Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Two provisions of the modern Florida Constitution of the Bill of Rights have been
trashed along the wayArticle I, Section 21 concerning the meaningful right of
access to the courts, and Article I, Section 24, concerning the Sunshine Law
guarantees of access to public records and assurance of open meetings.
The primary purpose of those actions is to create the false impression that Florida
and its flagship University, especially its Levin School of Law, and the UF Shands
Medical Complex, and the primary city where they are located are progressive
institutions which avoided the mistakes exposed by the Civil Rights Movement in
Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana, in the 1960s.
This report is made now, first, because the City of Gainesville especially its Mayor
Ed Braddy has made so many visible mistakes since 2013, to cover up a known
boondogglea 30-year contract for biomass fuel for electric production by
Gainesville Regional Utilities (GRU)and second because of the anticipated rape
of the Florida Public Records Act by the Florida Bar Board of Governors.
The breakthrough for the revelations of the abuse of the Florida Public
Records Act AND constitutional provision came this week of March 2015, as a
result of what was said and what was not in an excellent overview which
apparently originated in the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville. The key
revelation resulted from a quoted media attorney--the performance of Floridas
Open Government office (Pat Gleason) had been unsatisfactory in a newspapers
attempt to get information from a public agency.
Pat Gleason, FSU Law, admitted to practice law in 1976, allegedly has been
assisting Florida attorney generals since Robert Butterworth, in 1995 to comply
with public records and open meetings provisions. The invariably ignored Florida
constitutional provision went into effect in 1993. She left the office briefly but
returned under former Gov. Chain Gang Charlie Crist (R, I, D-FL).
Barbara A. Petersen is president of Floridas First Amendment Foundation.
Before taking that position in 1995, Petersen was staff attorney for the Joint
Committee on Information Technology Resources of the Florida Legislature. She
worked exclusively on public records legislation and issues.
Chance earned her M.A. with high honors and distinction in Journalism and
Communications in 1985 from the University of Florida where she also earned her
B.S. with high honors in 1975. She was a teaching fellow at the UFs College of
Law and a research assistant with the Center for Governmental Responsibility at
the College of Law. She has directed the Brechner Center since 1999.
Leading the way to keep local records from the public, and to keep the
public away from certain sensitive meetings has been former Gainesville City
Attorney Marion Radson (1981-85 assistant, 1985-2012 City Attorney, since 2012,
consultant who has double dipped in the DROP program for retired officials.)
Too impatient to wait for the Florida Courts, Legislature or even the Bar to
act, Radson, starting in April 2009, and May 6, 2010, took control of the system
used by Gainesville, at least since 1993 to allow the public access to most records.
He first persuaded the City Commission to limit the power of the City Clerk to
respond to every request for access, and then got those elected officials without
discussion to adopt a policy making it virtually impossible to know who held what
records. If a member of the public figured that out, he or she might be charged as
much as $39,000+ just for the City to begin a search for the requested information.
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Hillel Asks:
What are the City Attorney/GRU-City Attorney/Mayor Trying to Hide?
In 2006, Mike Kurtz, former GRU Director and one of six City Charter
Officers, resigned under pressure. A majority of the City Commission granted him
benefits far beyond the usual severance package. Kurtz was a proponent of a new
coal plant for production of electricity. He was opposed by environmentalists.
Commissioner Ed Braddy, a Kurtz supporter, was absent from the meeting.
Former Mayor Pegeen Hanrahan, beloved by the left including the Nation
magazine, was considered a hero. If not coal, what? If additional fuel source
were not needed immediately, when? By March 2008, answers began to take
shape. The Orrick law firm of San Francisco, New York, and other major cities
accepted on its terms the offer of the GRU attorney--an assistant City attorney--to
take on representation of the City, of GRU, in unspecified matters, in addition to its
long-standing work on bond issues for the utility.
An outsider, Robert Hunzinger, became GRU director and charter officer (a
term he never understood) about the same time. By 2008-09, the City agreed to a
30-year contract with a private corporation to supply biomass as a fuel source to
power electricity over that period. The Gainesville public had reason to believe
there was an opt-out clause, but in a single letter, the potential buyer informed
GRUs Ed Regan that was unacceptable. The Commission approved of the
contract. The Office of the City Attorney redacted so much of the document that
the public could make no sense of it.
Approval of the arrangement was needed from the Florida Public Service
Commission (PSC). In 2010, Mayor Hanrahan assured that body that the
Gainesville City Commission, sitting as the board of directors for GRU, had
approved the agreement. No such board in fact seems to exist.
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on biomass-related fees
www.gatorsports.com/article/20130115/ARTICLES/130119768
Jan 15, 2013 - By Christopher Curry ... GRU paid $924,021 to the law firm Orrick,
Herrington & Sutcliffe for helping with matters involving the biomass power ...
Inspired by Ray Washingtons prodding, I followed up on that report, with public
record requests to show that Orrick was continuing at a pace to equal those charges in
2013. What is more, I found that the Office of the City Attorney was adding other out-ofstate law firms to defend GRU and the City from?
