Home › Island News › Local News
Marco council’s closed-door consensus raises questions
STORY TOOLS
Tell us about it
- What would you add to this story? Tell us what we missed.
- Do you have photos from this event? Documents we need to see? Share with us.
- Upload photos & videos
- More ways to get your stuff online and in the paper.
More Local News
- Marco Island to keep City Manager
- Bryan Milk named City of Marco Island Parks and Recreation Director
- Merchants pulling out all the stops to encourage Islanders to shop local
Share and Enjoy [?]
Marco Island’s seven city council members, City Manager Bill Moss and attorneys Alan Gabriel and Dan Abbott left a backroom behind the council chambers Monday afternoon with a decision to appeal a recent Collier County Court ruling declaring Marco’s boat anchoring ordinance unconstitutional.
Council Chairman Mike Minozzi pronounced the result once everyone had settled in his seat for the city’s regularly scheduled open meeting.
“Before we get started with the meeting, I would like to comment on the closed session that we had,” Minozzi said. “It is the consensus belief of the Marco Island City Council that the city continue its efforts to defend its anchoring ordinance through appeal if necessary. And so the attorney-client session is now terminated.”
And that was the last mention of the decision, save Gabriel requesting another closed council session on the matter next month.
When told how it all went down Barbara Peterson, president of the First Amendment Foundation, a state open-government organization supported by the media including the Daily News, had a thought.
“That sounds like Zorc,” she said.
Zorc’s not some alien slang term, but rather shorthand for a 1998 Florida Court of Appeals ruling where the City of Vero Beach was found to have violated the Sunshine Law for taking “decisive action” in a closed council session.
So did Minozzi’s pronouncement mean the council took “decisive action”? Those in the meeting were uncomfortable discussing the matter, they said, because the court case is ongoing. But it seems consensus was reached by more than simply a spontaneous agreement and less than a formal motion.
Council members Rob Popoff and Terri DiSciullo said there was nodding and verbal assent among the council members.
“There was a nod of heads when looking around the room and people saying, ‘Yeah,’” Popoff said.
Minozzi said there was a feeling in the room after everyone had spoken their minds about the opinion of the council.
“Sometimes you can just tell from the discussion what the consensus is,” he said.
Minozzi said at one point he asked if the council had reached a decision.
“I said, ‘Is there a consensus here?’ And then people responded,” Minozzi said, adding that no one said “no” after he asked the question.
That process did not constitute an action, council members and Gabriel, the city attorney, said.
“There was no formal vote,” Gabriel said. “It was like a workshop. People just sat and talked.”
“There wasn’t a vote taken,” Councilman Glenn Tucker echoed. “If there was a vote to take we would have done it in a public meeting. Earlier we had decided to proceed with prosecution. We simply had a consensus not to curtail that.”
When advice turns into decisive action seems to be undefined in the murky nether regions of Florida law. The decision in the case of Frank L. Zorc versus the City of Vero Beach states “there is no bright-line rule” to that effect. In Zorc, the Vero Beach council passed a motion behind closed doors. A decision made by the same court of appeal from Zorc four years later found the City of Dania Beach did not violate the Sunshine Law because discussions in a closed meeting there “clearly had no formal final effect.”
Questions over Marco council’s action on Monday afternoon are the latest in an increasingly tangled web of Sunshine Law issues related to the boat anchoring case. The Daily News formally objected to the meeting even being held at all on Monday. Editor Phil Lewis said the meeting went beyond the Florida statutory exemption to the Sunshine Law which limits closed-door sessions to settlement negotiations or strategy sessions related to litigation expenditures.
What makes this case different from others, Petersen and Lewis said, is that it involves the city attorney prosecuting a criminal violation, not a civil situation.
That makes verbatim transcripts from the meetings vital to determine Sunshine Law compliance, Petersen said. Gabriel has denied a Daily News request for transcripts from two prior closed meetings in the case, saying the litigation is ongoing.
“There’s a huge can of worms here,” Petersen said. “It’s very complicated. It really will depend on what’s in the transcripts.”
Comments
This site does not necessarily agree with comments posted below — responsibility lies with the relevant reader alone. Read our privacy policy & user agreement.
worms???? there's more than worms here...snakes seems more like it...spend the last dime you can bill..waste more money...you cannot beat Boat US atty's and the rest of the boating world....oh yea....we are an island...surrounded by navigable waters...if you don't like it, build your house at the end of the canal...or in naples.
#1 Posted by van on November 8, 2007 at 11:20 p.m. (Suggest removal)
The people of Marco Island are being asked to spend more of their money for the sake of principal. Notwithstanding the backroom politics and nodding of heads (as though affirmitive gestures somehow do not constitute a vote), our City looses again. What this attorney and ILOVEMARCO fails to understand is that this issue is not about principal or the right to privacy. It is about the right of Marco Island to pass laws that are contrary to those of the United States. Forget Florida and it's concerns, this nodding of heads will eventually result in Marco Island paying for the judicial validation of boaters rights throughout the United States. When all the smoke settles, those who "consented" to keep fighting this battle (with money other than their own) will learn that Marco Island exists within a greater community. A community whose interests are all inclusive and whose laws protect the rights of the minority boat owners. The right of free navigation of our nation's waterways has been challenged before. Navigating U.S. waterways, is one right that the U.S. Supreme Court will not dispose of lightly. Certainly not because a small group of wealthy citizens on Marco Island believe that is the solution to their privacy issues.
