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The New Smyrna Beach City Commission recently hired an outside attorney to investigate complaints made by city employees over the last few months.
According to the city’s labor and employment attorney Wayne Helsby, who made the request to the City Commission at its Aug. 13 meeting, the “several” complaints come in part from “employees who directly report to the City Commission.”
Therefore, he said, it was his “opinion that the decision of whether to conduct an investigation into these complaints must be made by the City Commission and not the city manager.”
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The names of the employees who brought the complaints forward, as well as their content, “are at this point being kept confidential pursuant to requirements of law,” Helsby said.
The board voted unanimously to hire Vicki Sproat, a lawyer with Fort Myers-based Boy Agnew Potanovic Miller law firm , which specializes in employment law.
Helsby recommended the board hire an outside investigator to, in part, “insulate the city from any contention that the allegations have been ignored or haven’t been taken seriously.”
“It’s my belief that the City Commission has no alternative, in my view, but to authorize an investigation into these allegations,” Helsby added.
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While the content of the complaints could not be discussed at the last meeting because of the need for confidentiality, according to Helsby, city commissioners nonetheless asked how the process will play out.
One of the questions related to how much the investigation would cost the city.
Commissioner Jason McGuirk agreed with the need for an investigation but asked that the city clarify “exactly what we are going to task the investigator with.”
“At $200-300 an hour, I’d also like to move forward in a context that, if we pick somebody, the very first thing is they need to give us an estimate back on what they think the expenses will be.”
Sproat stipulated in a letter to Helsby that she would charge an hourly rate of $275 for her services.
Commissioner Randy Hartman also raised a concern with the investigation’s potential costs.
“I want to know specifically if we’re talking about one, two or three issues,” Hartman said. “I’m cautious about an open-ended, ‘come do an investigation.’”
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Helsby said it would be “confined” to what he said are “three to four, perhaps five, sets of allegations.”
“Having said that, having done these investigations myself, I know that sometimes you get into these investigations and begin asking questions, sometimes tentacles develop, and you have to, in the interest of being thorough, you have to look at some of these things.”
What will the process look like?
Mayor Fred Cleveland inquired about how the process would look, including how long the investigation would take and the scope of the work.
Helsby said that the investigator would begin by interviewing the employees who brought the complaints, followed by more interviews with potential witnesses and those who might otherwise be involved.
“It really depends on just how many people ultimately need to be interviewed,” Helsby said regarding the investigation's duration. “I would think that in this context, you are probably talking about interviewing a number of different people, but hopefully these interviews could take place over the span of two or three days is my best guess.”
His “ballpark guess” on how long until the investigator brings a final report to the City Commission would be “a month, or maybe even longer.”
The mayor then asked about whether the city should cap the total expenses for the investigation, to which Helsby replied that, despite being an option for the City Commission, setting a cost limit “would be awfully difficult” in this situation.
Commissioner Lisa Martin asked if the investigator would be able to determine, after an initial review of the complaints, whether they would require a lengthy or short investigation depending on their nature.
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“It is possible that one or more of these allegations might be looked at by an investigator and be characterized as (Martin) characterized them, perhaps as misunderstandings or personality conflicts, and may not require a lengthy investigation,” Helsby said, pointing out that he is familiar with the content of the complaints.
“I would like to leave the investigator to decide that, but that might happen,” he added.
Cleveland then asked that Helsby give an update to the City Commission “sooner rather than later” after the investigation begins.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: NSB City Commission hires outside investigator to look into recent complaints
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