Former Mayor Holic writes a 14 page letter about the disrespectful manner that Venice Mayor Fenisod is running meetings, from rants to disrespecting his fellow council members to hateful comments on social media

Former Mayor Holic writes a 14 page letter about the disrespectful manner that Venice Mayor Fenisod is running meetings, from rants to disrespecting his fellow council members to hateful comments on social media

Dear Councilmembers,

I have attached a letter that I had hoped never to write. I am sorry to say that the council meetings have degenerated to a point that future meetings may be almost meaningless through abuse. One of the only ways to change this is to use point of order regularly and boldly until the meetings are run fairly to not only councilmembers, but to the citizens of the City of Venice. If you are not recognized for your point of order, please solicit the help of the City Attorney and / or the City Clerk or City Manager.

Respectfully,

John Holic

*******************

John Holic

City Council, via email

Dear Councilmembers,

I apologize in advance for the length of this letter, but more importantly for having to write this letter at all as for the last eight months I have tried to work with various staff members to resolve many of the issues that will be mentioned herein. Unfortunately, they have not been resolved and communicating from the outside, especially during this pandemic, is very difficult to say the least. My fear is that without quick resolution by council to the issues I will mention in this letter, the efficacy, trust, and honor of government in the City of Venice may be diminished for years to come.

It is expected that a new mayor will have a learning curve and that meetings may be difficult to run for a few months after taking office, however, almost nine months into the term, the situations not only have not improved, they have gotten worse. I will outline several critical errors that have occurred, and if not corrected, could well reduce the ability of council to function as a collegiate body of equals in the future. I will mainly focus on three sections of the City of Venice Charter as copied below and public records retention. As I am sure you are aware, the Charter is the highest form of regulations within the city and is the only set of regulations that has the vote of the citizens through adoption and requires approval of the voters to make a change.  This difference is extremely important in this instance as council may interpret sections of the Charter, but council cannot amend or ignore the Charter.

Charter

Sec. 2-72. – Robert’s Rules of Order to govern.

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Except as otherwise provided by the Charter and this Code, the conduct of business of the city council shall be governed by Robert’s Rules of Order (latest edition).

(Code 1982, § 2-31(1.01); Ord. No. 2014-02, § 2, 1-28-14)

Sec. 2-74. – Special meetings.

(a) Generally. A special meeting of city council may be called by the mayor, or in his absence by the vice-mayor, or by any four members of the council, upon 24 hours’ notice in writing, signed by the persons calling the meeting and stating the date and hour of the meeting and the purpose thereof; and no business shall be transacted thereat except such as is stated in such notice. Every notice of a special meeting shall be prepared by the city clerk and posted at City Hall in a prominent place. The city clerk or his designee shall notify each member of the council by telephone and/or email.

(b) Emergency meetings. Whenever an emergency exists which requires immediate action by city council, a special meeting may be called at any time, as provided for in subsection (a) of this section, by notifying the city clerk, who shall cause a meeting to be called on short notice for the emergency purpose and for that purpose only. If, after exercising due diligence, the city clerk is unable to give notice of such emergency meeting to the mayor and each councilmember, such failure shall not affect the legality of the meeting if a quorum is in attendance. A written waiver of notice of the time and purpose thereof, signed by all members present, shall be made a part of the official record of the meeting.

Sec. 2-75. – Presiding officer; voting; motions and debate; preservation of order.

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• Presiding officer; voting.The mayor shall moderate and chair all meetings of city council. In the absence of the mayor, the vice-mayor will assume the duties of the chair. In the absence of both the mayor and vice-mayor, city council shall elect a chair from those present; such substitution shall not continue beyond adjournment. The chair shall state all questions submitted for a vote and announce the result. A roll call vote shall be taken upon the request of any member and on first and final reading of all ordinances and resolutions.
• Motions and debate.
• While city council is in session, members are expected to preserve order and decorum; and a member shall not, by conversation or otherwise, delay or interrupt the proceedings or the peace of city council, or disturb any member while speaking, or refuse to obey the orders of city council or its presiding officer. When addressing the assembly, councilmembers shall address one another by official titles thus: “Mr. Mayor,” “Mr. Jones” or “Councilmember Jones.”

