Four residents and a lawyer rose to speak publicly, the residents all in support of Bradenton Beach Mayor Bill Shearon during forfeiture proceedings Dec. 2 at city hall.
“I’m asking you today to say, ‘Stop these proceedings’ that you started,” Jim Hassett said. “You had a number of months — 300 days-plus — to think about what you are really trying to do here. Let’s let the mayor, mayor.”
Resident Jo Ann Meilner said watching commissioners try to undo Shearon’s 2013 election as mayor is a “slap in the face to the people of the city. It’s unbelievable that you think you are more capable, more enlightened than the people. … Your arrogance is appalling and I hope that it haunts you for the rest of your days.”
Next to speak was Robert Lincoln, attorney with Icard Merrill of Sarasota, who is representing ELRA Inc., Ed Chiles’ BeacHhouse Restaurant corporate entity, in a lawsuit against the mayor.
Noting questions raised on the dais about the validity of the hearing, Lincoln told commissioners he sought “to reassure you that what you are doing is in accordance with the law” and that Shearon’s lawsuit to stop the foreclosure proceedings, which the 12th Judicial Circuit Court had not yet ruled on, “is wholly without foundation in law.”
There is state and federal case law, he said, that affirms the commission’s ability to proceed with forfeiture of the mayor without fear of denying due process.
Foreseeing a future court battle, Carl Parks told commissioners that the forfeiture hearing was “worse than sour grapes, arrogance and strong-arm politics. They are the height of fiscal irresponsibility. The only ones who stand to benefit are the attorneys.”
Parks also accused the mayor’s detractors of seeking to neutralize Shearon by a simple majority vote of commissioners, using “trumped-up allegations.”
Retired attorney John Metz then spoke, saying he disagrees with Lincoln, “because this petition for forfeiture is, basically, legally incompetent.”
He added that in the vice mayor’s nine-page September statement — supporting a resolution to the charter that commissioners passed to authorize the Dec. 2 hearing — Clarke had failed to allege any legitimate violations regarding Shearon’s conduct in office.
“Are you going to follow the charter?” Metz asked. Disagreeing publicly over computer systems, management style or personnel, he said, are routine disputes on boards, not cause for forfeiture.
Metz added that commissioners who vote to move forward with forfeiture proceedings “in violation of your own charter” are going to face a significant cross-examination about “what statute that you had in mind that the mayor violated. You are going to have to have an answer for that, and I don’t think you are going to find an answer because in two-and-one-half months you’ve been unable to do that.”
Vice Mayor Jack Clarke later held up documents that he claims list 13 charges against Shearon, but he said he would not yet present them.
