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| Friday's ruling demonstrates that it is past time for the full board to be out of this lawsuit caused solely and completely by one member of the full board and specifically NOT by the other members... |
"Based on the Court’s review of each of the over 24,000
pages, the Court finds
they do include public records. Specifically, the Court
finds Facebook Messenger
conversations containing the following content constitute
a public record:
(1) Requests by constituents for Commissioner Underhill
to take action or
requests from Commissioner Underhill for a constituent to
act—this includes, for
example, a request from a resident for Commissioner
Underhill to look into a matter
affecting the District or for Commissioner Underhill to
consider voting a certain way
on a County matter, as well as requests from Commissioner
Underhill for residents
to come out in support of a County issue and messages
from Commissioner
Underhill identifying ways a Facebook User can
communicate with;
(2) General expressions of thanks by residents for
Commissioner
Underhill’s service to the County—this includes, for
example a constituent’s
appreciation for the manner in which Commissioner
Underhill responded to an
issue;
(3) Requests for information about County matters from
constituents and
Commissioner Underhill’s response—this includes, for
example, a request from a
constituent regarding whether District 2 covers certain
areas and a request from a
business owner on his obligations under the COVID
restrictions;
(4) Expressions of disagreement or complaints by
constituents of
Commissioner Underhill’s position on County matters—this
includes, for example,
a constituent’s discontent due to being blocked from Underhill’s Facebook pages
after expressing her disagreement with him on a County
matter and a constituent’s
discontent over something Commissioner Underhill said in
an ECBCC meeting; and
(5) Commissioner Underhill’s positions and opinions,
including his
disagreement with constituents, on matters involving the
County or to be decided by
the County—this includes, for example, Commissioner
Underhill’s explanation to a
constituent about why he voted a certain way on a County
matter, what he thinks the
ECBCC or its commissioners should do on certain County
matters, and actions he
plans to take in his role as Commissioner.
Thus, while Defendants seek to recast the .pdfs as
containing rogue
commentary unrelated to “official agency business,” a
commissioner cannot use his
position as both a shield and a sword. Commissioner
Underhill cannot use Facebook
to communicate with the public as a commissioner, with
the authority and force of
that public position, and then seek to prevent such
information from being disclosed
as a public record under the guise that the ECBCC did not
specifically authorize him
to make the post or engage in the discussion. “The
mandate to provide access to
public records takes precedence over disclosure of
information that ‘may cause
inconvenience or embarrassment to public officials.’”
6 comments:
Commissioner Bergosh, the answer to this is very simple: because your County Attorney works for Doug Underhill rather than the entire board. Why is it that the BOCC adopted the same bogus defense that Doug's lawyers did? It is clear why Doug's attorneys had to come up with something--anything--because his actions are indefensible, and there is no good way to do anything about it legally.
Not so with the BOCC. You guys have a big, big problem on your hands with both your attorney and your administrator, and until you realize it and do something about it, the dysfunction at the County will continue to crescendo.
--Melissa Pino
The public saw that Underhill had received Valentino's emails and complained about GN using private email and then leaked personal info during his first campaign, Now the shoe is on the other foot. Those private messages between him and Ray Guillory came out during that suit.
The county as a board addressed the social media issue and allowed it to stand that he could still operate the way he did.
His facebook messages are subject to public records.
Now maybe you can find out "Who spilled the beans" as if you didn't know. Who helped the medical director in her suit, Who sent messages to the media about DOH complaints?
Ridiculous. He should not have conducted county business on Escambia Citizen Watch face book where she has citizens blocked either.
David Bear took it to task.
You were all asked to Censure him under Roberts Rules and failed to do so.
It is up the you, the county to maintain the public records.
How to you plan to get the county out of this, How do you remove your self from a suit?
Maybe it's water under the bridge, but what is amazing is how many people he could use.
For instance can't Beulah see he is trying to help Hemmer develop OLF 8 instead of get economic opportunity for the people who already live here?
Lawyers in town are the one's making a decent wage on all this nonsense.
The world is full of incompetence and immature leaders.
The medical director could have helped straighten out the training and there is a reason no one wants to know in an interview she was a single mother..
The Maddrey texts show the mentality of what that can mean to some people.
I don't know about Administrator Gilley but people do watch county business. Firing people left and right is not a very good tactic. Teaching them to be professional may be better.
I didn't like her cutsy way of acting at the interview and Barry winking at her when she gave her 100 day plan.
You all added her on after the search was ongoing.
Maybe professional standards are in place for a reason.
I don't know much about Bear's funding past campaign but perhaps he is just simply trying to keep absolute idiots from having a seat. After watching social media and politics I see people are not as smart as I used to give them credit.
The entire board is being sued because he is part of you. You all or your team failed to intervene to compel him to follow the law (county attorney, other board members, etc.) very similar to other reasons the entire board is named in a lawsuit.
Investigate the noise pollution, not the chattering on social media noise but the actual
Jet Ski noise in the bay. I think official complaints have been filed. Do you all need another lawsuit?
It looks like D2 took his Commissioner facebook page down.
He was promoting the GOFUNDME hosted by a county employee for the Medical Director's Legal costs, via that page at one time.
Finally
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