Daily News' food columnist named Naples' historian

Doris Reynolds, a 54-year Naples resident, has been named the city’s historian.

City Council last week unanimously approved the controversial volunteer appointment of Reynolds, a Naples Daily News food columnist, despite objections from the city clerk and a local watchdog.

Reynolds’ duties will include: helping plan historical celebrations; cooperating with and dispensing historical information to civic organizations, the media and school officials; maintaining historical and photo archives; encouraging clubs and schools to provide historical programs; writing articles in the media about Naples’ history; and making public speeches. She also will contact residents who may have historical documents and photographs and urge them to contribute them to the historical archives.

Reynolds, whose books include “When Peacocks Were Roasted and Mullet Was Fried,” joked to council last week that she was taking the job for the Rolls-Royce and new office city officials planned to build for her.

After the appointment was brought up at the June 5 council workshop, City Clerk Tara Norman wrote a memo to Mayor Bill Barnett saying she wasn’t aware he’d recommended that council create the new post and cited her concerns. Among them were that Reynolds’ duties appeared to involve four under Norman’s office, including maintaining official city documents and providing information to the public.

“I am concerned that members of the public may be confused that they could contact a city historian for official records over which that individual would have no control pursuant to Chapter 119, Florida Statutes,” Norman wrote in her memo, citing the state’s public records law.

At the June 7 council meeting, City Attorney Bob Pritt noted Norman’s concerns and recommended that the resolution specify that the volunteer position and archives were not a substitute for city records, which are kept with the city clerk.

The 80-year-old Reynolds gained notoriety last year when a jury awarded her $218,442 after she’d sued her spiritual adviser for taking advantage of her by reaping more than $2.8 million in the more than four years Reynolds sought her advice — often for 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

The adviser, Angela Passidomo Trafford, who also had worked as a Daily News features columnist, had charged her $380 an hour. Reynolds’ attorney, George Vega, had argued that Reynolds suffered from severe depression caused by a chemical imbalance in her brain, making her susceptible and dependent upon Trafford. Jurors found Trafford was unjustly enriched by Reynolds.

Last Wednesday, city watchdog Sue Smith, who noted she’d lived here nearly as long as Reynolds, told council she was concerned that one person was getting an official designation. “You’re speaking for the entire city,” she said of a historian, noting she wasn’t talking personally against Reynolds, but that Reynolds’ memories might differ from those of other residents. “They are that, her memories.”

Just seconds after Smith left the podium, council voted unanimously to create the new post and give it to Reynolds.