Tallahassee Democrat

Wakulla struggles with open government

By Julian Pecquet

DEMOCRAT STAFF WRITER

CRAWFORDVILLE — Wakulla County residents trying to participate in their local government sometimes find themselves shut out of the sunshine.

Florida’s Sunshine Law and public-records laws are supposed to guarantee citizen access to government proceedings and documents.

But in Wakulla County, some people have had to wait days for the local government to clear routine records requests. Some have been silenced at meetings. And in some cases, people have been sued, though not by the county.

“The First Amendment is not at all well in Wakulla County,” said Dana Peck, an associate professor of journalism at Tallahassee Community College who is fighting a defamation and false-light lawsuit after publicly questioning a settlement between the county and an employee. “Lawsuits are the modus operandi.”

The First Amendment Foundation in Tallahassee gets complaints from citizens about Wakulla County on a regular basis, director Adria Harper said.

“Because we have heard from them so often, I have to say it seems like it’s a frequent problem,” she said.

But even the government’s critics say things have improved the past year or so.

“If we’d succumbed to a chilling effect, these changes would not have been made in Wakulla County that we see being made ... a more responsive, a more open and a more efficient government,” said Peck, a former Tallahassee Democrat Capitol reporter.

As part of Sunshine Week, which starts today, the Tallahassee Democrat looked at the progress and remaining obstacles to open government in Wakulla County.

Politics, growth come into play

Many residents say politics and battles over growth and development are at the heart of the problem.

“We’re a rural county — or were a rural county — and it goes back to the old times when a few people ran everything,” said Victor Lambou, who was sued by a developer in 2006. “But as more people are coming in, they’re facing more and more resistance.”

Ed Brimner, the commission’s chairman, said residents such as Lambou were right to decry the county’s lack of openness and “anything goes” development policies about a decade ago, but that things have changed.

“I see it as more of a political ax to grind than I see real problems,” Brimner said. “What I see it as is pro-growth versus no-growth.”

Many residents agree access to records and meetings has improved.

“I do know that before I came here there had been some significant issues with citizens not being able to speak,” said Ben Pingree, who became county administrator 16 months ago. Since then, there has been “a focus on improving the transparency of this government.”

Lambou said that lack of transparency in the past contributed to his being sued. He said he and two other defendants — Robert Alessi and Earl Enge — took their fight against developer N.G. Wade to the state level after county commissioners approved a proposed development without letting many opponents speak.

Wade sued them in 2006, saying their “bellicose saber rattling” was “adversely affecting the marketability” of his property. The suit has since been dismissed.

“Obviously the county didn’t bring the ... suit,” Lambou said. But “I hold them responsible in the way they conducted the hearings, and the way they handled the whole thing.”

The cost of speaking out

Robert Rivas, a First Amendment lawyer who represented Lambou, said he’d “be willing to bet that Wakulla County has more libel suits per capita than any other county in Florida.”

Such lawsuits worry open-government advocates.

“The effect is very detrimental,” Harper said. “What good would the right to participate be, if when you did participate, you got sued?”

Colleen Skipper, the former chief deputy property appraiser for the county, sued Peck after a February 2007 meeting of the County Commission. During the meeting, Peck denounced a settlement of a discrimination lawsuit brought by Skipper against the county. The settlement called for Skipper to get a county job.

Skipper, a 21-year veteran of the Property Appraiser’s Office, had been fired Feb. 3, 2006, after it was discovered that a trailer on her parents’ property wasn’t on the tax rolls, according to records. Skipper had received a warning in August 2005 for violating office policy after increasing the valuation of property she owned.

“It appears that Ms. Skipper had deliberately defrauded the county by committing tax evasion,” according to her termination record, which was signed by then-Property Appraiser Anne Ahrendt.

Skipper, who is black, says the reason for her firing was “contrived” and was in retaliation for her filing an earlier discrimination complaint with the Florida Commission on Human Relations against Ahrendt after many of her job duties were given to white co-workers. The suit also alleges that Ahrendt poked her in the forehead four times with her finger.

Skipper, a Democrat, applied for the No. 1 job when Property Appraiser Ronnie Kilgore died suddenly in April 2005, but then-Gov. Jeb Bush appointed Ahrendt, a Republican.

A 2005 Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation into business practices by Skipper found that “there appeared to be a lot of improprieties and poorly maintained records” but that “there does not appear to be any criminal charges that can be filed at this time.”

Peck declined to comment about the lawsuit, but her lawyer’s defense says her statements “were made with good motives and without legal malice.”

Skipper, who is now a budget analyst for the county, declined to comment. Her attorney, Marie Mattox, said the suit wouldn’t stifle free speech because Peck’s statements were false and defamatory.

“I think her intention is to get (Skipper) fired from the county,” Mattox said. “I think that her intention has been to hurt her.”

But Peck said her motive has only been to shed light on the county’s business.

“They’re going to say that we’re trouble makers,” she said. “And we are.”

Contact reporter Julian Pecquet at (850) 599-2307 or jjpecquet@tallahassee.com.

Reproduced courtesy of the Tallahassee Democrat.
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