Manatee will likely cover cost as Baugh reaches settlement in public records lawsuit
A final settlement has been reached in the public records lawsuit that Sarasota paralegal Michael Barfield filed against Commissioner Vanessa Baugh.
Barfield added Baugh to a lawsuit that was originally filed against Commissioner James Satcher in December 2020. He alleged that she and other commissioners had taken too long to respond to his request, while officials argued that the delay stemmed from reviewing the documents with county staff and their attorneys.
As part of the settlement agreement, the court ordered Baugh to pay $4,319.82. In May, Barfield reached a similar settlement with Satcher and Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge, who was also named in the suit. Both commissioners were ordered to pay about $3,000 to cover Barfield’s legal fees and court costs.
The Board of County Commissioners unanimously voted to cover those costs commissioners incurred through the settlement, as well as the cost of hiring private attorneys to represent them. Satcher’s and Van Ostenbridge’s legal bills came out to a combined $60,000.
Baugh is also eligible to have her legal fees covered by the county, according to County Attorney Bill Clague. He explained that the county has a responsibility to cover these costs in order to prevent a “chilling effect” on public officials.
“The idea is that if officials are afraid that they will be forced to pay legal expenses personally for doing their jobs, they will be afraid to do their jobs,” Clague said during a May 11 public meeting.
As the board discussed the issue earlier this year, Baugh spoke in support of her fellow commissioners. She urged board members to consider what they might do if they were targeted by a lawsuit.
“All of these commissioners who have gone through this, their reputations have been touched unfairly,” Baugh told the board. “I will vote for this and anyone who doesn’t should be ashamed because one day it’s going to be you.”
Barfield originally submitted his records request in search of any possibly illegal communication between commissioners. He said he suspected that commissioners George Kruse, Satcher, Van Ostenbridge and Baugh had broken Florida’s Sunshine Law in November when they voted to move forward with firing former county administrator Cheri Coryea just two days after they had been sworn in.
The requested text messages, emails and call logs showed that those commissioners had been in touch with one another in the days leading up to the vote, but the content of their conversations over the phone is unknown. In previous interviews, the commissioners maintained that they often called one another as friends to discuss personal matters.
In December, Barfield submitted a complaint to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement alleging a violation of Florida’s public records law, which prevents elected officials on the same board from discussing official business outside of a public meeting. By March, FDLE investigators wrapped up a preliminary investigation that found no evidence of a Sunshine Law violation.
“After the review of records provided by the complainant and conducting several interviews, there was no information obtained to substantiate that a criminal violation occurred,” an FDLE spokesman said.
Over the course of the lawsuit, Barfield cross-examined Baugh about some of the records that had been requested. During that deposition, Baugh admitted that she did not write a mysterious resolution introduced right before commissioners attempted to fire Coryea on Nov. 19. At the time, Baugh claimed that she had authored the resolution, which was meant to provide more “flexibility” for the board.
On at least two separate occasions, commissioners questioned Baugh about the resolution and she maintained that she wrote it alone and without any assistance. But while sworn under oath, Baugh told Barfield that the resolution was written by someone else and hand-delivered to her outside the lobby of the Manatee County Administration Building.
“It’s another one of those situations that calls her integrity into question,” Barfield said, referring to a criminal investigation by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office that concluded that Baugh did not break the law when she ordered county staff to have a certain list of people, including herself, receive the COVID-19 vaccine.
Commissioners have since voted to rescind Baugh’s resolution, which allowed the board — by majority vote — to modify its rules and procedures at any given time.
The board is expected to vote on reimbursing Baugh’s settlement payment and attorney costs after it returns from a summer recess later this year.
This story was originally published July 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
