The city attorney and four Bradenton Beach commissioners met in Mayor Bill Shearon’s absence Feb. 23 and decided to further limit his authority as executive head of the city. It marks their second such effort since Ralph Cole and Jake Spooner were elected in November.
City attorney Ricinda Perry alluded Feb. 23 to communication issues in city hall in asking commissioners how they wanted to interpret the mayor’s authority. The mayor was out of town on a family emergency. He was unable to phone in to the meeting or Skype because he and his partner, Tjet Martin, were attending the funeral for her father.
In January, at Spooner’s urging and with Perry’s guidance, commissioners approved a resolution taking responsibility for setting the agendas for commission meetings away from Shearon and giving the authority to city clerk Terri Sanclemente, even though the charter states that the mayor is “to chair all meetings of the commission.”
In the resolution, Perry added powers to the clerk’s office, even though commissioners had not discussed delegating powers to the clerk in any meeting.
Commissioners’ motives for these recent changes are unclear. However, in 2014-15 Commissioners Ed Straight and Jan Vosburgh voted with then-Vice Mayor Jack Clarke to initiate forfeiture of office proceedings against Shearon. At the time Clarke said Shearon’s temperament was ill-suited for public office.
How should the city be managed? Reading from a prepared statement Feb. 23, Cole called it a “weak mayor system” of government.
Whatever it’s called, government in Bradenton Beach lacks a strong mayor, like in Anna Maria and Holmes Beach. In those cities, mayors are empowered by their charters to manage department heads and veto acts of the commission. Bradenton Beach commissioners may vote to interpret the charter as they see fit and the majority prevails.
Anna Maria Mayor Dan Murphy and Holmes Beach Mayor Bob Johnson can talk directly about city business with their respective commissioners, while Shearon cannot.
The Bradenton Beach commission last year considered putting a charter amendment on the ballot that would have established a strong-mayor system in Bradenton Beach. Shearon and Clarke — bitter political enemies who both saw the difficulty of running a municipal government when commissioners can only talk to the mayor about city business in open meetings — supported a strong mayor form of government for Bradenton Beach.
But Bradenton Beach commissioners expressed concerns about adding a fifth ward and fifth commissioner to a city with dwindling voter registration and about a nonvoting mayor potentially attempting to twist the arms of commissioners on important matters.
Shearon came into the mayor’s office in November 2013 in the midst of a bad financial audit related to his predecessor, John Shaughnessy, and the over-reaching powers entrusted to the city clerk.
Shearon’s goal was to make city employees more accountable for their actions.
In a small city, governmental functions often overlap and determining who to blame — or credit — for actions taken can be difficult.
Shearon aggressively tackled problems in city government during his first 18 months as mayor, ruffling the feathers of commissioners and department heads alike. It continued to his recall in May 2015. Some commissioners and city employees openly supported Clarke, Shearon’s recall election opponent. But after being re-elected in November 2015, Shearon pledged to be a kinder, gentler executive.
Former Commissioner Janie Robertson, a supporter of Shearon, recently sent a letter to Florida Gov. Rick Scott, asking him to appoint a state agency to investigate ongoing corruption in Bradenton Beach. The response from the governor’s office gave Robertson and her allies direction for how to proceed.
Commissioners’ concerns about Shearon potentially abusing his power as mayor immediately followed the five-month mayoral tenure of Clarke, who some residents say collaborated with Perry and commissioners to abuse his office.
Clarke and commissioners promoted city clerk Terri Sanclemente to supervise then-city treasurer Sheila Dalton, ignoring a city ordinance that made them equal department heads, and then Perry revised the ordinance to codify the change after the fact.
Clarke and commissioners voted to kill a proposed moratorium on new construction that many residents wanted. Instead, Clarke and Perry promoted and commissioners approved a quality-of-life ordinance, regulating behavior at vacation rentals and establishing licenses and fees that few residents supported. That ordinance, which is now dormant, netted Perry thousands of dollars in legal fees.
Meanwhile, the lawsuit filed against the city by Bradenton Beach Marina in 12th Judicial Circuit Court is a direct result of Clarke and Perry arranging to meet privately with AMOB restaurateur John Horne — out of the “Sunshine” — to negotiate the lease for the restaurant on the pier.
Robertson — and the marina lawsuit — maintains that while the commission approved Clarke and Perry to negotiate the lease on the commission’s behalf, the directive should have followed the same restrictions as the commission with regard to the Sunshine Law and open meetings.
And while many residents criticized city hall for removing mature trees and adding large concrete planter boxes on Bridge Street, following renovations to improve stormwater capabilities, others complained that there was not enough public input on the project before it was carried out.
Public works director Tom Woodard rebuffed that argument Feb. 23, saying meetings were held and commissioners gave approval.