(2) In debate, each member has the right to speak twice on the same question on the same day and may speak to the question again only if he has not used up his allotted ten minutes. A councilmember who has spoken twice on a particular question on the same day has exhausted his right to debate that question for that day, without the permission of the majority of city council. Without the permission of city council, no one may speak longer than ten minutes on a particular question. The motion to move the question shall not be entertained until each member present has had at least one opportunity to speak.

• Preservation of order.The chair shall preserve order and decorum; prevent attacks on personalities or the impugning of member’s motives and confine members in debate to the question under discussion. He may call to order any person who is being disorderly by speaking or otherwise disrupting the proceedings, by failing to be germane, by speaking longer than the allotted time or by speaking vulgarities. The chair shall determine all points of order, subject to the right of any member to appeal to city council. If any appeal is taken, the question shall be, “Shall the decision of the chair be sustained?”

Let’s look first at 2-72 – Robert’s Rules of Order to Govern.  I am only going to list a few of the more egregious offenses of not following Robert’s Rules and will be the first to say that the Rules are complex and probably no one follows all of them all of the time, however, these offenses are extremely detrimental to running a fair and balanced meeting and are some of the most basic rules. I will only go as far back as the July 14, 2020 meeting as by that point, the current council had been in force for approximately eight months.

At the July 14, 2020 meeting at approximately 3:29:55 into the meeting, Dr. Joe Neunder rose to a point of order during a protracted explanation by the mayor of his participation in an event at Blalock Park and subsequent encounter with the Venice Police Department during a traffic stop. The mayor refused to recognize Dr. Neunder and in fact used the phrase “This is MY Time” and over spoke Dr. Neunder. Dr. Neunder never got to present his point of order as, when the mayor finished his diatribe, he abruptly concluded the meeting with “This meeting is adjourned!”

There are multiple problems with this portion of the meeting and if not corrected by council, the council will set a precedent by letting the mayor completely disregard Robert’s Rules and run rough shod over city council.

The first problem is that the mayor should have recognized Dr. Neunder and said, “Dr. Neunder, what is your point of order?” and then, after Dr. Neunder stated his point of order, the mayor may either sustain or override the point. Even if the point was overridden, Dr. Neunder should have had a chance to request an appeal to the override to city council.  A point of order is a priority privileged motion and does not require either recognition by the chair or a second. The importance of the point of order is that it is one of the only defenses a board participant has to correct abusive behavior by the chair or by any other councilmember.

A second problem which occurred only two minutes later (3:32:07) in the same meeting, at the conclusion of the mayor’s rant, he concluded the temper tantrum by abruptly adjourning the meeting and walking away.  I submit to you that a meeting cannot be ended in that manner. There are four ways that I know of to end a meeting according to Roberts Rules of Order:

1. Any council member at any time may make a privileged motion to adjourn the meeting. The council member must be recognized, the motion requires a second and cannot be debated or amended.
2. The meeting proceeds to the end of the agenda and the chair requests a main motion to adjourn. When made in this manner, the motion requires a second, is debatable and can be amended.
3. The meeting proceeds to the end of the agenda and the chair asks if there is any other business. If no councilmember has any further business, the chair may state: “As there is no further business, this meeting is adjourned.”
4. A true emergency occurs such as a fire or tornado and it requires immediate evacuation of the premise. The chair may state; “ due to a tornado warning in our area, this meeting is adjourned and the remaining business will be taken up at a future meeting at a time and place to be determined.” When made in this manner, no main motion or second is needed.

If a meeting adjourns and there is unfinished business and the Charter does not address how this issue is handled, the unfinished business becomes the first order of the next regular meeting. I had to wait for the issuance of the agenda for the next regular meeting to see if that was done.  I asked Ms. Stelzer why she did not stop the mayor from ending the meeting in the way he did and basically, it is not really her job to interject without being asked, same goes for the City Attorney and City Manager.  No one asked. She did quickly check to see if there was anyone signed up to speak so she could keep the rest of council at the meeting if required. Unless the parliamentarian has a way to show the meeting was ended according to Roberts Rules  and since the City Clerk has not already placed the July 14 meeting on the August 25 agenda as the first item, I would respectfully request that a councilmember asks the City Clerk to do so. The minutes for the July 14, 2020 meeting, as attached to the August 25 meeting should indicate that the meeting was improperly adjourned and will be the first item of business on the August 25 meeting. When it comes to any further business in the July 14 meeting, I would think that would be the appropriate time for Dr. Neunder to ask why he was denied the right to rise to a point of order.

