IG: Plantation mayor was hiding records
Broward’s inspector general has concluded that the mayor of one of Broward’s biggest cities broke the law with a range of violations from hiding public records to falsifying campaign finance documents.
Plantation Mayor Lynn S toner could face serious recourse — and potential charges — after a lengthy investigation uncovered numerous violations of open government and campaign finance laws, said the Inspector General’ s Office, which acts as the county’ s top government watchdog.
The inspectors’ 238-page report describes how S toner frequently circumvented Florida’ s Sunshine Law, which allows open access for board meetings and denied public-records requests to City Council members.
Under Florida law, any public officer who “knowingly violates the provisions is subject to suspension and removal or impeachment.”
The mayor in Plantation runs the city instead of a city manager and manages all the departments, from parks and recreation to police and fire. The inspector general accused Stoner of violating Florida Sunshine Laws on three separate occasions. One instance centered around Stone r’ s decision to unilaterally staff two positions and create their job descriptions while keeping the City Council in the dark.
After the report was made public Thursday, Stoner responded to the Inspector General’s Office, saying her due rights were violated because she wasn’t given a chance to answer the allegations. The South Florida Sun Sentinel couldn’t reach Stoner for comment Thursday despite phone calls.
Stoner served on the Plantation City Council from 2011 to 2017 before being elected mayor in 2018.
The inspector general said Stoner also was found to have “engaged in multiple violations of campaign finance law” during her mayoral campaign, including unlawfully overdrawing the campaign account and then making an illegal, post-election loan to cover the overdraft. She later filed false campaign treasurer reports to cover up the overdraft and illegal contribution, according to the inspector general’s report.
The Office of the Inspector General said it has referred the matter to the Broward State Attorney’s Office and Florida Elections Commission for “whatever action those agencies de em appropriate ,” given she had committed“several first-degree misdemeanors .”
A spokeswoman for the Broward State Attorney’s Office said that prosecutors received the report on Thursday and that “prosecutors will review the report and any other relevant information before making a decision on whether any charges should be filed.”
The Florida Elections Commission did not respond to a request for comment.
Duringa council meeting on Jan. 23, 2019, a council member asked for Stone r’ s records regarding the job descriptions, salary ranges and minimum qualifications — a request that falls under public records laws. Stoner initially replied that she would provide the documents. However, she never followed through on the request.
Two weeks later during a meeting, the same council member asked once again for the documents. This time, Stoner quickly shut downthe request.
“Those items will not be provided to you at the next council meeting,” Stoner said, according to thereport. “As far as administrative staff, I am’ strong mayor,’ and I don’t have to provide you with any of that. All directors report directly to me. All directors.
“You don’t get to comment on their staff and how they run their departments. You don’t get to comment on how I run my department.”
Additionally, Stoner was found to have privately held governmental strategy sessions with council members that were closed to the public, the inspector general said.
In an updated version of the inspector’s report Thursday, Stoner said she didn’t violate public records law because the council member “neither used the city’s public records system to request the records, memorialized her request, nor characterized her request as a request for public records.”
According to the report, Stoner’s legal counsel did not allow her to be interviewed by the Office of the Inspector General. The two sides initially scheduled an interview for Aug. 13; however, Stoner’s lawyer requested a postponement on Aug. 12. Twoweeks later, the attorney later said he could not be in the same room as Stoner for any live interview because of COVID-19 restraints.