A late-night Fort Lauderdale political ambush stirs suspicions

It was an ambush on Andrews Avenue. A late-night meeting at Fort Lauderdale City Hall turned explosive as Mayor Dean Trantalis and two commissioners fired John Herbst, the city’s long-time auditor, supposedly because he was investigating Police Chief Larry Scirotto without first clearing it with his commission bosses.

The new chief moonlights as a top-tier college basketball referee, working Big 10 Conference games in the Midwest with the approval of the city manager. The auditor got an anonymous tip that the chief worked games without taking vacation time, which could violate the city policy against working off-duty details on taxpayers’ time. (A police sergeant was recently accused of that and was charged with three counts of grand theft and placed on leave.)

What went down at City Hall the night of Feb. 15 should offend every city resident.

It undermined the independence of a fiscal watchdog. It happened at 10:45 p.m. and was not on the agenda, so the public had no notice — which is why we call it an ambush. Vice Mayor Heather Moraitis had left for home, thinking the day’s business was over. The city attorney had to warn that a motion to fire Herbst was out of order unless the mayor ended a conference discussion and re-opened a formal meeting.

“Whatever you’re doing needs to stop,” Trantalis lectured Herbst. “You stepped out of your lane.”

Political interference

The auditor didn’t need the mayor’s permission to investigate anyone. In fact, any interference by City Hall taints the auditor’s work. The action by the mayor and commissioners Steve Glassman and Ben Sorensen, who cast the third vote, raises a question of whether they may have impeded an active investigation, depending on what turns up.

Auditors are not popular. Their job is to root out waste, fraud and abuse. They look over other people’s shoulders, especially city employees.

Herbst was doing his job. He should not be vilified for chasing down these tips.

We recommend that Trantalis and his colleagues re-read the city charter. It gives the auditor authority to “have free and unrestricted access to government employees, officials, records, and reports; and where appropriate, require all branches, departments and officials of city government to produce documents, files and other records.”

Herbst reports to the mayor and four commissioners, but he works for taxpayers. He’s paid handsomely, too, at $273,000 a year.

The auditor must do his job without fear or favor and without political meddling, as Herbst did in a case in which a parks employee was caught using his city-issued charge card to buy city property and pawn it for cash. The employee went to prison and lost his city pension. The auditor also looked into an allegation of nepotism by a former interim police chief and found no wrongdoing. City Hall didn’t say a peep either time.

In the police chief ’s case, Herbst briefed City Manager Chris Lagerbloom and City

Attorney Alain Boileau, so both men were aware of it. But neither one acknowledged it during the Feb. 15 discussion.

Stepped on too many toes

There’s more than meets the eye here. After 16 years on the job, Herbst talked openly about retiring at the end of the year and had stepped on powerful toes once too often. He hired outside auditors to investigate how $1 million in unauthorized park repair got done in the upscale Rio Vista neighborhood after sewer lines ruptured. The report pointed squarely at Sorensen.

Herbst also antagonized Glassman by raising obvious financial questions about the terms of developer Jeff John’s proposed concert venue and food pavilion at a downtown site known as One Stop Shop.

Hours before Herbst got fired, Glassman railed against the auditor at a workshop, blasting an analysis of the One Stop Shop project by the Ernst & Young accounting firm. The project is highly controversial among residents of nearby Flagler Village, and Glassman is the project’s biggest advocate.

Herbst chose Ernst & Young, which has done extensive work for the city, with commission approval. The report was filled with gaps that were due to a project in so much flux, Herbst said, that “We’re on quicksand ... We don’t even know the size of the building.”

Glaring at Glassman, Herbst dared his bosses to remove him, saying: “If you don’t have confidence in my work, there’s a course of action.”

In an interview, Trantalis said both sides were ready to part ways “a long time ago.” That seems odd, considering that Herbst got a 3% pay raise during a perfunctory job review in September.

‘Elements’ at police headquarters

The mayor accuses Herbst of being “manipulated” by forces that opposed the hiring of Scirotto, the city’s first gay chief of police.

“There are elements within the police department that engaged the auditor to undermine the authority of our police chief because of his sexual orientation,” Trantalis told the Sun Sentinel Editorial Board. “This was an attempt to discredit the police chief.”

This is how a climate of fear takes hold in a community, as politicians with their own agendas try to muzzle a watchdog who’s looking out for taxpayers. We have no doubt that if the facts exonerate Chief Scirotto, the auditor would happily do it.

The vote to fire Herbst was 3-1, with Commissioner Robert McKinzie voting no and Moraitis absent. Under Herbst’s employment contract, he’s entitled to a 60-day written notice. But with the auditor out the door, who’s minding the store? The answer is nobody. That should concern everybody.

The Sun Sentinel Editorial Board consists of Editorial Page Editor Steve Bousquet, Deputy Editorial Page Editor Dan Sweeney, and Editor-in-Chief Julie Anderson. Editorials are the opinion of the Board and written by one of its members or a designee. To contact us, email at letters@sun-sentinel.com.

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