The Special Meeting of July 21, 2020 presented a good example of a continually recurring problem. Mr. Cautero made a motion at 32:47 and at the end of the motion, the mayor (33:47) immediately began another lecture about the only way he would be willing to table the topic of this special meeting would be to….  Mr. Cautero had to interrupt the mayor and remind him that a motion was on the table and did not yet have a second. This type of behavior is present in one form or another at almost every meeting as the mayor must think that his opinion is more important than any other councilmember and he has the right to interject any time he wishes. Section 2-75 (a) of the Charter says: “The mayor shall moderate and chair all meetings of city council.” The Charter does not say the mayor shall dictate all meetings and use every opportunity to put forth his agenda and comment after virtually ever councilmember’s turn to debate on the question. The mayor is subject to the same provisions in the Charter as the rest of council and has only two opportunities to speak on the question. If there is a situation that needs clarification such as the difference between an ordinance and a resolution, the proper procedure should have been to ask the City Attorney for the explanation. The City Attorney would have clarified the differences without the prejudice or bias that the mayor regularly exhibits in his commentaries. Incidentally, these two opportunities to debate once the question is laid upon the table is the exact reason a person’s name should accompany the topic on the agenda. The person placing the topic on the agenda should be given the opportunity to explain why the it was placed on the agenda, much like a staff presentation, to present any attached material or any additional material and then, after questions, that person should be the maker of the motion unless it is the mayor. If the mayor wishes to make the motion, he should pass the gavel for the duration of the debate and vote on that question.

At the August 3, 2020 special meeting, Ms. Moore opined on the problem she was having with identifying the differences between the resolution and the ordinance and that the ordinance was as written was not enforceable. Her presentation was after the motion and second and would count as one of her two chances to speak on the question. At the conclusion of her turn to speak, the mayor once again determined it was up to him to clarify what Ms. Moore said and began to explain why an ordinance was needed instead of a resolution. Ms. Moore tried to rise to a point of order (1:41:33) but was prevented from doing so by the mayor yelling over Ms. Moore’s  attempt and in fact declared his own point of order. This was another example of total disregard of Roberts Rules and the Charter by the mayor as he then went on to explain his point of view and why it was correct even though he had already spoken numerous times to the question at that meeting. The mayor did not address Ms. Moore’s point of order, did not rule on it, and just continued to speak to his agenda.

Ms. Moore then asked the mayor if, because he talked on the question so many times, all the other councilmembers would be able to do so as well (1:42:15). The mayor said, “I’m not stopping you” and stated that all could speak as many times as they wished. This is another example of a Charter violation as Sec. 2-75 (b) (2) specifically states “In debate, each member has the right to speak twice on the same question on the same day and may speak to the question again only if he has not used up his allotted ten minutes. A councilmember who has spoken twice on a particular question on the same day has exhausted his right to debate that question for that day, without the permission of the majority of city council.” As the Charter clearly states, it is not the mayor, it is city council that grants permission to speak more than twice or longer than 10 minutes and that permission is granted by majority vote. The mayor is a councilmember and is subject to the same Charter rule, he does not have the right to opine after each councilmember and he too is limited to 10 minutes. A Council Meeting is not a radio talk show and the mayor is not a radio talk show host. The mayor is the moderator and the chair and must maintain that duty or surrender the gavel to someone who can.  Please remember, this is a rule that has been adopted by the Citizens of Venice through referendum and can only change by referendum. The mayor cannot dictate his own rules for council meetings. Council can stop this rude behavior by reminding the mayor of the rules when he tries to break them by rising to a point of order and if council needs backup, that councilmember may ask staff to intervene. Staff is not there to tell anyone that they are breaking rules, but they are there to help interpret the rules when asked to do so and to help correct improper behavior when asked to do so. If council does not take immediate and decisive action to compel the mayor to run meetings according to the rules adopted by the Citizens of Venice, the Charter, council stands to set a precedent that will allow this abusive behavior to be accepted as the norm. If the mayor is truly interested in the city and wishes to run meetings in a non-partisan fair and proper manner, he would take courses or at least study the basics of Roberts Rules of Order and at least read the Charter of The City of Venice. To continue to run the meeting as a dictator instead of moderator is totally unfair to the rest of city council, unfair to staff and slap in the face to the citizens of Venice who have placed, in writing, how a meeting should be run.  Unless otherwise stated in the Charter, the sections as published are shall and must, not should and may sections and no one is above the law.

