VENICE — The state attorney general‘s office has declined to offer a response to questions raised by City Council Member Joan Farrell regarding a referendum lengthening council terms.
The Council voted last month to ask voters to consider a switch from three-year to four-year terms, which would synchronize city elections with county, state and federal elections in even-numbered years.
The method for implementing the change, if approved in November, would give Council members Rachel Frank and Rick Howard and Mayor Nick Pachota an extra year in the seats they were elected to in 2022.
All three voted in favor of holding the referendum, which Council members Farrell and Ron Smith called a conflict of interest.
Farrell sent a letter to the attorney general’s office asking for an opinion on whether there’s a conflict, and also inquired whether the proposed ballot language was sufficiently clear to inform voters of what’s being proposed.
It reads: “Provides for the staggered election of councilmembers and mayor in November of even-numbered years coinciding with county, state, and federal elections; provides the elected term of office for the mayor and councilmembers shall be four years instead of three years; provides no person shall serve for more than two consecutive elected terms instead of three consecutive elected terms; authorizes two-year terms and addresses incumbent terms for implementation purposes.
“Shall the above-described amendment be adopted?”
Florida law limits a ballot summary to 75 words.
Regarding a potential conflict of interest, “(t)he Commission on Ethics issues interpretations regarding such provisions, and would be the proper entity to address any questions you might have about application of the Ethics Code to a particular set of circumstances,” Senior Assistant Attorney General Teresa L. Mussetto, of the Opinions Division, says in a letter dated June 26.
As to the sufficiency of the ballot summary, she writes, it’s the agency’s policy that an inquiry “should be requested by a majority of the members of that body and not merely by a dissenting member or faction.”
“A request from a board should, therefore, clearly indicate that the opinion is being sought by a majority of its members.” It must also be accompanied by a certificate confirming compliance with the policy, it says.
Regardless, the office “may decline to address ‘a question that the official or agency has already acted on,” or “when an opinion request is received on a question falling within the statutory jurisdiction of some other state agency, the Attorney General may, in the exercise of discretion, transfer the request to that agency or advise the requesting party to contact the other agency,” the letter says.
For those reasons, “we decline to comment on your current request,” it says.
Farrell replied to Mussetto in a June 29 email copied to more than 70 people
She says she didn’t file a complaint with the Ethics Commission because “research revealed that such questions, even if valid and substantive (no frivolous intent), could result in fines and more!”
“That the Ethics Commission could enforce such harsh outcomes merely because a citizen dared to pose a question is a chilling indictment of the state of democracy in Florida,” she writes.
Instead, she writes, she “went to bat” for people, including former mayors and a vice mayor, who consider the ballot summary inadequate.
“At a minimum,” she writes, “the citizens deserved a ruling ‘on the merits’ … not on issues of procedure or other technicalities, but strictly on the facts presented.”
Though she’s disappointed the attorney general office declined to opine on the referendum, Farrell said she doesn’t intend to continue to pursue it.
“The matter is dead, as far as I’m concerned right now,” she said.
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