Bradenton Beach commissioners, city attorney Ricinda Perry and attorney Charles Johnson, appointed to represent the city, will participate in a shade meeting at 1 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 8, in the conference room of the police department, 403 Highland Ave.
The meeting will be gaveled open, but the public will be asked to leave while officials and attorneys discuss two lawsuits.
In one, former planning and zoning board member Jo Ann Meilner and Tjet Martin, life partner of Mayor Bill Shearon, are suing the city over a development agreement commissioners made in 2012 with restaurateur Ed Chiles regarding a parcel of beachfront near Chiles’ Beachhouse Restaurant, 200 Gulf Drive N.
In the other suit, filed a few months after Shearon was elected in November 2013, Chiles’ company, ELRA Inc., is suing Shearon for alleged misconduct by the mayor.
Johnson, of Bradenton-based Blalock Walters, is representing the city for Shearon in that suit, which claims Shearon was acting as a “strong mayor” when he allegedly threatened staff if they failed to provide evidence to sway the commission to deny the agreement for the parking lot.
“It’s another thing that I am accused of,” Shearon said Dec. 26. “There’s a lot of misbelief, I think is the way to put it. It’s an attorney’s opinion.”
Meanwhile, Chiles’ attorney, Robert Lincoln of Icard Merrill of Sarasota, filed a motion for ELRA to intervene in the parking lot lawsuit.
Shearon originally was a plaintiff in the parking lot litigation, but he dropped out when he was elected in November 2013.
The shade meeting is called to allow the commission and attorneys to strategize the litigation.
Shearon, Vice Mayor Jack Clarke and Commissioners Janie Robertson, Jan Vosburgh and Ed Straight are expected to attend. A transcription will be made available to the public when the lawsuits conclude.
Bradenton Beach commission to discuss lawsuits