It was at this same meeting at 1:59::20 when the mayor, talking about calling another special meeting, told the City Clerk  to schedule the meeting as soon as possible, whenever five members could make it and then made reference to two councilmembers not being at the August 3 meeting because “some members chose not to be here.” The mayor made that statement without presenting any proof or offering any backup as to what choices the absent councilmembers had availed themselves of. This is in direct violation of the Charter, Section 2-75 (c) “The chair shall preserve order and decorum, prevent attacks on personalities or the impugning of member’s motives and confine members in debate to the question under discussion.” The mayor did not have the courage to call out a name but did make an insinuation that someone, and there were only two possibilities – Mr. Pachota and Dr. Neunder – didn’t show up so that the ordinance would not have the super majority votes to pass on one reading. I received phone calls, emails and on street questions as to why Dr. Neunder and Mr. Pachota were not at the meeting. I made a call to the City Clerk to make sure my understanding as to their absence was correct. Ms. Stelzer did not have any reasons as to their absence, just the fact that the two could not attend. I took the liberty to contact both councilmembers to find out the reason for missing the meeting:

Mr. Pachota – “As you know, I am actively deployed and have been for over 120 days. I am grateful for the understanding of the residents of Venice for being patient and understanding while I am away. I truly hope they see the value in an elected official from Venice being a part in developing the template and perfecting our response to mitigate death due to this virus. The weekend prior I had been working pretty much 20-hour days preparing for a direct impact from Hurricane Isaias. Then went into preparing for responding members of my team to other impacted areas of the state. Nothing stopped out here, the workload only increased. In addition to state conference calls relating to operations of current missions, I was also working on a variety of other tasks at the time prior to, during, and after the special meeting called by Ron. I feel an obligation to the city and our residents, but I am actively in theatre where over 60% of COVID cases are. I have to remain focused on the safety and welfare of the over 250 people working under me to protect not only the 100,000 + people in the healthcare system but truly any slip up spills over to what the other regions are doing to follow our lead. So, unfortunately, weighing the sacrifice, I opted to stay focused on my missions here instead of stopping everything to get on the mask meeting which truly has far less of an impact on a much smaller population than what I am doing.”

Dr. Neunder: I am a practicing Chiropractic Physician and do not have a retirement check or Social Security to live off and provide for my family. I work long days on Monday, Wednesday and Friday leaving Tuesday and Thursday open for city business. I have informed the City Clerk of this and do have a little flexibility to make changes if sufficient notice is given. This is why it is so important for me to know when meetings like Strategic Planning and the Budget meetings are scheduled so I can attempt to make scheduling adjustments in my practice. Without sufficient time to make changes, I must think first of my family  and patients and provide for them. The meeting on August 3 was the first meeting I was unable to make required scheduling adjustments and had to miss the meeting.

So my question to you Mr. Mayor, who chose not to be there? I was given a posting to Facebook where you made the same insinuation that you made at the meeting, except you used Dr. Neunder’s name:

I do not have a Facebook account, but I am fortunate to have friends that notify me when there is something they think I should be aware of. When the mayor spreads lies such as this on social media, it is no wonder why council meeting are as tense and confrontational as they are and it is no wonder why the mayor wishes to continue to hide behind a virtual meeting rather than to chair the meeting from chambers. It is so much easier to continue to abuse power when you do not have to look another person in the eye but can just get up and answer the door bell or walk the computer to another part of the house to distract from the meeting. I did ask the City Clerk directly what reason Mr. Pachota and Dr. Neunder gave for missing the meeting. The City Clerk did answer my inquiry with an email:

Lori Stelzer <[email protected]>

Thu 8/6/2020 11:39 AM

I had a text from Nick just before the meeting and a verbal from Joe.  I have a document that I note whether they are available or not, but it doesn’t show a reason.

Lori Stelzer, MMC

City Clerk

City of Venice

401 W. Venice Avenue

Venice, FL  34285

941-882-7390

941-303-3486 (cell)

Since the mayors above posting was about city business and the innuendo was that he knew a reason for the absence, my additional question to the City Clerk via a formal Public Records request was:

Public Records Request about 9 hours ago

R000880-081720
Please provide any correspondence related to the August 3, 2020 City Council meeting related to attendance of any and all councilmembers to that meeting’ I understand that if an excuse was made for medical purposes, that portion of the response will be redacted.

