Manatee covers $60,000 in legal fees for commissioners hit with public record lawsuit

Editor’s Note: This article was produced in partnership with The Florida Center for Government Accountability, a nonprofit legal and journalism program advocating public access to local government.

The Manatee Board of County Commissioners will pay nearly $60,000 to cover the legal fees for two commissioners who were sued over a public records request.

The payment is the result of a lawsuit that Sarasota-based paralegal Michael Barfield filed in December after he said commissioners took too long to respond to his requests for several public records, including texts, emails and call logs. The case recently settled in court, but Commissioners James Satcher and Kevin Van Ostenbridge paid roughly $60,000 to the private attorneys they hired to represent them.

County Attorney Bill Clague said he recommended that the board cover those costs because the case involved Satcher and Van Ostenbridge “performing their official duties for a public purpose.”

“I advise and recommend that the board may under Florida law pay these expenses, and in my view, it should do so, but it is the board’s decision to make,” Clague explained.

“I recommend (the board to) do so in the general interest to assure that all members, commissioners, other officials and employee receive the protection they deserve,” he added.

Clague hoped the board would cover the costs in order to avoid a “chilling effect,” warning that future lawsuits could be used as weapons against officials with whom people disagree.

“The idea is that if officials are afraid that they will be forced to pay legal expenses personally for doing their jobs, they will be afraid to do their jobs,” Clague said.

After debating the issue for over an hour, commissioners unanimously approved the payment. Satcher and Van Ostenbridge were allowed to participate in the vote because there is an exception in Florida’s ethics law that allows officials to vote on items that relate to their salaries or expenses.

Board members said they agreed with Clague’s assessment and thanked him for researching the issue. If the board doesn’t defend members for doing their jobs, others could be sued into bankruptcy, they said.

“This is not about Commissioner Van Ostenbridge and Commissioner Satcher,” said Commissioner Reggie Bellamy. “This is about we as public officials — and individuals will have the ability to attack us and when we defend ourselves, we’ll probably want reimbursement of our funds, and not just for boards sitting here right now. This is setting legal precedent for boards to come.”

“All of these commissioners who have gone through this, their reputations have been touched unfairly. I will vote for this and anyone who doesn’t should be ashamed because one day it’s going to be you,” Commissioner Vanessa Baugh added.

Baugh was also named in the lawsuit, but a settlement has not been reached in her case. If a settlement is reached, Clague said the board will be allowed to cover her costs as well.

Because the lawsuit did not name Manatee County Government, former County Attorney Mitchell Palmer urged the commissioners to hire private counsel.

A breakdown of the bills was not publicly available Tuesday and Commissioner Carol Whitmore said she believed the private attorneys had charged their clients too much.

“The fees given today are unacceptable,” Whitmore said, noting that she didn’t receive a line item breakdown of the fees until Tuesday morning. “In my opinion, the attorneys overcharged.”

Barfield told the Bradenton Herald last week that he received a $3,000 settlement from Satcher and Van Ostenbridge, for a total of $6,000.

“That would mean their own fees are $54,000. That’s eye-popping,” he said in a recent interview. “That’s a shocking number. There was not what I would call heavy litigation in this case. Perhaps they’re seeking fees for the criminal investigation, I’m just not sure. I can’t justify how they would’ve gotten to $60,000 in the public records case.”

Clague revealed a cost breakdown for the first time at Tuesday’s meeting. The bills and invoices were not included as part of the meeting agenda packet. Satcher requested payment for $15,750 in legal fees and Van Ostenbridge requested $34,150. After $6,000 in settlement costs, the total cost to the county is $55,900.

“I do understand that there may be concerns about these amounts, but I will be honest with you, in my world, what I deal with every day, these are small numbers. Litigation is expensive. It is far more expensive than most people realize,” Clague said, noting that his office can approve settlements below $30,000. “To resolve this case for this amount of money for two defendants, if we were handling it within the County Attorney’s Office, you probably wouldn’t even see it because it would likely fall below our settlement authority.”

Barfield’s original record request came after Barfield said he was looking for evidence of a coordinated effort to fire former county administrator Cheri Coryea. Led by commissioners who were sworn in on Nov. 17, the board voted on Nov. 19 to move forward with firing Coryea.

The lawsuit came 17 days later after the record request, with Barfield claiming that the commissioners had taken too long to provide the records. Speaking with the board on Tuesday, Clague called that timeline “very tight” and “aggressive,” arguing that the lawsuit was filed too soon.

Satcher and Van Ostenbridge said their responses took a few weeks because they were busy hiring their attorneys and sorting through the records to hand over. Part of the delay was the Thanksgiving holiday, Satcher said.

“Know that I wasn’t sitting at home saying that I’m not going to give anything to these guys. I wasn’t trying to ignore those things at all,” he explained. “People shouldn’t be bankrupted for being elected. There’s not some sort of nefarious thing. That’s not what happened at all.”

Barfield countered that the commissioners could have avoided being sued by responding sooner. Commissioner George Kruse wasn’t named in the suit because he responded quickly, according to Barfield.

“They had multiple opportunities to avoid the lawsuit. I reached out to Satcher repeatedly and Van Ostenbridge through his attorney as well. It was only after the lawsuit was filed that they turned over any records,” Barfield said.

Days after the lawsuit was filed, Barfield also filed a complaint with the State Attorney’s Office, which led to a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation. The agency’s preliminary fact-finding investigation concluded in March with special agents noting that there was “no information obtained to substantiate that a criminal violation occurred.”

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