#2 Posted by Hawke1 on November 9, 2007 at 6:38 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Vessels did not and can not anchor in 100 ft. wide canals. They anchor in areas like Factory Bay and Smokehouse Bay whose existence precede the development of Marco Is. These bays have approved navigational markers in them and are indeed sovereign state navigable waters. There has never been polution in Marco's waters proved to be from anchored vessels. The ciy's own water quality tests show low levels of contaminants that actually peaked in the summer months when no vessels are anchored. We now know that the waste refuse reported by the Marco Waterways Org. co-chairman who lives on Factory Bay could have come from a sewer line break near Pier 81 or the Port Marco septic tanks that lacked a drain field.
The mooring field in Ft Myers Beach is not being maintained and the buildup of marine growth on the mooring lines there makes using them hazardous. Marco has never had enough anchored vessels to justify a mooring field unless it were used for long term storage of vessels for inland lot boat owners. Thats why the mooring field proposal died earlier. Also, the state's concept of mooring fields are that they are designed to ATTRACT vessels to use them in heavily used anchorages . If Marco wants to spend big bucks on maintenance of mooring fields, let them do so. But the rules in the mooring field can not be like the defunct anchoring ordinance otherwise vessels will not use them. Factory and Smokehouse Bay and a few other natural small anchorages in Marco are NOT, "your bay, your canal, your beach or your backyard". As the court said, they are "sovereign waters of the state of Florida". If a realtor told anybody otherwise when they purchased waterfront property, they should sue the realtor.
#3 Posted by maharg on November 9, 2007 at 7:39 a.m. (Suggest removal)
GatorHater - The boundary of properties in question extend to their seawall. This is no different then someone with a public park in their backyard and then trying to chase people away who are using the park.
You are absolutely right.
I just wish people would stop with this previously imbedded concept by this irresponsible Waterway Organization, that boats will be anchoring over night in 100ft. wide canals. This is really ridiculous.
#4 Posted by blondie on November 9, 2007 at 8:53 a.m. (Suggest removal)
i agree with what maharg says...the bridges protect most of marco from the anchoring of large boats...the bays and river ARE state waters and not marco's to protect.
#5 Posted by van on November 9, 2007 at 8:54 a.m. (Suggest removal)
I have to agree with Gator. I don't think anyone is going to drop anchor in a canal when they could do so in one of the many bays or in the Marco river where permitted. We have a noise ordinance and floating police. If a boat gets out of control and is disturbing the peace, I am sure the police will be involved. This seems like a waste of money.
#6 Posted by tptcolumbusway on November 9, 2007 at 8:56 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Great discussion.
Very few in transit would want to anchor in a canal...no room to maneuver, too much risk of a wind shift causing a boat to damage itself or another boat, time to get off big water and back on...etc.
On the other hand tying off in a canal for a day or two has brought protection against hurricanes to a lot of boats over the years.
Marco's law overdid it. I heard the new approach will be for cities to unite and reapproach the State legislature...which is a more sane approach.
As you know...the mullet fishermen are free to fish the open waters around Marco...but they are not free to net fish in the canals. I live here and I think canals are different than Bays, like Van said. The way I see it is if we would have focused on the canal issue we probably would not have had a protest, but the 300 ft, mandatory pump out and 3 day issue was over the top. There has got to be a way to deal with poachers and derelicts that does not interfere with the free movement of mariners coming, visiting and going at will.
I don't want to appear elitist, I am not, but the type of people that go out and spend a couple hundred thousand to a million dollars on a boat so that they can see the country and the islands, or the Great Lakes, or Puget Sound or the other great waterways of this country are desirable to local communities, both for the temporary business they bring but also after they transition from their mariner lifestyle and there are communities that have tapped into this market to their great benefit. On this I speak with personal expertise.
Right now, the Okachobie (SP sorry) waterway is all but closed because of low water. Yachts moving from one side of Florida to the other have to go right past Marco Island through the Keys and up the other side or on their way to the Bahama's or East Indies. If we had not appeared so alien to travelers our Marinas would be full, the trolleys would be more active and our restaurants and shops busier as these people on their way from Chicago and the Midwest are on the move in late October and November and again in late April and May...not exactly prime time for our merchants.
Get this ordinance situation right and it provides an opportunity to show off our piece of paradise and also produce a little revenue for our merchannts and purveyors of services...and an opportunity to turn some of them into real estate customers.
#7 Posted by captnjimbo on November 9, 2007 at 10:48 a.m. (Suggest removal)
The issue of a legislative/executive body (city council) meeting in private to discuss with a prosecutor (the city attorney) the prosecution of a criminal case(second degree misdemeanor) against an individual is, in itself, unprecedented! Does the Florida Legislature meet secretly with State's Attorneys to discuss prosecution of state statutes? I think not! When the transcripts of these secret meetings are eventually made public, I think we will see that the city council has managed to flip itself out of the frying pan and into the fire. The sunshine law only allows private meetings under narrow guidlines that these meetings do not appear to meet. It will be interesting to see how "verbatim" these trancripts will be.
#8 Posted by maharg on November 9, 2007 at 1:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
It's an interesting government who doesn't take "action" by "nodding", not "voting", saying "yeah", not saying "no", and having a "feeling"--"you can just tell". I guess the meeting will have "-no formal final effect". Is anybody getting a clue why there is "trouble in River (Marco) City"?
#9 Posted by maharg on November 9, 2007 at 3:29 p.m. (Suggest removal)
More money down the rat hole.....
#10 Posted by sunnycity on November 10, 2007 at 5:40 a.m. (Suggest removal)
Post your comment
(Requires free registration.)