North Port police investigate allegations of bomb threat involving city commissioner

NORTH PORT – The latest in a long string of disagreements between North Port City Commissioner Debbie McDowell and City Manager Jerome Fletcher prompted North Port detectives to investigate allegations by an 80-year-old employee over what she thought she heard the commissioner say to herself while walking down a stairwell at City Hall.

According to a 10-page incident report filed by Police Investigator William L. Myers, on Oct. 26 city employee Donna Suggs — who was checking Christmas decorations in the third floor lobby — saw McDowell leave a meeting in the City Manager’s suite “muttering something but she could not hear most of what McDowell was saying.”

While McDowell was walking downstairs, Suggs called down to ask if she was OK. When McDowell reached the area of the first landing, the police report said she "heard McDowell say, ‘I'm going to blow up this (expletive deleted) place and everybody in it.’”

At the end of that meeting between McDowell and Fletcher, McDowell had yelled at him and wagged her finger in his face.

Fletcher told the Herald-Tribune this week that between that encounter and the statements regarding what Suggs claims to have heard, “the behavior has gone too far overboard and we’ve got to find a way to hold people accountable for better behavior.

“I couldn't do those same things that she did and expect to keep my job,” he added.

Fletcher later pointed out that calling the police to investigate the incident was appropriate especially given that he has an “if you see something, say something” safety policy.

“We’d rather be overly cautious rather than under cautious,” Fletcher said, adding he does "not believe she should be making statements like that in public.”

McDowell told the Herald-Tribune that Fletcher consistently does not respect the fact that, as a city commissioner, she is one of his five bosses.

“There’s a role reversal here and I’m trying to stand my ground as to what my role is — I know I’m one of five,” McDowell said.

“He would never tolerate one of his employees to talk to him the way he talks to me.”

North Port Police interviews regarding McDowell-Fletcher incident

Myers and Det. Sergeant Larwence Strejcek, the criminal investigations unit supervisor, conducted their interview of Suggs in the City Manager’s Suite, with Assistant City Manager Julie Bellia present.

In the report, Myers noted that the investigators "observed that Mrs. Suggs was being helped with her exact wording of McDowell’s comments.”

Suggs told the detectives that she has a hearing aid and later told the detectives “she was not concerned about what Mrs. McDowell said, rather she was concerned about Mrs. McDowell’s well-being, and her concern was based on the observation that Mrs. McDowell was that upset.”

She told the detectives that she waited about five or 10 minutes thinking about it before telling another staff member.

McDowell, interviewed at her home later last Thursday evening, told detectives that she was “a million percent positive” she did not threaten City Hall but may have uttered “‘(expletive deleted) grow up,’ because she specifically was commenting about Mr. Fletcher being a child and unprofessional."

McDowell told the Herald-Tribune she was thinking out loud as she walked across the hall and down the stairwell.

“What did I say exactly, I don’t know. It was something along the lines of ‘Oh my God he needs to grow up, he’s such a child, he is so unprofessional,” McDowell told the Herald-Tribune. “Was I muttering this as I was walking very purposefully down those stairs — yes, absolutely.

Police did not file charges, concluding that, based on a 2019 ruling from the Second District Court of Appeal, no crime was committed. Even if McDowell had said what Suggs believed she heard, “threats of future violence do not violate state statute because they are not ‘false reports,’”  Myers wrote.

Signs of a disconnect

The incident is the latest example of the acrimony between the commissioner and city manager since McDowell voted against Fletcher's hiring as city manager in August 2021.

“This is: He doesn't  like me and I don’t like him and we have to learn to work together,” McDowell said Tuesday. “I have been saying this for two years and now this is ridiculous.”

Last April, McDowell claimed that Fletcher overstepped his authority as defined by the city charter and his contract for a variety of actions, including allegedly urging state legislators to back-burner an effort to have Warm Mineral Springs placed on a list of outstanding Florida springs.

As part of a June 2023 City Commission conflict-resolution meeting – called in part to see if the commissioner and the city manager could resolve their differences – the four other city commissioners decided to not pursue her request for an investigation.

That prompted North Port resident Stephanie Gibson, administrator of the CityWatch Facebook page and a staunch McDowell supporter, to file a complaint with the International City/County Management Association about Fletcher’s conduct for that instance and with respect to an April 20, 2022 commission retreat that was not technically open to the public.

In May, McDowell threatened to file a complaint with the Florida Commission on Ethics, alleging that the unadvertised meeting violated state Sunshine Law statutes.

Sunshine law advocates agreed with that, too, though city staff contended that the meeting should have been exempt because no business was discussed.

Gibson filed one complaint with the ICMA about that April, 2022 meeting with the association determining that there was not enough information to take action. She filed a second complaint based both on McDowell’s April 2023 complaint and the fact that Fletcher disclosed to the City Commission and staff the ICMA findings from the 2022 complaint.

Fletcher told the Herald-Tribune that he was often frustrated that allegations against him receive media coverage while his vindication did not,  then supplied the paper with a 70-page document detailing Gibson’s second complaint, as well as the resolution letter from the ICMA, which said it was not pursuing the second complaint.

The latest flashpoint

Last week McDowell and Fletcher met, with both assistant city managers, Jason Yarborough and Bellia, present, to discuss a new stormwater assessment method and a replenishment process for the stormwater fund approved by the board Oct. 24.

McDowell wanted the item to be brought up again because she did not believe the charts used at the meeting were “transparent” enough.

She also was upset that Fletcher had a lunch meeting the previous day with a North Port Area Chamber of Commerce official and a former city commissioner, discussing the city's contemplation of a moratorium on approving developments under the state’s “Live Local Act,” similar to one enacted by the city of Doral.

McDowell told detectives that she was one of Fletcher’s five bosses and during the conversation Fletcher asked if she was threatening him.

“So she turned and pointed her finger at him, she admitted that she intentionally started “dancing” her finger around at him,” the report said.

McDowell told detectives she went to her office on the second floor to check emails then decided to return to the third floor to apologize to Fletcher.

When interviewed Oct. 27, Fletcher told Myers that McDowell told him that he drives her crazy, to which he responded that she could cancel the meeting.

Typically, Fletcher told the detective, when the two meet, they do it virtually but met in person on Oct. 26 because of technical difficulties.

On Monday, Lori Hollingshead, an employee in the city manager’s suite told detectives that she heard McDowell, “scream ‘child,’” in reference to Fletcher.

Hollingshead said McDowell returned to the city manager’s suite twice to apologize – the first time he was in a meeting.

Hollingshead was the first person Suggs told about what she thought she overheard in the stairwell. She wrote down what Suggs claimed she heard McDowell say, though at first used “freaking” in place of the expletive.

Fletcher said that he did not actively engage McDowell at the meeting.

“This was no two-way yelling or arguing, this was a one-way sided argument that ended with finger-pointing and yelling and a threat that another employee heard – and we reacted to it.”

McDowell told the Herald-Tribune she was frustrated, and, after returning to her office she "calmed down and realized ‘That wasn’t very professional of you, wagging your finger, so I went up and apologized.”

This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: North Port police investigate 'bomb threat' linked to city commissioner