Lawsuit Says Sarasota Violated Open Meetings Law

A lawsuit against the City of Sarasota accuses the city and a committee holding unadvertised meetings for a downtown art project proposed by Mayor Suzanne Atwell.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in 12th Judicial Circuit Court, pits George Haborak and non-profit Citizens For Sunshine against the city, a Public Art Steering Committee and two committee members — artist Virginia Hoffman and city planner Clifford Smith — saying those defendants are responsible for violating the state's Sunshine Laws by not telling the public they were meeting to discuss the $55,000 project.

Citizens For Sunshine and Haborak is asking that the Steering Committee comply and give public notice for meetings as well as void all actions, recommendations and approved expenditures of the committee.

(View the complaint and e-mails in the PDF beside this story.)

The art project started its inspiration in May 2011 when Atwell visited Greenville, North Carolina, as part of a city trip and wanted Sarasota to consider a project Greenville had called "Mice on Main" and replicate it in Sarasota, or as the lawsuit calls it, the "Atwell Proposal." Atwell called it the Interactive Art Project.

Atwell had met with city staff June 29, 2011, according to the lawsuit, to create the ad-hoc committee. Atwell's request is also not allowed in Sarasota's structure of government having commissioners direct staff to complete action outside of open meetings. The ad-hoc committee then met four times without notice, the lawsuit alleges.

City Attorney Robert Fournier told The Herald-Tribune that the Sunshine Law was violated and didn't know about the committee until June, The Herald-Tribune reports: 

"Nobody really knew what they were supposed to be doing because there was no discussion about it," said Fournier, who was already investigating the issue before the suit was filed this week

"I'm not even sure anybody really knows who was on the steering committee," he added.

During the June 18 City Commission meeting, the Public Art Committee reported that the Steering and Public Art committees couldn't come to an agreement on what the art should be partly because of a rift between the two committees.

At a May 9 meeting between the two comitteees, Hoffman and Smith told Public Art Committee members that no minutes of the Steering Committee existed as "despite knowing this was untrue as both possessed and had exchanged minutes of the various meetings of the Steering Committee," according to the lawsuit. 

The Public Art Committee wanted to place nine small bronze sculptures that would be themed around a child's journey of the arts including a five-foot pony, a butterfly lady, a seal balancing a ball and a mermaid fountain as well as others. Atwell directed that instead of tabling discussion to the July 2 commission meeting, the Steering Committee should complete the project. 

This Steering Committee was formed in June 2011 to bypass the existing Public Art Committee and held "several meetings, none of which were noticed to the public," according to the complaint.

However what complicates this is that, Smith, Hoffman and then-Public Art Comittee Chairman Leonardo Lundardi appeared before the City Commission on Sept. 6, 2011, telling the commission about the Interactive Art Project, requested $55,000 funds, which the commission approved. You can watch video of that presentation on the city's website.

Hoffman told the commissioners that night that a steering committee was formed and had met for the project and identified two of the members who were present at that commission meeting: Virginia Hayley, executive director of Visit Sarasota County and Randy Welker, who was then the economic development coordinator for the Greater Sarasota Chamber of Commerce. 

The Steering Committee should have had its members nominated and the committee itself created in an open session, Fournier told The Herald-Tribune:

"That committee should have been formed in the sunshine," Fournier said, adding "I don't think it was really intentional on anybody's part.

The Steering Committee recommended what to do with these public funds to the Public Art Committee and City Commission, the lawsuit states.

The purpose of the Public Art Committee is to review and approve/disapprove public art proposals or public works of art while making recommendations to the city, according to the city's Public Art Committee ordinance.

Habork also complained at the Public Art Committee meeting on Aug. 10, 2011, about the discussions about the project that Hoffman was quoted about in an Observer article, as well as Public Art Committee not given any authority over the Atwell Proposal, according to the lawsuit. 

Following that complaint, the ad-hoc Steering Committee met without notice to the public on Aug. 16, Sept. 13 and Oct. 12 in 2011 and on Feb. 15 in 2012, according to the complaint.

During all of this, "substantive discussions" about the Interactive Art Project were made via e-mail, the lawsuit alleges, and documented those conversations in the complaint, which are available in the PDF beside this story.

Hoffman declined to comment about the lawsuit.