Howey-in-the-Hills in political turmoil
Tensions mount in the scenic town after councilman’s $1M demand
Ginger Scott-Slater moved to this tiny town about three years ago, captivated by its scenic setting amid rolling hills, oak trees dripping with Spanish moss and old Florida homes.
“It’s just a quiet and quaint town where I would see people walking their dogs or parents pushing their strollers along the lake and everyone says hello,” she said.
But now Scott-Slater and other residents are trying to make sense of the political drama that has engulfed the Lake County community of 1,600 residents about 35 miles northwest of Orlando.
Tensions erupted after councilman Matt McGill sent a letter to the town demanding $1 million to settle his claims that Howey has caused him economic and emotional harm and violated his civil rights, including that he was unfairly treated by code enforcement staff and that the mayor has repeatedly cut him off while speaking at town meetings.
The squabble has so riled and divided the town’s residents that it led one Town Council member to utter “Up yours!” to McGill while walking out of a meeting. And two
competing Facebook sites only allow members depending on whether they oppose or support McGill.
Now a group of residents in Central Florida’s smallest town have launched a recall petition drive against McGill, who has been locked in a feud with the police chief ever since he was elected in November 2018.
“This is just all so bizarre,” said Scott-Slater, who said she was booted off a Facebook site after posting a comment that seemed to contradict McGill. “I’m hearing just the craziest things.”
Two of McGill’s supporters also have sent letters to the town threatening to sue Howey if they also each don’t receive $1 million for having their rights violated. Howey’s annual budget is about $1.5 million.
By Florida law anyone wanting to sue a municipality claiming negligence must give six months notice, and McGill and his two friends filed their intend-to-sue letters on Nov. 27.
‘I’m the villain’
McGill, 49, referred questions about the letter and proposed lawsuit to his attorney. But he said he’s being portrayed as the bad guy for asking tough questions about the city’s finances, particularly about the high cost of Howey’s Police Department.
“Unfortunately, I’m the villain,” McGill said. “From the day that I was elected, I was portrayed as the villain. People came up to me and said, ‘We don’t like you.’”
McGill — a former police officer for Clinton Township, N.J., who also has worked as a model and television actor — points out that Howey has the highest property tax rate among all Central Florida cities and counties. In large part it’s because of mismanagement and excessive spending at the Police Department, he said.
Howey’s police budget is about $664,994 a year and has five full-time officers, a school resource officer and a police chief, McGill said. Nearby Astatula’s Police Department, with nearly 2,000 residents, manages to have six full time officers and a K-9 unit in its police department on a roughly $584,000 budget, according to McGill.
“The police budget has to be cut,” said McGill, adding that he proposed $75,000 worth of cuts that included freezing an open lieutenant’s position and giving officers a raise, while slightly lowering the tax rate.
“There’s a way to make this work and give residents a little tax relief,” McGill said. “But they [town council members] turned it down. They won’t even entertain it. Why do they do that? I honestly have no idea…If a neighboring town can do it for $580,000, why can’t we do it?”
Comparing police departments
Police Chief Rick Thomas referred questions about the department — including its current budget, the number of officers and purchase of new vehicles — to Mayor Martha MacFarlane.
“I would love the opportunity to answer any questions,” Thomas said in an email to the Sentinel. “However, due to the current litigious situation, I will need approval [from the mayor] to do so.”
MacFarlane shot back that Astatula and Howey are two different communities.
“He’s not comparing apples to apples,” she said about McGill’s criticism of the two police departments. “I don’t believe that they [Astatula] have the same high level of service that we have…. We have a town that relies on a very good Police Department. And we have that good Police Department because we value our community. And it’s an investment in Howey, and we’re willing to make that investment.”
MacFarlane added that Howey’s and Astatula’s police budgets are calculated differently.
McGill’s fellow council member John Scott, a retired Orange County deputy sheriff, agrees with McGill about the Police Department’s expenditures at the expense of other needed improvements in the town, including repairing the boardwalks at Sara Maude Mason Nature Preserve on the west shore of Little Lake Harris that were damaged by Hurricane Irma in 2017.
He added that the town has neglected building sidewalks on the city’s west side, or west of State Road 19, which cuts through the center of Howey.
