Riviera Beach councilman sues his own city for a sixth time

Riviera Beach City Councilman Tradrick McCoy has again filed suit against the city he represents, alleging that city staff have held closed meetings and refused to turn over public records in violation of Florida's Sunshine Law.

The suit, filed on Jan. 13, is the sixth time McCoy has taken his city to court. Riviera Beach was named as a defendant in a pair of other McCoy suits, but his aim in those legal actions was to challenge the qualifications of other candidates for the office he now holds.

McCoy himself was sued in October by a former city employee after the two got into an angry and profane argument.

In recent years, Riviera Beach has contended with a barrage of lawsuits from prominent community members and current and former employees, confirming in the minds of some the city's reputation as poorly managed and incompetently governed.

Wealthy Riviera Beach resident Fane Lozman has had a long-running and, for Riviera Beach, expensive, set of legal battles against the city, which has contested his right to have a floating home on the Lake Worth Lagoon. Lozman has won a pair of U.S. Supreme Court rulings against the city.

Former building official Ladi March Goldwire sued the city after her 2019 termination. She alleged gender discrimination and retaliation. She won a $60,000 judgement when a judge determined that the city released her unredacted employment file to the public.

Rather than pay that amount, Riviera Beach had, through August, spent roughly $60,000 in legal fees contesting the judgement. March Goldwire and an attorney familiar with her case say the city has now spent more than $1 million contesting the judgement.

City Manager Jonathan Evans filed suit against Riviera Beach after his 2017 termination, which came after he had been on the job for only six months. Evans was eventually re-hired in 2019.

Last year, Evans initiated a pair of investigations into then-Police Chief Nathan Osgood's actions during the arrest and release of Councilman Douglas Lawson.

The reviews found that Osgood did not adhere to protocols, and the chief resigned.

Now, he's suing Riviera Beach, alleging that the city refuses to turn over telephone records that would demonstrate he did adhere to protocols.

What Tradrick McCoy's latest suit against Riviera Beach involves

Violation of public meeting and open records rules lie at the heart of many of the suits Riviera Beach has faced, and McCoy's January suit is in that vein.

McCoy alleges in his suit that, on Nov. 2, Riviera Beach barred the public from attending a meeting of staff members who had been assigned the task of evaluating bids for an investment-management contract.

Members of the public were given a telephone number to call into the meeting, during which the staff ranked the bids but, according to McCoy's suit, did not publicly disclose those rankings.

McCoy argues in his suit that barring the public from personally attending the meeting violated state law.

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Riviera Beach has also violated state law in its pursuit of a successor to Osgood, McCoy argues in his suit.

The councilman said that, on Nov. 26, he asked the deputy city manager for the applications of all of those seeking the position.

"The Defendant CITY did not respond in a reasonable time to acknowledge the request or furnish the records," McCoy's suit states.

The city "furnished only partial records on January 4, 2023, that is replete with redactions without providing any statutory exemptions," the suit alleges.

Offering redacted records without explaining the legal reasons for the redactions "is the functional equivalent of not furnishing the public record request." the suit states.

McCoy said Riviera Beach held screening meetings to discuss and rank the police chief candidates without notifying the public of the meeting.

Suit: A locked door for a meeting that included discussions that should have been public

On Dec. 20, McCoy said he used an assigned access card to enter the public works administration building where the screening committee was meeting. He said that when he got to the second floor conference room where the meeting was being held, he discovered that it was locked.

After he tried to open the door, someone inside opened it, he said.

"Upon entry into the conference room, it was audibly clear that the committee was conducting interviews during screening meetings for the Chief of Police position outside of the accessibility of the public," McCoy's suit states.

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The closed, unannounced meetings and the failure to provide unredacted records upon request violate the state's Sunshine laws, McCoy argues.

Riviera Beach, like other cities, typically refused to discuss ongoing legal disputes. Evans did not respond to a request for comment about McCoy's suit.#r4p

McCoy has had success in his legal battles against Riviera Beach.

In one noteworthy case, from October of 2020, McCoy sued the city's water utility for approving a 30% rate increase over five years during the coronavirus pandemic. McCoy, who as a city council member serves on the utility's board, argued the city failed to give the public legal notice of the increase.

That suit was settled in March, with the city agreeing to scrap the proposed rate increase, acknowledging that it did not provide residents with sufficient notice of a potential increase and committing to paying the $751 in legal fees McCoy incurred in bringing the lawsuit.

McCoy said at the time that the lawsuit will save taxpayers millions over the next five years.

Riviera Beach is undergoing a building boom that has sparked hopes among many in the city that it is moving past its days of dilapidation and disfunction.

McCoy has raised questions about how that boom is being paid for, and he expressed no qualms about how his legal actions against the city might impact its perception.

"Our very first charge and responsibility as an elected councilperson is to conform to the statutes and general laws of the State of Florida among others," he wrote in an email to The Palm Beach Post. "The Constitution and Statutes both recognize that all meetings of the government must be open to the public at all times."

McCoy added that "the concern here is about how some city staff have been continually unresponsive; in complete violation of the law. We are accountable to the people that elected us and even those that don't support us to uphold and follow the law."

Wayne Washington is a journalist covering West Palm Beach, Riviera Beach and race relations at The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at wwashington@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter @waynewashpbpost. Help support our work; subscribe today.

This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Riviera Beach councilman Tradrick McCoy files 6th suit against city