Manatee County School District moves to cancel security contract

BRADENTON -- Superintendent Rick Mills sent notice Wednesday that the Manatee County School District is terminating its controversial contract with Sarasota Security Patrol to provide security guards in Manatee's elementary schools.

Mills invoked the 30-day cancellation language that was agreed upon by both parties. The effective termination date is Oct. 31, according to the letter.

Bringing the guards into the school district has been a contentious issue since the proposal was announced July 31. Major issues concerning the plan revolve around what some board members and parents called a rushed and flawed request for proposal process. The district was then forced to ask the state attorney general's office whether having private, armed guards on public school campuses is legal. Two officials with Sarasota Security Patrol also have criminal backgrounds.

Last week, a group filed suit against the district alleging a Sunshine Law violation when the proposals were analyzed. With that suit, the district moved to cancel the contract.

In an email sent Wednesday to board members, and later to members of the media, Mills said the cancellation was the result of the lawsuit by Citizens For Sunshine Inc. The nonprofit group claims the evaluation committee, which met Aug. 20 to choose Sarasota Security Patrol, violated the Sunshine Law by not providing prior notice of the meeting.

Mills said advice from district lawyers led him to cancel the contract.

"It was the conclusion of all counsel based upon diligent research, that the technical violation of sunshine law renders the contract void," Mills wrote in his email to the board. "This technical violation cannot be remedied by any subsequent school board measures."

Mills wrote that canceling the contract will help protect

the district and should address the present litigation on behalf of Citizens For Sunshine. The district had no further comment Wednesday.

Andrea Mogensen, the lawyer representing Citizens For Sunshine, said the district's dismissal of the contract doesn't void the fact it violated the Sunshine Law.

"This doesn't obviate the litigation," she said.

Mogensen has not spoken to her clients yet to decide on the best course of action, but said it likely will be a much swifter process.

Michael Barfield, a legal consultant in Mogensen's office, called canceling the contract a "step in the right direction."

Late in September, the school board approved paying Barfield a $21,000 settlement in a separate public records lawsuit. In March 2013, Barfield made a written public records request via email for an unredacted version of a document titled: "School Board of Manatee County, List of Current/Pending Closed Cases."

Barfield asked the school board to explain in writing any exemption it claimed for redactions to the document. On March 28, 2013, the school board provided Barfield the requested record with numerous redactions, according to an appeals court opinion filed April 11.

A court initially ruled for the district in Barfield's suit, but the ruling was overturned on appeal.

When reached just after 4 p.m. Wednesday, Sarasota Security Patrol owner Chad Ritchie said he had not received an email canceling the contract and said he would not comment on the issue.

Board reaction

The school board had approved the guards in a split vote Sept. 23, with Julie Aranibar, Karen Carpenter and Barbara Harvey voting yes on the contract, and Bob Gause and Dave "Watchdog" Miner voting no.

All board members have continually said the safety and security of the district's children is an important priority, but they disagree on the best and most efficient way to provide that security.

On Wednesday, Harvey said she was saddened by the cancellation and said the value of having the guards in the school is "phenomenal." Harvey has been a staunch supporter of having armed guards.

"The rationale for canceling is a complex one," she said. "I'm not sure the cancellation is because of the quality of service being provided, but rather a technicality in the process."

Gause said the superintendent called him Wednesday to let him know he was canceling the contract.

In contract discussions, Gause advocated the district look at other potential ways for providing safety and security to students, including better transportation and classroom doors that lock.

"My position has been we have some other operational needs," Gause said.

Gause said it's too early to tell whether the board will look at re-doing the process to have armed security officers in the schools.

Miner, a vocal critic of the contract from the start, said on Wednesday that he doesn't think canceling the contract negates the lawsuit.

"It's a complicated situation to say the least," Miner said.

Miner said he hoped the district could now take the appropriate steps to have community-wide conversations on how best to provide security and to move forward.

Messages for Aranibar and Carpenter were not immediately returned.

A bevy of issues

The issue of having private, armed guards in the district schools has been divisive within the community and amongst the school board members since it was announced July 31. A request for proposal went out the following week. The contract then appeared on the Aug. 26 board agenda, but was tabled until Sept. 9 at the request of board members.

At least two other companies who were vying for the contract also challenged the process. They contended the request for proposal was specifically designed to help Sarasota Security Patrol curry favor and win the contract, specifically citing that Sarasota Security Patrol included Troy Pumphrey, the district's professional standards investigator, as the contact person for reference on the application.

Board members dismissed those concerns and approved the contract Sept. 9, but then were confronted with whether it is legal to have private, armed officers on public campuses. Asked by the Bradenton Herald about two conflicting state statutes on whether school districts can hire a private security force, district officials did not respond. But on the day before the armed guards were set to start, the district announced that the guards would begin in the schools unarmed until the district received an opinion from the attorney general.

The guards started Sept. 17 in 31 elementary schools and the request was sent to the attorney general's office Sept. 23.

The background of the top two security officials was a source of consternation for community and board members. Chad Ritchie, the president, was arrested in 1996 for impersonating a police officer. The charge cannot be found looking through police records because they were expunged from Ritchie's records after he served probation, but can be found through the legal database LexisNexis. Ritchie was 18 at the time of his arrest.

Ronald Targaszewski, the company's vice president, is a former police officer with the St. Petersburg Police Department, who left his job after he was arrested in July 2009 on a misdemeanor domestic battery charge in Sarasota County.

It's unclear whether he resigned or was dismissed. He entered into a pretrial intervention agreement and in April 2010, the case was dismissed.

The final straw was the Florida nonprofit's Sunshine Law suit against the school district.

"All of these things should have been done before anybody set foot in our elementary schools," Miner said.

Meghin Delaney, education reporter, can be reached at 941-745-708.1 Follow her on Twitter @MeghinDelaney.

This story was originally published October 2, 2014 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Manatee County School District moves to cancel security contract ."