Status : Full Release

John Holic

The City Clerk very promptly and very thoroughly provided me with all attendance correspondence for the August 3, 2020 meeting and not surprisingly, the mayor’s above post was not in the city records. I bring this to council’s attention because it will affect all of you if a lawsuit is filed. Ask the City Clerk what council had to go through when a lawsuit was filed as she is the only Charter Officer still employed by the City of Venice that was here for the 2007 through 2009 period where the City of Venice lost a lawsuit for Sunshine Law and for records retention. If memory serves me correctly, the settlement cost to the city was more than $1.4 million and is the reason that all public officials and board members still have to attend a yearly Sunshine Law and Public Records seminar. If the city is sued again, I would guess the cost of settlement might go as high as the 2009 settlement. Please councilmembers, demand that the mayor cease and desist this reckless behavior of posting city business on Facebook or other social media and not providing the City Clerk with a copy of that correspondence. This example of posting city business is not the first time the mayor posted city business on Facebook. I am attaching other examples below and would argue that just because it’s a posting on Facebook doesn’t relieve the requirement for records retention.  A posting on Facebook would be like sending out a group email, it doesn’t have to be addressed to just one person. In my opinion, if he continues this type of behavior, everyone on council can anticipate having their home computers and telephones confiscated for forensics and can anticipate a hefty fine being levied on the city.

These last two are included because the mayor says the rest of council is political and politically motivated. I have not seen a single political Facebook positing by any other councilmember.

I am certain that the City Clerk would not and could not produce these items as correspondence if a request for all correspondence from Mayor Ron Feinsod was received by her.

Although there is much more I could say about these three meetings, I will leave those three meetings now with the plea that you force adherence to the City Charter. No one is above the law and the law and in these cases it is clear and explicit that the mayor thinks he is above the law. It is obvious that the mayor will not follow the law on his own, but I have trust in the rest of council that you will force adherence to the law as voted on by the residents of the City of Venice.

There is one more topic that needs to be addressed and that is of special and emergency meetings. Up until now, special or emergency meetings were only called for topics that had not come up in a regular meeting and needed attention prior to the next scheduled meeting. We are in strange times when a meeting can be called even during a council break and members are expected to attend. In a normal year, most of council would have probably been out of town. The good and the bad of the current Charter, Section 2-74 is that in a  true emergency, the mayor or four members of council may call the meeting. If something urgent came up, the City Manager or City Clerk only needed to explain it to the mayor and a meeting could be scheduled. I had never seen a situation where the mayor abused the special meeting to try and fulfill his own agenda.

What do I mean by this? At the July 14^th meeting council debated the mandatory using of face masks so thoroughly that no one wished to speak any further. I think you may remember I wrote a letter to council and to the Board of County Commissioners in strong support of face masks. The final vote rejected mandatory wearing of masks and I accepted that, you are the council and you determine the direction. The mayor, however, called a special meeting because his agenda was to have the ordinance whatever the cost. And yes, there is cost – cost of time of several staff members, cost of setting up the meeting and cost of documenting the meeting. This is not a topic for a special meeting it is a revisit of a failed motion and should have been brought up at the next regular meeting. Just because the mayor did a poor job of placing and explaining his position does not constitute a basis for a special meeting. Failing to provide substantiating documentation for this item or even providing a memo as to what he wanted left council unprepared for debate.  A special meeting should never be used to carry out an agenda or repair incompetence, the mayor calling a meeting on his own allowed him to try to carry out his agenda. If another on council wished to call that same meeting, it would take four council members to call the meeting  so it could not be just the agenda of a single person.

I have heard talk in council meetings about reviewing the Charter. As convenient as it is for staff with the current Charter, if they need a special meeting, to just talk to one person and establish the meeting, I think the abuse of one person carrying out a personal agenda by calling a meeting may out weigh the good of the convenience. At any rate, if you do selectively review the Charter, I would recommend you review this section. For as long as the city has had a charter, this problem did not exist. Now that you have a person who has no qualms about abusing this section to carry out his own agenda, I think a discussion by council is warranted. Leaving the provision of four council persons in agreement for a special or emergency meeting may be inconvenient for staff but makes using the meeting for personal agendas much more difficult.

Respectfully,

John Holic

Resident, City of Venice