A county resident who has been active in local politics has filed a lawsuit asking a Circuit Court judge to compel Vero Beach city officials to fully comply with his 270-plus requests for public records.
Jeffrey Andros, who managed the winning campaigns of School Board candidates Brian Barefoot in 2020 and David Dyer this year, claims in his Sept. 26 court filing that the city has not provided him with copies of municipal-account emails and credit card bills he began requesting more than four months ago.
Specifically, Andros’ requests target several months of 2023 emails to and from Vero Beach Police Chief David Currey, City Manager Monte Falls and City Attorney John Turner, as well as multiple years of their credit card bills, some dating back as far as 2019.
The 32-count, 65-page filing, which is accompanied by a 99-page appendix that documents Andros’ correspondences with city officials, accuses the city of “unlawful withholding of public records,” citing Chapter 119 of the Florida Statutes.
Andros, who unsuccessfully ran for a seat on the Indian River Mosquito Control District board in 2020, said the lawsuit is not connected to politics – and that he requested the records in an effort to ensure that city officials are held accountable.
“Unfortunately, the city has decided to provide me with only some of the records I’ve requested,” Andros said last week, adding that he has not received an explanation as to why some records were released and others weren’t.
Vero Beach officials denied Andros’ insinuation that they’re deliberately withholding some records. They said the city already has turned over public records pertaining to 238 of his requests, and staffers are working to provide the others as quickly as possible.
“We are not refusing to provide anything,” Turner said in a phone interview Saturday. “We’re talking about a vast number of records that have been requested, and they need to be reviewed and possibly redacted before we release them, because some contain information that’s confidential and exempt.
“The email page volumes are extensive, and we have a small City Clerk’s Office, so it takes time to go through them,” he added. “We have one person dedicated to just responding to these requests, and she’s very good at her job.
“But it’s quite a bit of work.”
Falls, in fact, said Vero Beach, as of Friday afternoon, had provided Andros with about 34,000 of the 67,000 emails covered in his requests, which are being processed by Heather McCarty, the city’s records retention specialist.
He said he believes the city can demonstrate to Circuit Judge Cynthia Cox, who is presiding over the case, that it’s making a “good-faith effort” to comply with the law.
“We’re a small city with a relatively small staff, and we’ve been inundated with public records requests,” Falls said Friday. “Still, we’ve managed to clear more than two-thirds of Mr. Andros’ requests. To put that in perspective: Usually, we get 120 to 150 public record requests a year; he’s given us 277 in four months.
“Our goal is to fulfill all the requests as expeditiously as possible,” he added. “Some can be fulfilled in an instant. Some take longer. But we fully intend to fulfill every public records request that we get, as time permits.”
Florida’s Public Records Act, also known as the “Sunshine Law,” does not contain any specific time limit for government entities to provide requested records, requiring only that the request be acknowledged as promptly as possible.
State courts, however, have ruled that records must be produced in a reasonable amount of time, allowing for records custodians to retrieve them and redact any exempt information.
Custodians are not required to provide the requestors with specific dates the records will be produced.
On Oct. 2, in a written ruling, Cox stated she found the facts alleged in Andros’ court filing “warrant consideration on an expedited basis,” and she ordered him to serve the city with notice of his petition within seven days.
The city will have five days – after being served – to file written defenses to Andros’ petition.
“Once all responses have been filed, or the time for filing a response has elapsed after service has passed, the court will set the matter for hearing on an expedited basis, if and as needed,” Cox wrote.
The city has retained Orlando-based attorney Rachael Crews of GrayRobinson, the same law firm it used in its recent legal battle with Indian River Shores over water-sewer franchise terms.
Melbourne-based attorney Jessica Travis is representing Andros.
Although Florida law does not allow plaintiffs in public-records cases to collect monetary damages, they may in their petitions request that defendants reimburse them for their attorneys’ fees.
Andros included such a request in his filing.
The city likely will do the same in its response, Falls said, adding that he planned to provide what he called a “generic” overview of the lawsuit – as well as a more-detailed update on the progress made in responding to Andros’ records requests – at this past Tuesday’s City Council meeting.
He was also expected to offer an estimate of how much the lawsuit could cost the city in legal fees, which he said last week could reach six figures and, if the case goes to trial, run as high as $500,000.
Vero Beach Mayor John Cotugno said last week he could not comment on “ongoing litigation.”
The unfulfilled requests for records identified in Andros’ court filing were:
- Currey’s emails from May through December 2023, and his credit-card bills from 2020 and 2022 through 2024. The city provided his bills from 2021.
- Falls’ emails from July through December 2023, and his credit-card bills from 2019 through 2024.
- Turner’s emails from August through December 2023, and his credit-card bills from 2020, 2021 and 2024. The city provided his bills from 2022 and 2023.
Falls said some of the credit-card bills Andros requested do not exist because those cards are issued through Bank of America, and the bank does not send out bills for months when there have been no transactions.
Andros, however, questioned the explanation.
Meanwhile, both Falls and Turner said they didn’t know why Andros was interested in the records he requested, or why he requested so many of them.
Andros said he began requesting records from City Hall in May because, despite not being a Vero Beach resident, he was concerned about the city’s operations – which, he contends, often impact county residents, too.
He mentioned the botched selection of a Three Corners developer, two November referendums relating to increasing residential density in Vero Beach’s downtown core, and the time and money wasted on another Twin Pairs debate.
“The city’s shenanigans over the past year have shown that a lot of oversight is needed,” Andros said. “It has been one thing after the other, and for the city to not answer the public’s questions should tell everybody that we need better and deserve better.”
Asked if he was looking for anything specific?
“Transparency,” he replied.
Despite his past work as a campaign manager and political operative – as well as his knowledge of Florida’s public records law and his five master’s degrees in the information technology and cyber-security fields – Andros said he was not making these inquiries on behalf of a client, nor was he being paid to do so.
“This isn’t a job,” Andros said. “I’m doing this of my own accord. No one controls me. And it’s not about money.”
Actually, obtaining the records he requested has been expensive.
State law permits government entities to charge for retrieving, reviewing and redacting records requests. If the work to produce and provide the records requires more than 15 minutes of staff time, the requestor may be charged for that time at the lowest hourly rate of the class of employees involved.
Andros said he has spent more than $3,000 to acquire the records he has received from the city – and he might request more of them.
“I’ve asked for different things, and I’m still waiting on some of them,” he said. “What’s in the lawsuit are just the records they’ve decided not to give me. By my count, there are still 68 requests that haven’t been fulfilled.”