Under Marion Radson, the City for years had paid out hundreds of thousands of
dollars to out-of-town law firms to defend Gainesville against civil rights and other
actions. In one year alone, he was asked to account for $626,000 to a single Miami
law firm for such defense. Mr. Radson often argued that the sums were covered by the
self-insurance program administered by the Citys Risk Management program. Again,
the Sun confounded that report with one story which stated that the City paid as much
as $9 million to maintain its Risk Management layouts to out-of state attorneys.
The out-of-town law firms invariably were white. The only local exception was
the Dell Graham P.A. law firm which originated in 1876, as Reconstruction was coming
to an end. Sam T. Dell was Gainesville City Attorney from 1939-64? By 1999, Dell
Grahams senior partner John Jopling and Mr. Radson worked together not only in law
but in religious practice as well, at the Trinity United Episcopal Church of Gainesville.
Such connections between legal practice and church work apparently are common in
Gainesville, especially when the lawyers and judges are United Methodist members.
The overlap also shows up between lawyers and judges. For instance, Mr.
Jopling in 2014 was proud to note in the local Business Report Monthly that a halfdozen judges in the Alachua County Circuit and County Courts had experience at Dell
Graham. Judge Donna Keim became the seventh when she was appointed to the local
Circuit Court bench this year. Some of the Dell Graham judges also are among the
nine or more who have been trained by the so-called Cotton Fletcher State Attorney
Office in Alachua County, either with Rod Smith, 1982-1992, or Bill Cervone, since then.
When you consider that now retiring U.S. Senior Judge Stephan Mickle is the only
black ever seen in the Circuit Court since the 8th Judicial Circuit was started in 1845, or
in Gainesville, in the U.S. Court for the Northern District of Florida, it becomes
understandable why the assertions made here fall on deaf legal ears locally.
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Have GRU and the City continued to hire for hundreds of thousands of dollars
outside counsel from outside of Gainesville to defend against allegations being
made about the Great Biomass Project? Consider this:
City Payouts to the Best and the Whitest of Private Law Firms, for GRU,
since September 2013.
1. ORRICK, remittance address, Chicago, Ill. GRU
a. Nov. 13, 2013
b. Nov. 11, 2013
c. Nov. 11, 2013
d. Nov. 11, 2013
e. Nov. 11, 2013
f. Nov. 11, 2013
g. Nov. 11, 2013
h. Dec. 5, 2013
i. Jan. 8, 2014
j. Jan. 8, 2014
k. Jan. 11, 2014
l. Feb. 11, 2014
m. Mar. 10, 2014
n. Mar. 10, 2014
o. Apr. 11, 2014
p. Apr. 11, 2014
q. Apr. 11, 2014
r. May 16, 2014
s. May 16, 2014
t. June 13, 2014
u. July 11, 2014
v. Aug.14, 2014
w. Aug.14, 2014
x. Sept. 17,2014
y. Oct. 13, 2014
z. Nov. 13, 2014
aa. Nov. 13, 2014
Total
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42,429.98
1,892.44
3,057.14
3,602.88
2,024.83
986.05
134.13
1,337.01
2,503.07
986.06
411.63
4,203.30
3,734.70
2,892.95
471.76
746.94
1,572.50
4,599.56
1,926.31
49,687.18
73,872.40
38,665.52
4.80
39,673.49
1,408.33
393.13
7,770.04
12,059.40
530.60
1,129.10
565.50
2,502.00
414.00
964.07
775.53
6,762.00
4,145.61
4.140.00
987.00
12,388.74
878.08
10,077.20
258.62
10,115.09
21.099.51
1,293.61
282.00
8,392.19
2,724.40
141.33
2,349.12
3.274.56
2,219.99
4,387.86
32.50
32.50
65.00
130.00
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6,859.00
18,344.30
2,755.00
3,387.40
19,820.96
1,876.70
17,305.39
21,657.60
725.00
Prior Balance
10,177.48
8,232.12
14,484.03
23.810.95
250.00
5,520.50
11,274.50
12.69
970.00
652.50
682.50
456.37
790.00
1,206.25
5.035.21
4,856.85
1,855.00
3,041.50
2,567.50
5.767.00
10,728.11
13,503.00
9,660.39
6,699.33
790.00
57,817.50
12. Holland & Knight, Orlando NOR GRU Pension Plan Compliance Review
a. Sept. 16, 2013
Balance Brought Forward
138.08
b. Sept. 16, 2013
75.00
c. Total
More on the other outside counsel work later, but the following is included, because it illustrates how
Outside Counsel is used to protect public officials and employees, not the public. Gainesville spent
thousands with Baker & Hostetler, because of the long-standing Kopper Superfund pollution site. But
the Citys interest primarily was in the polluted land under the Transit Yard in the neighborhood where
City employees worked.
Baker & Hostetler, Cleveland, OH City Interest in Koppers, because of Employees Transit Yard
a. Nov. 12, 2013
312.00
b. Feb. 27, 2014
2,141.00
c. Mar. 27, 2014
1,098.00
d. Apr. 28, 2014 General Environment
108.60
e. May 21, 2014 AIP Job Corps
390.00
f. June 17, 2014
1,842.00
g. Aug. 28, 2014 General Environment
2,821.00
h. Sept. 20, 2014 General Environment
2,693.00
i. Nov. 26, 2014
663.00
j. Dec. 17, 2014
450.00
Total
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