Maitland officials get legal costs covered by city

Maitland taxpayers will pick up the tab for the legal fees three city officials wracked up while defending themselves against alleged Sunshine Law violations.

The Maitland City Council voted on March 9 to approve the city covering the legal costs accrued by Mayor Howard Schieferdecker, Councilman Ivan Valdes and City Attorney Cliff Shepard during an investigation into possible Sunshine Law violations. The investigation came through clean, with the State Attorney’s Office announcing that it wouldn’t press charges in the case late last month.

With no more charges pending, the three city officials asked the city to foot the bill for their legal expenses totaling $10,645. According to city-hired attorney Jeff Mandel, citing Florida Supreme Court case law from 1990 case of Thornber vs. City of Fort Walton Beach, officials are entitled to reimbursement of legal fees from public expense if the litigation arose from the individuals acting in their official duties while serving a public purpose.

Schieferdecker and Valdes abstained from voting on the matter, leaving Councilmembers Joy Goff-Marcil, John Lowndes and Bev Reponen to vote to approve the reimbursement. The decision would pass unanimously, but not without cautionary warnings by the voting Councilmembers on how to avoid similar situations in the future.

Councilman Lowndes said the whole State Attorney investigation could have been avoided if the Council and city attorney had made a clear and public statement on its decision not to seek an Attorney General opinion on the Art & History Museums – Maitland’s Sunshine Law status.

“It’s a cautionary tale for how to go forward in the future,” Lowndes said.

A letter sent to the State Attorney’s Office penned by Maitland resident Marc Round – husband of former Maitland councilwoman Linda Frosch – sparked the investigation. The letter alleged Shepard had contacted Council members Ivan Valdes and Bev Reponen, and Mayor Howard Schieferdecker over the phone following a Council meeting, had taken a vote from each of them to obtain a majority opinion, and used that “vote” to overturn a previously approved Council decision.

The decision in question had to do with the city seeking its own opinion on open-government policies asking for its own Attorney General’s opinion on whether or not Maitland’s cultural partner, the Art & History Museums – Maitland, was subject to Sunshine laws. Though the Council unanimously approved seeking out that opinion in 2012, it never happened.

State Attorney Jeff Ashton’s ruling, which was published Feb. 23, pardoned the accused of any wrongdoing, citing that since the Council had “authorized” not “directed” Cliff Shepard to seek the opinion, Shepard was not required to return to Council for further direction once he used his own discretion not to seek the Attorney General’s opinion.