Judge to review records amid allegations that Tarpon Springs withheld them
A Pinellas-Pasco circuit judge will examine hundreds of text messages and emails to determine if the city of Tarpon Springs should have turned them over to former City Attorney Tom Trask.
Shortly after Trask resigned as city attorney in October, citing “baseless public attacks,” he submitted a public records request for city commissioners’ emails, text messages and other records that discussed his tenure.
The city’s initial response stated there were potentially 52,692 records that could be responsive from commissioners and staff, including 1,228 from Mayor Costa Vatikiotis and 42 from city Commissioner Mike Eisner. In November, Trask’s attorneys proposed key words to narrow down the results but requested the city provide the 1,270 documents from Vatikiotis and Eisner in the meantime.
In March, the city provided 878 total documents from Vatikiotis, Eisner and city Commissioners Panagiotis Koulias and Craig Lunt — fewer than the original count from Vatikiotis and Eisner alone.
Trask’s law firm, Trask Daigneault LLP, sued Tarpon Springs in late April, alleging city officials violated Florida’s public records law by causing unreasonable delays and manufacturing confusion as an excuse for their failure to turn over all records.
In a hearing Wednesday, Deputy City Clerk Michele Manousos testified that when she first submitted Trask’s records request to commissioners, Vatikiotis and Eisner identified 1,228 and 42 documents, respectively.
Manousos said the documents were provided to a contractor that the city hired to assist staff in gathering and reviewing documents. The contractor approved the release of 878 documents to Trask’s attorneys but did not indicate why several hundred were not included.
Andrew Salzman, an attorney representing Tarpon Springs, said the city turned over all records responsive to Trask’s request. But Colin Thompson, an attorney representing Trask, said the firm in November stated they wanted all the 1,270 records identified by Vatikiotis and Eisner, regardless of whether they were relevant.
Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge George Jirotka said he would examine the excluded records “in the interest of not embarrassing anybody,” a reference to exemptions that are allowed for sensitive information like medical records.
Attorneys on both sides agreed to the terms in an order written during the hearing Wednesday. Jirotka set a hearing for Sept. 22 to determine whether the city caused an unreasonable delay in its response.
Trask’s law partner, Jay Daigneault, has said the firm requested the records to piece together circumstances around “utterly false allegations” by commissioners about Trask’s handling of a controversial apartment complex proposal near the Anclote River.
In March 2022, a city election brought a majority of commissioners into office who opposed their predecessors’ approval of the project by the Texas-based Morgan Group.
Vatikiotis pointed to emails that showed Morgan Group representatives were coordinating with city staff on changes to the code years before submitting an application for the project. Eisner described it as “years of laying the foundation to ruin our city to make money for a few.”
The commission voted to hire a special counsel to investigate the matter, a probe that is ongoing. Meantime, the city has not released building permits for the project.
Morgan Group attorneys recently stated in a letter they will pursue a lawsuit if the city does not issue permits.
