From the Sarasota News Leader:
EDC to pay $50,000 in attorney’s fees to settle public records and open meetings lawsuits filed by Citizens for Sunshine
EDC board voted on the mediation settlement on Feb. 18, following the nonprofit board’s approval
The board of the Economic Development Corp. (EDC) of Sarasota County voted this week to approve a settlement with Citizens for Sunshine, a Sarasota nonprofit organization, involving public records and open meetings lawsuits dating to 2009 and 2010, respectively.
The agreement calls for the EDC to pay a total of $50,000 to Andrea Flynn Mogensen, the Sarasota attorney who represented Citizens for Sunshine in the cases.
The first lawsuit was filed “after the EDC refused to provide access to records sought about its activities, including economic development grants and other incentives paid for with public tax dollars,” says a Citizens for Sunshine press release. The second case followed the organization’s discovery that the EDC was not complying with open meetings guidelines of Chapter 119 of the Florida State Statutes, known as the Sunshine Laws, the release adds.
The settlement calls for the EDC to provide Citizens for Sunshine access to records relating to Project Yellow, “which was a $200 million deal to lure a Danish pharmaceutical manufacturer to relocate to the Sarasota area,” the press release says. “Although the deal fell through,” the release adds, “Citizens insisted that records relating to Project Yellow be disclosed except for those involving trade secrets.”
The EDC board’s action came during a meeting that began at 8 a.m. on Feb. 18, the organization’s attorney, Morgan Bentley of Bentley & Bruning in Sarasota, told The Sarasota News Leader. Michael Barfield, a paralegal in Mogensen’s office — who is also vice president of the Florida Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) — told the News Leader that Citizens for Sunshine’s board had approved the agreement earlier.Those documents are to be provided to the nonprofit within 15 days of the effective date of the settlement.
Sarasota County also was a party to the public records case, but the County Commission did not have to vote on the settlement because the amount of attorney’s fees is within the range that County Administrator Tom Harmer can handle without board action, according to county policy, Barfield said.
The agreement was reached during court-ordered mediation on Jan. 21, which lasted all day, Barfield told the News Leader.
The public records case had been set for trial on June 27 in the 12th Judicial Circuit in Sarasota, Sarasota County Clerk of Court records show.
In the release, Mogensen called the agreement “historic,” noting, “[I]t’s the first EDC in the state that has agreed to operate in the sunshine.”