“The Police Chief said he wants new cars every year,” Scott said. “Then he started talking about how he needed a K-9 unit and then body cameras and new radios….And it’s political suicide to go against the chief….Matt [McGill] could bring up the cure for cancer [to a council meeting] and they would vote it down.”
‘I’m done with it’
But MacFarlane pointed out that the city’s west side has a recently refurbished park and is the site of the library.
“They [west side] don’t have sidewalks because the homes were built without sidewalks,” she said. And the sidewalks along Little Lake Harris were built with grant money.
MacFarlane added: “The main reason that our taxes are so high is because we incurred a lot of debt before the recession because of infrastructure improvements we made” for planned future growth. The town currently owes $1.5 million for those improvements, she said.
“We’re just now kind of climbing out of the hole and getting to a place where we can scrutinize our expenses,” she said. “We are very conscious that we have the highest millage [tax] rate and that we need to lower it.”
Scott, 53, who was first elected to a four-year term in 2016, said he won’t run for reelection this year because of the amount of anger directed toward him because he often sides with McGill.
“I’m done with it,” he said. “This was a big eye opener for me, I’ll tell you that.”
In September, McGill asked the Lake County Sheriff’s Office how much it would cost to provide law enforcement services to Howey, thereby replacing the town’s Police Department. Sheriff’s officials responded that the town council would have to approve such a request, not just McGill.
But McGill and Scott said they have no desire to dissolve the police department, agreeing residents get better protection with local officers rather than having one or two deputies who could be called to other areas of Lake County and leave their town “wide open” for crime.
“My position is to get the police department under control and to get the police chief to be an officer and not a politician,” McGill said.
‘They won’t let me talk’
His supporters also have asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Thomas. They accuse the chief of lying, abusing residents and employees and interfering with elections.
But Thomas has denied the accusations, calling them lies. And FDLE agents have declined to open investigations three times based on McGill’s accusations.
McGill’s proposed lawsuit accuses the town of violating his First, Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights that guarantee freedom of speech and privacy and preventing the government depriving a person of life, liberty or property without due process of law.
In reference to one of those rights, McGill says he often brings up issues for discussion at council meetings but often gets rebuffed.
“When I go to talk about something, they won’t let me talk about it,” he said. “They won’t even put it on the agenda.”
But MacFarlane, who runs the meetings as mayor, said McGill often brings up personal items that are not official business, including his gripes against the Police Department, code enforcement and staff.
“He brings up issues that are not town business,” MacFarlane said. “If it’s a legitimate item, then he is given the floor. But if it’s an item that we’ve previously addressed, I’ll tell him: ‘We’ve already addressed that.’”
McGill adds that the town selectively enforces the city codes. That was sparked after McGill was cited with a code violation for not having his RV behind a fence in his yard. But he pointed out that other homeowners also have RVs, trailers and boats parked in the open without receiving citations.
Even so, some Howey residents have had enough of McGill and started a petition drive to oust him out of office through a recall effort.
A committee has been set up to gather certain number of signatures based on the percentage of voters. After that ongoing process is completed, a judge would have to verify the signatures and set a date for an election. Committee members said they hope to have the recall question on the March 17 ballot during the presidential preference primary.
‘This is just too much’
Meanwhile, Scott-Slater and other residents are trying to figure out what’s happened to their peaceful hometown, which was founded by two-time Florida governor candidate William J. Howey and incorporated in 1925. The town is home to the Howey mansion, which was built in 1925. Two Orlando brothers purchased the mansion, which had fallen into disrepair for a decade, in 2017 and restored it into a wedding venue.
These days, McGill is mentioned as much as the mansion around town.
“Matt McGill tells the town how he can make the town better while filing a letter of intent to sue the town along with two of his friends, each demanding $1 million,” said resident Dan Powers, who runs the Facebook page “Howey-in-the-Hills Unedited,” which often posts comments against McGill.
Powers made the comments at a recent city meeting held in Tavares. It was an unusual location because city staff planned for a larger crowd that Howey’s small Town Hall couldn’t accommodate.
Because McGill and Scott refused to attend, and a third council member was absent because of health issues, MacFarlane was left without a quorum and held a community meeting instead.
“Everyone just seems really quite upset about all of this,” said Scott-Slater, 53. “I usually don’t get involved in local politics, but this is just too much. It’s just bizarre.”