Haines City to hire outside help for missing meeting minutes, discusses clerk's performance

HAINES CITY — Haines City Clerk Erica Anderson publicly disputed problems raised about her performance at a special commission meeting Tuesday.

Early last week, Mayor Anne Huffman called for a special commission meeting to discuss Anderson's performance. The following items were on the agenda:

• An email and letter sent by Polk County Supervisor of Elections Lori Edwards raising concerns about Anderson's handling of her duties during the April election.

• How to handle the city's backlog of meeting minutes that have not been uploaded in accordance with Florida Sunshine laws.

• Anderson's employment contract, specifically concerning a 10% requested raise and the matter of the vehicle the city leases on Anderson's behalf for work and personal use.

At the beginning of the meeting, Huffman said she did not see the discussion as an opportunity to discuss firing Anderson. She instead saw it as an "intervention."

"Erica Anderson is not a victim, nor has she been victimized. The commission is responsible for holding her accountable," Huffman said. "The victims are the residents of Haines City that's paying Erica $72,000 a year to get complaints from a highly elected official."

Huffman also said she saw the meeting as an opportunity for Anderson to respond to the allegations against her, one of many points on which the two disagreed.

"An opportunity would have been to actually sit down, have a conversation," Anderson said. "I don't need the commission to tell me how to organize my files. I don't need the commission to tell me who I need to hire, who I don't need to hire, who needs to be in there to help me."

At the end of the meeting, the commission agreed on a unanimous vote to direct Interim City Manager Jim Elensky to speak with the agency that handles transcriptions for the police department to obtain a quote on what it would cost to transcribe meetings that have not yet been handled by the city clerk's office.

A list compiled by IT Manager Brian Ross shows that there are more than 80 meetings of the City Commission, planning commission and CRA board that have not been uploaded to eScribe, the system the city has been using since January.

Elensky told the commissioners that the agency said it would take about four to five months to get through 30 meetings. Elensky is going to bring a quote or contract before the commissioners at a future meeting.

If approved, the agency will handle transcriptions through the end of June, and Anderson will resume responsibility in July.

Anderson said there are only about 20 meetings that need to be fully transcribed. She said that there are minutes on the computer of her deputy city clerk, Erica Sanchez.

The commissioners also agreed that Huffman, along with Assistant City Manager Auburn Taylor, would write a formal response to Edwards' letter. The response will be circulated at a future commission meeting and commissioners will have a chance to make changes before the letter is sent.

Commissioner Morris West did not attend the meeting. He did not respond to a question from a Ledger reporter concerning his absence.

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'She doesn't have a plan'

Huffman said that Anderson was "clearly aware" that minutes were not complete before former City Manager Ed Dean had the IT department perform an audit in November. Huffman also alleged that although training was offered on the city's new minutes software, eScribe, in January, Anderson did not attend. Anderson countered that while she did not have time to attend the trainings, she was able to watch recordings on her own time.

"I've invested time and energy to help Erica. I also admit to being an enabler by accepting her various reasons for complaints on her, why she couldn't get the minutes updated and even that Lori Edwards' complaints are unfounded," Huffman said.

Huffman said that she had "several lengthy phone calls" with Anderson concerning the seriousness of the missing minutes.

"Our private conversations did not yield any results and I felt it was time to be transparent with the residents and my fellow commissioners," Huffman said. "Erica has never asked us for help, and she doesn't have a plan, or it is not the priority she's concerned about. ... Meanwhile, Erica has spent her time renovating our boardroom and last week attending a conference in Daytona Beach."

Anderson pushed back on Huffman's account of the phone calls and said she didn't recall Huffman trying to help her. She added that she does have a plan for getting the minutes updated: Anderson said her department has hired a part-time employee to address the minutes, but transcription has been slow because that employee splits her time between that duty and serving as a receptionist.

In May, Huffman asked Anderson a series of questions related to the hire she made. Anderson never replied. Anderson told The Ledger that her lack of response was "just a matter of getting the chance to respond to all of the emails that are received."

Both at the meeting and in a call with The Ledger, Anderson pushed back on the necessity of a public meeting.

"It was concerning that the meeting was being called without the opportunity to speak to me in person before," Anderson told The Ledger.

Commissioner Roy Tyler seemed to agree with Anderson. He questioned why the issue of the minutes was not brought up earlier: According to the list compiled by Ross, which has been disputed by Anderson, the city is three years behind. Tyler also questioned why a meeting was being held when commissioners had a chance to submit their feedback on Anderson's performance during the annual review process stipulated in her contract.

"The discovery of these matters should have led to real investigation," Tyler said.

Huffman said that she submitted her evaluation of Anderson in January and that the letter from Edwards was received in April. Additionally, Huffman admitted she presumed that after receiving the list of missing minutes in November, Anderson had addressed them. She found out after the evaluation that she hadn't.

Tyler said that until the city finds out how to identify solutions to problems rather than looking for who to blame, they will continue to be caught in a "vortex" that "does not make our city look good."

