speak First

By Lisa Leveroni

In an effort toward “solidarity for citizens of Madeira Beach,” Mayor Jim Rostek opened the most recent meeting of the Board of Commissioners (BOC) by announcing a new procedure. This procedure would begin by announcing the next topic on the agenda and then inviting the residents to speak first.

“Our residents need to feel heard,” Rostek said. “If we hear what the people have to say first, then we can better understand their concerns and address the issues important to them.”

This was how the meeting started on July 12 in Madeira Beach City Hall.

First, there was a brief discussion about dredging John’s Pass around the bridge area. City Manager Robin

Gomez introduced Aptim Environmental & Infrastructure, Inc. representative, Nicole Sharpe. She talked about the John’s Pass project being in the permitting phase and the various issues surrounding dredging this waterway.

Communication is Key

Next, citizen and Civil Service Committee member, Jerry Cantrell, spoke of his long-awaited communication with interim City Attorney Thomas Trask. Cantrell reported he had been waiting since May to hear from the attorney for legal advice on an issue that arose in the Civil Service Committee.

Cantrell called it a “lack of com- munication between the (interim) city attorney and me.”

He also stated that communication needs to flow freely between the Civil Service Committee and the interim city attorney, “even if it is just to say no… failure to respond to an email is not an acceptable form of communication.”

Rehashing the Vote — the People Have Spoken

The commission also discussed the letter intended for the Florida attorney general, written by interim City Attorney Trask. The letter was to ask for Attorney General Ashley Moody’s guidance regarding the City’s vote on the March 14 ballot question. In the letter, the City asked what they should do about the vote. This would determine whether or not the City hires a part-time consultant or contractor versus a fulltime finance director.

The language on the ballot read as follows: “This charter amendment would amend Section 5.5 of the charter to provide the Board of Commissioners with the option to delegate to a contractor or firm to perform the services of the Director of Finance and City Treasurer. Should the charter be amended?”

Voters voted Yes-427, No-537. (Charter Amendment Confusion, The Gabber Newspaper, April 13)

The BOC took the “no” vote to signify that residents of Madeira Beach were in favor of having a full-time Director of Finance and City Treasurer. To date, this has not happened.

Both the interim city attorney and director of finance are contractors.

“I believe this issue is being drug [dragged] out for some reason,” Rostek said. City Manager Gomez then asked the participants to “stick to the agenda.”

More Resident Input

Resident Tom Edwards asked what was happening with public use of the City gym. The city manager reported commission would discuss this issue in the “meeting two weeks from now.”

Next on the agenda was increasing the City budget for 2023. Finance consultant Andrew Laflin spoke to the increase in budget. He cited additional costs for the seafood festival and Polaris replacement.

Commission voted 5-0 in favor of increasing the budget.

An Interim Attorney of Two Years?

The City recently sent out an RFQ (Request for Quote) to find a fulltime city attorney. The mayor said, “the RFQ for city attorney appears to be an epic fail.” He explained that getting only two responses to the RFQ resulted from the city manager posting the job on only two websites.

One of the two respondents to the RFQ was the current interim city attorney, Thomas Trask. Recognizing that the City was operating with an interim city attorney for nearly two years, resident Jerry Mathis asked, “how long should this take?”

It was then that two of the commissioners on the dais referred to some residents as “bullies.”

Commissioner Anne-Marie Brooks said, “we posted [the RFQ] on two websites and only two responded. I am not surprised, the way they [the ‘bullies’] harass the attorney we have here … Mr. Trask has done his job.”

Commissioners Call Residents “Bullies”

“Based on the emails we have received from the bullies in this town, I am not surprised that there are many other attorney’s firms that do not want to work here,” Brooks continued.

“Do you think we should be calling our residents bullies? Can we tone that down a little?” Rostek asked.

“No. No. I believe they’re bullies; I do … I wanted us to be nice to each other,” said Brooks.

Toward the end of the meeting, McGeehen agreed with Brooks’ characterization of some residents as bullies.

“We see you,” he said. “We want to keep the negativity out of city hall.”

The Mayor’s Final Word

“I’m going to say one thing as mayor and have the final word. I am going to apologize for the disparaging comments of one of our commissioners from the last two meetings. Now we have a person calling our residents ‘bullies’? I humbly apologize for that. It’s not going to happen again. If it does; I will ask the commissioner to exit the dais. I will not tolerate that any more. Combined with … our residents also have to remain respectful and they’re entitled to their opinions… they’re our residents… they’re not bullies… I humbly apologize.”