Former Assistant Key West City Manager Ron Herron wants to be a State Representative. But back in 1992, Herron was involved in a Sunshine Law scandal which should make voters think twice before electing him to any public office.
Herron was a member of the now-infamous Trust For Public Land Advisory Council. That was the committee, hand-picked by then-City Commissioner Jimmy Weekley, that met in secret for months to determine how the City would buy ($18.5 million) and manage the Key West Bight.
That was a violation of the Florida Government-In-The-Sunshine Law. That violation was confirmed by a ruling from the State Attorney General's Office in February 1997. So, you might be thinking, all of those involved were prosecuted, right? Wrong. An impotent Kirk Zuelch, our longtime State Attorney who is running for reelection on a platform of "integrity", refused to take any action. He said that no one on the committee "knowingly" broke the law.
But, he said in a letter to the Key West City Manager dated March 4, 1997, "I would strongly recommend, in the future, that the Key West City Commission follow a course that provides for openness and public input on all issues that effect (sic) our citizens."
As we have seen over the years, that is a typical Zuelch ruling when the alleged perpetrators are "somebody." In this case, the members of the TPL Council included, besides Weekley, some of the most prominent citizens in our town— soon-to-be State Representative Debbie Horan, Conch Train czar Ed Swift, bankers Dan Lee and Harry Wooley, Attorney Bob Feldman and others.
From the beginning, the members of the Council turned away members of the press and the public who wanted to attend those meetings to see how decisions to spend taxpayer money were being made. They were told:
"These meetings are not covered by the Sunshine Law because (1) we're not working for the City, we're working under the auspices of the Trust For Public Land, a private organization. And (2) we're just developing a few recommendations and, at the right time, we'll present these recommendations to the City Commission for consideration. But, at this point, the City is not involved— so you can't attend our meetings."
Not involved? Key West The Newspaper has obtained a series of confidential TPL documents that show that not only was City Planner Ted Strader and City Attorney Ginny Stones involved with the TPL Advisory Council from the very beginning, Assistant City Manager Ron Herron was a full-fleged member of the Council with the title "City Project Manager." He also served on the Council's finance and marina design committees.
Throughout the process, and afterward, members of the TPL Council swore that they were not making decisions for the City. But when a recommendation developed calling for— once the City assumed ownership of the Bight— City takeover of privately-owned marina and marine fuel businesses around the Bight, it was Assistant City Manager Herron who met with Paul Worthington to break the news. Worthington was the owner of one of several marina and fuel businesses around the Bight.
We asked Herron why he would presume to do that before such a recommendation had even been brought before the City Commission. He said that he and others on the Council just assumed that the City Commission would approve their recommendations.
Because the proceedings of the TPL Council meetings were secret, the fact that several private businesses around the Bight would be taken over by the City remained a secret even after the recommendations had been forwarded to the City Commission.
The public resolution approved by the City Commission before the referendum even promised that all existing tenants around the Bight would have, under City ownership, the right to negotiate for new longterm leases. There were no publicly stated exceptions to this promise.
Can understand why the TPL Council and the City Commission wanted to keep their "takeover" plans secret until after the referendum? What if the voters had known that voting "yes" to allow the City to buy the Bight might mean that several of the entrepreneurs around the Bight— entrepreneurs who had helped convert the Bight area from one of the roughest parts of town— might lose their businesses to the City? That could have spelled failure for the referendum.
When Paul Worthington threatened to blow the whistle on this lie a few weeks before the referendum in 1992, TPL executive Rand Wentworth compounded the lie. He wrote Worthington a letter reassuring him that "we fully support your right to negotiate a longterm lease for your business . . . and in exchange for this commitment, we would like to ask that you actively campaign in favor of the referendum." He asked Worthington to sign the letter and return it, like a contract.
Worthington agreed to the deal. He ran a full-page ad in the Key West Citizen, picturing a blowup of the Wentworth letter, and supporting the passage of the rferendum.
Immediately after the voters approved the referendum to buy the Bight, however, Wentworth, the TPL Council and the City Commission all reneged on their public promise. The City took over the marina and fuel businesses around the Bight.
Ron Herron was a knowing and willing party to this deceit. He should not be rewarded with a seat in the State Legislature.