FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis penned a letter Friday to Florida’s attorney general asking for an “advisory opinion” on the city’s District 1 race which was won by the city’s former longtime auditor John Herbst.
It is the latest twist since Herbst’s rivals, two candidates who lost the race in a landslide, submitted residency qualification challenges to the city a day before Herbst was scheduled to be sworn in.
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“The City Charter states that ‘The city commission shall be the judge of all municipal elections and referendums and other qualifications of its members, subject to review by the courts,’” Herbst told Local 10 News in a statement. “The language is clear on its face and requires no clarification. This is simply a further attempt to delay seating me as required by the City Charter and denies the rights of the residents of District 1 who voted overwhelmingly to elect me to represent them.”
Local 10 News did reach out to the mayor’s office for a statement Wednesday morning, however his chief of staff said in an email that “the mayor is not available to provide any comment beyond what he wrote in his letter to Gen. Moody.”
A spokesperson for the Florida attorney general’s office tells Local 10 News their office has “received notice of this opinion request and it is currently pending review.”
“While the city’s charter makes the city commission the judge and jury over disputed city elections, it appears that the mayor is seeking outside advice on an issue that he must ultimately decide,” former state and federal prosecutor David Weinstein tells Local 10 News. “From the language of his request to the attorney general, it appears that he has already made his decision and is looking for confirmation of that analysis, which he can use to support his upcoming vote and rely upon in any appeals that will follow.”
Following the election, two of the candidates who lost that race, Christopher Williams and Kenneth Keechl, filed a residency qualification challenge.
Herbst showed Local 10 News documentation of a lease agreement signed in April at his Fort Lauderdale apartment which he says meets the city charter’s residency requirement.
Since then, Herbst’s attorney, Barbra Stern, sent a letter to the attorney representing Williams and Keechl, stating that the affidavits they submitted to the city included “false and inaccurate information rendering the challenge fraudulent.”
A city spokesperson says while Williams withdrew his affidavit, she is not aware of “any change in status of the challenge by Mr. Keechl.”
In Stern’s Nov. 17 letter, she added that “since Mr. Keechl is a member of the Florida Bar and an officer of the Court, he has an obligation to withdraw his Affidavit.”
POLICE CHIEF AUDIT:
Meanwhile, questions remain on why the mayor and Commissioner Steven Glassman led the charge to fire the city’s longtime auditor back in February. Herbst believes he was wrongly dismissed.
The discussion, which led to a 3-1 city commission vote to fire Herbst was not on the agenda, coming at the tail end of a February city commission meeting after the then vice mayor had already left chambers, telling Local 10 News at the time she thought city business had concluded.
The unexpected move came after a spirited non-agenda discussion about the decision to launch an investigation into an anonymous complaint that former Chief of Police Larry Scirotto was possibly working a second job as a NCAA referee while on city time.
The mayor was questioning why Herbst was investigating a complaint received against the former police chief, claiming he was working a second job on the taxpayer’s dime.
A national group representing internal auditors weighed in on the abrupt move to fire the 16-year veteran auditor who had an unblemished record and told commissioners that for years he’s conducted independent investigations without any objection.
Trantalis disparaged the complainant.
“Cowardice alone is what motivated this,” the mayor said during the meeting, challenging the auditor’s authority.
Herbst explained why, in his view, the complaint was credible.
“We have screenshots of Telestaff, which is their time-keeping system, which shows that it was a workday for him, and I have got screenshots of him attending a NCAA sporting event at the same time,” he said. “That’s a credible situation.”
When Local 10 News asked a Fort Lauderdale police spokesperson if the former chief was working a second job while on city time, they replied simply, “no.”
The city’s website states that audit activities shall remain free of influence.
“Under the charter, the city auditor has the authority to investigate any matter or city business,” Herbst said during the meeting.
“Right, but that comes at the direction of the commission who decides what is city business and what is not city business,” the mayor replied.
“No sir, it does not. The city charter does not say that the city commission establishes audit work plan or determines what is appropriate for the city auditor to look at,” Herbst said.