Anderson declined to comment on how the city clerk's office fell behind in transcribing meetings and uploading meetings.

Anderson disputes Edwards' claims

In April, Edwards sent a letter to Dean and West, who at the time served as mayor, outlining a series of issues she and her staff had with Anderson when it came to conducting the April election.

"As you can imagine, I have concerns about future elections if no improvement takes place," Edwards wrote.

At the meeting, Huffman read portions of Edwards' email and letter aloud, as well as portions of a Ledger article where Edwards said that in her 20 years in her position, she had never seen anything like she did with Anderson's handling of the election.

After, Tyler questioned whether Huffman was going to present her solutions "after we've beat [Anderson] in the head some more."

"This isn't a hang Erica, a blame Erica — Erica is responsible," Huffman said.

Anderson said that Edwards' letter was "unprofessional" and that 90% of it was untrue.

Vice Mayor Jayne Hall joined Anderson in questioning the validity of one of the claims, which she called "petty" — that Anderson did not bring food for the Haines City Canvassing Board. Hall said that food was delayed at Sonny's BBQ, leading to board members being unable to eat on their lunch break. Hall and City Attorney Fred Reilly stayed behind later to eat before getting on the road. Although Edwards' letter claims her staff had to stay behind to accommodate people in the break room, Hall said they continuously asked staff if they were inconveniencing them and staff replied no.

Hall also said that none of Edwards' claims were "hangable" offenses and that it seemed like Edwards was looking for complaints to fill the page. Her pushback led the city's newest commissioner, Omar Arroyo, to question the validity of the letter's other claims.

Reilly said he and West met with Anderson after the letter was sent and Anderson walked them through some of the claims and provided documentation and explanation. Reilly said they didn't make it through all of the claims because of timing.

Anderson said that the only valid claim was that on April 7, a city representative arrived at 5:20 p.m. for a 4:30 p.m. appointment to pick up mail and provisional ballots.

"The integrity of this election was not compromised in any way. No law was broken and every legal advertisement that needed to go out for this election was done," Anderson said.

Anderson said that if Edwards had reached out to her instead of Dean, she would have known she was short-staffed.

"We were all doing the job of more than one person," Anderson said.

Huffman said that staffing is an internal issue that should not have external consequences.

But Anderson still pushed back on the validity of Edwards' letter.

"Lori has a position as the supervisor of elections. I have a position as the city clerk for Haines City. She doesn't get to question me and my job," Anderson said. "This election belongs to me, to Haines City. It belongs here. If anything happened with this election, it's not going to fall on Lori Edwards."

Anderson said Edwards could have contacted her before sending this letter to address the issues she was having.

Edwards told The Ledger last week that it would sometimes take multiple attempts at contacting Anderson only to eventually get in touch with Sanchez instead.

"Erica, you're not responding to my emails," Huffman said. "That's what makes this credible to me."

Commissioners to take action later

The last item on the agenda concerned possible amendments to Anderson's employment contract.

"In lieu of everything that has been exposed, Erica is asking for a 10% raise and I do not feel that any raise should be given at this time," Huffman said.

Anderson requested the raise in early April. She told The Ledger it's the first raise she's asked for. Her contracted base pay is $72,447.31.

Huffman provided six suggestions to her fellow commissioners:

• Place Anderson on a six-month performance improvement plan with details on what should be done during that time, with input from human resources.

• Take back the Jeep Grand Cherokee the city has leased for her personal and business use and return to the $350 monthly automobile allowance; Huffman said she would consider a $500 allowance to account for gas price inflation.

• Contract either three secretaries or an agency that specializes in transcribing to catch up on the missing meeting minutes.

• Deny the raise at this time but re-evaluate in six months.

• Require Anderson to participate in all agenda software training with her staff.

• Consider allowing Anderson to respond to Edwards and send a letter from the commissioners responding to Edwards.

In her original contract, Anderson was granted $350 a month in automobile allowance. Last year, an amendment was made to lease her a vehicle, a provision Huffman wants to change now because there was minor damage to the car — a fact Anderson confirmed but said she learned from reporting in The Ledger.

Huffman said the switch was made via a consent agenda item.

"I make no excuses — we're supposed to read everything. I missed it as well," Huffman told The Ledger. "If it had been an agenda item, I don't think that it would have passed."

Commissioners addressed the third and sixth suggestions, but the remaining four are going to be discussed at a future workshop session, Huffman said. She suspects that will happen July 7.

Concerning the proposed six-month performance improvement period, Reilly said that there is no disciplinary component to Anderson's contract. Any amendments to Anderson's contract would need to be negotiated on both sides.

"That's not contemplated by the contract now, and if that was something that the commission wanted us to try and put it as an amendment, then they would have to give me direction to do that," Reilly said.

The same logic would apply to Anderson's car. Anderson declined to comment on why she wanted to switch from an allowance to a leased vehicle.

Maya Lora can be reached with tips or questions at mlora@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter @mayaklora. 

This article originally appeared on The Ledger: Haines City commissioners clash over issues with city clerk