The Pinellas County Housing Authority sought a veteran and skilled administrator as it homed in on a new executive director last summer.

It never completed its search.

The Housing Authority’s board of commissioners had narrowed its list to three finalists on Aug. 19 when, hours later, Gov. Ron DeSantis replaced the entire board.

Although the new commissioners had little experience in public housing, they subsequently tossed the list of executive director finalists and came up with their own. In November, they voted to hire Neil Brickfield, a former one-term Pinellas County commissioner best known for pushing to remove tooth-protecting fluoride from the drinking water supply.

Brickfield hadn’t made the previous cut. His own experience in public housing is limited to the projects and policies he voted on during his four years on the County Commission — far from the 10 years that the authority listed as a minimum qualification for the job.

What Brickfield did have is a network of connections in local political circles, including prominent figures who wrote recommendation letters on his behalf.

The DeSantis-appointed board members, all Republicans, said they liked Brickfield’s passion and leadership skills, plus his connections. Brickfield, also a Republican, said he “thought the combination of my experience made me unique in my application.”

The board awarded him a salary of about $168,000, almost double what he made in his most recent job running the Pinellas Sheriff’s Police Athletic League — $90,000 in 2019, according to the nonprofit’s most recent tax filings.

The authority provides housing and rental assistance to about 8,500 people on property it owns and operates, through assisted living programs or by administering federal vouchers.

DeSantis’ office did not respond to questions sent by email. His office has yet to comply with public records requests for board member applications.

Regina Booker, a longtime authority employee who was its interim director when DeSantis changed the board, said she was given no notification or reason for the board being replaced, nor instructions on how to proceed. She retired in September, a decision she said she had planned well before the board changed.

“I couldn’t understand why it was being done all of a sudden,” she told the Tampa Bay Times, “except for that executive director position — for them to place who they wanted in that executive director position.”

“An awkward time”

Appointing members to government boards is a routine part of the governor’s job. On the same day he cleaned house at the Pinellas County Housing Authority, DeSantis named 19 appointees to four other committees around the state. It’s an inherent power for Florida’s governor, one that DeSantis recently wielded to remake the New College of Florida’s board of trustees with conservatives.

In that case, the new appointments formed a bloc that then fired its president and replaced her with former Florida education commissioner and House Speaker Richard Corcoran as interim leader. The incident drew national attention.

The changeover at the Housing Authority happened more quietly. But it had immediate effects.

Prior to the replacement, the Housing Authority’s four volunteer commissioners, each appointed by Republican governors, had spent a total of more than 50 years on the board. DeSantis’ move dropped that collective experience number to zero.

A new commissioner not having housing authority experience isn’t unusual, Booker said. What was strange, she said, was the timing. The board overhaul came during a search for someone to lead the agency.

Odd, too, was the fact that the whole board was replaced at once, said Angela Rouson. Appointed in 2004 by Gov. Jeb Bush, she had been the board’s longest-serving commissioner. Governors have usually installed new board members upon election or left the board alone, she said.

Rouson, the wife of state Sen. Darryl Rouson, D-St. Petersburg, and the former board’s lone appointed Democrat, said she “didn’t have any reason to expect (DeSantis) was going to make any changes.”

One former member, Joseph Triolo, had stayed on long past his term’s end despite the fact that he hadn’t lived in Pinellas County in six years. Triolo said he moved to Citrus County in 2016 to care for his ailing wife, who died in 2018, and remained there. He said he expected to be replaced eventually, though he said he didn’t anticipate that the governor would replace the whole board.

Another former board member, Michael Guju, said the replacement didn’t sting — he had served almost a decade, had never reapplied for the job and was considering stepping down soon.

“It did come at a bit of an awkward time,” he said. “But sometimes in politics, sometimes in society, things just happen.”

The new board is made up of four Pinellas County Republicans: Veronica Hickey, a commercial and construction litigation attorney at Englander Fischer in St. Petersburg; Wayne Mineo, a personal injury attorney; Chloe Firebaugh, the director of land acquisition for M/I Homes of Tampa, a private homebuilding company; and Alen Tomczak, a software account executive who briefly ran for a state House seat last year.

The board is supposed to include a resident of public housing, but that position was vacant before the new board was appointed and remains empty.

Mineo said he applied for a board seat after learning Triolo didn’t live in the county. Firebaugh and Tomczak referred questions to Hickey, the board’s chairperson. Hickey called the inexperience of the whole board “unique” and said she and her colleagues have relied on the Housing Authority’s staff to catch up.

A good network

Nearly 60 people applied for the executive director job, according to public records. At least 16 of the applicants were most recently employed by a housing authority. Several others were housing officials for city or county governments, including Hillsborough and Pasco counties.

The previous executive director, Debra Johnson, died in 2021 after running the agency for 12 years.

Brickfield was known by those at the Housing Authority, who had occasionally worked with his Police Athletic League; Booker and Guju both called him a “great guy.” But they said they sought someone with experience when they passed him over the first time.

Triolo pushed to include Brickfield among the finalists but was overruled. Triolo was the only dissenting vote when that board named its finalists.

All three of the finalists they picked had listed at least 14 years of experience in housing authorities on their resumes. They included the directors of housing authorities in Lakeland and Sarasota.

But when the new board took over, its members wanted to step back and look at the whole pool of applicants, Hickey said. Booker recalled that one of the new members, Mineo, asked specifically for Brickfield’s application.

“I don’t recall specifically asking for Mr. Brickfield’s materials,” Mineo said. “I do remember asking for all the candidates’ materials.”

Mineo said he didn’t consider housing experience a minimum qualification, even though it’s listed as such in the recruitment plan prepared by the executive search firm used by the authority. He said the board was really looking for leadership experience.

Brickfield, who was a Safety Harbor city commissioner from 2000 to 2004 and owned businesses in consulting and janitorial services, was elected to the Pinellas County Commission in 2008. In 2011, he joined three other commissioners in voting to remove fluoride from the county’s drinking water at the behest of critics of big government and over the objection of dentists. He was voted out of office in 2012.

The new board kept two of the same finalists — the Lakeland and Sarasota directors — and added Brickfield and Neil Thompson, an internal candidate who was serving as interim director after Booker retired.

Commissioners soon received a batch of letters supporting Brickfield from prominent Republican figures, including U.S. Rep. Gus Bilirakis, state Sen. Nick DiCeglie and Pinellas County Commissioner Brian Scott, who had been elected a few weeks earlier.

Four of the nine letter writers cited a friendship or personal relationship with Brickfield — including Triolo, the former board member, who wrote that he’d known Brickfield personally for more than 30 years.

Triolo met Brickfield through political circles, he said in an interview. He said he had no qualms about suggesting Brickfield as a finalist while on the board, and he said he saw their longstanding personal relationship as a plus.

The Housing Authority needed “somebody in the community who had a good network,” he said. “Mr. Brickfield, I believe, has the ability to pick up the phone and talk to just about anyone.”

The new board interviewed all four finalists on Nov. 30 and quickly dispensed with the Sarasota and Lakeland directors, narrowing the field to Brickfield and Thompson.

The Housing Authority provided a recording of this meeting in response to a public records request. The audio frequently cuts out, sometimes leaving periods of silence several seconds long.

Three of the commissioners can be heard on the recording praising Brickfield’s passion and his expansive network of local contacts. Firebaugh and Hickey are both mostly audible, weighing Brickfield’s connections against Thompson’s experience at the Housing Authority.

At one point, Tomczak acknowledges concerns voiced by Hickey and Firebaugh about Brickfield’s lack of experience.

But that inexperience, he said, “is actually a strength. … We’re trying to build something new.”