“I disagree with you,” replied Trantalis.
In an interview with Local 10 News days after the meeting, reporter Christina Vazquez asked the mayor why the city wouldn’t want to pursue an allegation such as this.
“Because situations like that are addressed by the city manager. The police chief works for the city manager. It was intended for the city manager to make that investigation or to make that determination -- it was totally outside the auditor’s purview,” Trantalis said.
The mayor’s interpretation of city charter is that the auditor is there to take assignments from the city commission, not conduct independent investigations.
“Our auditor that we hire is to handle matters that we want investigated, that the commission decides to go forward,” he said.
The mayor has positioned the auditor’s investigation into the police chief complaint as a “secret” investigation. The mayor told Local 10 News that the “auditor was engaged in activities that we did not know anything about, we did not authorize, basically a secret investigation that he was involved with.”
In an email to the mayor and commission after the termination vote, Herbst wrote that the “implication that I undertook a ‘secret’ investigation” is “false,” adding that the city manager and the city attorney’s office “were both apprised of the forensic investigation from the very beginning.”
City Attorney Alain Boileau confirmed with Local 10 News that he “was apprised of the forensic investigation early on.”
City Manager Chris Lagerbloom told Local 10 News he was “apprised as well.”
During the Feb. 15 commission meeting, Herbst outlined some of the complaint-driven investigations and independent investigations his office has conducted over the past 16 years without incident that he said were similar to the one the mayor and Glassman seemed to object to prior to the commission suddenly voting to terminate his contract.
“We had an almost identical instance last year where my office received a complaint about the interim chief, which we also investigated, and we brought that to your attention,” Herbst told the commission. “And we brought that forward to you as a final report -- there was no objection to the report at that point in time.”
Herbst added the findings of that report were that the interim chief had not violated the city’s policies of nepotism.
Hired in 2006, Herbst, a CPA, “has held the position of independent City Auditor since its creation through a charter revision in 2004,” according to the city’s website.
During the commission meeting, Herbst said he was planning to retire in the coming months.
He also said he would be willing to drop the investigation they were objecting to. They fired him anyway. He was given a 60-day notice and four months’ severance, per the terms of his contract.
In a statement to Local 10 News, the Institute of Internal Auditors described the mayor’s comments as “troubling” and in conflict with the independent watchdog role of the city auditor, adding: “While management has input into the internal audit process, they do not control it.”
ONE STOP SHOP:
Hours before the city commission voted to fire Herbst, there was a One Stop Shop-related workshop meeting on Feb. 15.
In an interview with Local 10 News after the termination vote, the mayor described the ongoing chief investigation as the “tipping point,” adding that it was an “accumulation of things” that include One Stop Shop and the related Ernst & Young financial report.
One Stop Shop FTL, LLC is the name of an unsolicited mixed-use development proposal to turn just over three acres of city-owned land at 301 Andrews Avenue into a concert venue with restaurants and a community park.
On Feb. 15, a study produced by renowned accounting firm Ernst & Young was discussed at a city commission workshop. Key findings of the business plan included that construction costs are lower than would be expected for a project of this type; and that while the city could fetch $3 million to $6 million a year in rent, this project has the applicant working up to $1 million a year, and that’s only after year five of operations.
The report also states: “Some of the key input assumptions are unclear or optimistic ... the project does not appear to be profitable until Year 5 of operations, even before payment of rent.”
Glassman, whose district the project is in, took issue with the study, from the cover photo Ernst & Young used, to much of the information contained in their study, labeling it “inadequate.” He was critical of Ernst & Young’s decision not to present the findings of their “unbranded” report to commissioners during the February workshop meeting. He then took aim at the city’s auditor who explained, he is not Ernst & Young.
“It is not my report,” Herbst said during the Feb. 15 workshop. “Let me be clear for everybody in the room, I am not here to defend Ernst & Young. I am being asked questions that I don’t have answers to.”
Hours later, shortly before 11 p.m., Glassman, Trantalis and Commissioner Ben Sorenson voted to fire the long-time auditor.