Winter Springs moves to combine boards amidst political strife 

The Winter Springs Commission reached a tentative consensus to combine boards and committees amidst a night of familiar infighting on merging both the Parks and Recreation and Bicycle and Pedestrians advisory committees during its meeting Monday. 

City Clerk Christian Gowan, who presented the original report on the city’s various boards in January, told the commission that “whatever action the commission wants to take, we need to … offer clarity.” Staff had recommended both committees be sunset due to lack of quorum and direction. 

As discussion began, Commissioner Mark Caruso reiterated his position against removing any city boards and suggested each commissioner potentially “take on a board” to offer help. 

Deputy Mayor Cade Resnick said parks are a “big part” of the city’s identity. He said that they could look at having the boards merged, renamed to the Parks, Rec and Multimodal Committee, so as to include oversight on larger matters related to mobility in the city like ADA access, to which Mayor Kevin McCann agreed. 

Commissioner Victoria Bruce made a motion to combine both committees and reduce the number of members to seven, leaving the commission to elect two more members by keeping the combined five already existing members, but Caruso said he felt the commission should first discuss with the five members to see if they wished to remain involved with the combined board.

Diaz questions Commission’s attitude toward staff recommendations

Commissioner Paul Diaz, who has repeatedly called for the “razing” of all city boards in the past, said it was “curious” that the commission often speaks highly of the recommendations given by staff but did not appear to be following the recommendations made in regard to sunsetting certain city boards.

“I guess I’d be interested in hearing from my colleagues, why do you feel the city staff was wrong in the report that they already gave us?” Diaz said. 

Commissioner Sarah Baker told Diaz that she felt she agreed with staff’s recommendations of sunsetting but that the best course of action would be to combine the committees, a sentiment which Bruce later echoed. 

“We’re actually following it,” McCann added. “But what we’re doing is we’re finding a happy medium where we’re keeping those people who are interested in serving … and allowing them to have a voice and to do it while we have one less committee that hasn’t been meeting often enough and is maybe lacking some direction and support.”

Questions about a board member’s sudden resignation

“My last meeting of Parks and Rec was the week before my first meeting here,” Diaz, a previous member of the committee, said. “One of my fellow Parks and Rec persons, when I served, sent in a letter to the city today resigning from the board and gave some pretty interesting information and insight.”

Resnick then asked Diaz not to read the letter aloud, saying that he knew the board member being referred to and had plans to speak with her the following day. 

“I can appreciate Commissioner Resnick’s point of order, I just feel that just for transparency, folks here and at home should be able to hear what one of our residents, one of our neighbors, said,” Diaz said, adding the member resided in Resnick’s district. 

“People show up when they’re passionate and committed, people stop showing up when there’s no direction,” Resnick said. “We gotta’ give them a reason … people haven’t been showing up because there’s been fighting in the city, and nobody knows which way we’re going to go.”

“Everybody from those committees had an opportunity to come speak, and we’ve still had a letter from a member of that committee that has been asked to be read into the record,” Diaz fired back. After a moment of debate, Resnick said he would read aloud the letter from the resigning board member, Desma Underwood, and then comment. 

“While I have appreciated the opportunity to serve, I must be candid in expressing my frustration with the inefficiency and lack of meaningful impact that this board has had,” Resnick said, reading from the letter. “In particular, I’m deeply disappointed by the time and taxpayer money that has been wasted on presentations such as the $144,000 consultation on the Central Winds Park project … it is a wasteful use of both public resources and staff time, especially considering that the board itself holds little to no actual power in decision making processes.” 

After reading, Resnick accused Diaz of influencing Underwood and that the language of the letter was “not her language or way of speaking.” 

“To me, this is you and her working together for your purpose,” Resnick said, with Diaz claiming that he was “completely wrong on [his] assessment.”

“If you take a moment to listen to your constituents, a lot more constituents agree with my worldview of government over yours,” Diaz said. 

Diaz claims, but can’t substantiate, that Committees cost city $50,000 

Diaz also claimed prior to the letter reading that “all” committees cost the city $50,000 a year to operate, a statement later questioned by Caruso who asked to know how that number had been reached and if there was a breakdown available. The dais appeared unable to answer the question, including Diaz himself, as well as if the amount was for each board and committee individually or all together. 

“Are you willing to then join me in asking the city to start giving us financial documents of the city and what’s in our budget and how we’re spending money?” Diaz asked Caruso instead.

“If I ask for something nicely and without strong-arming somebody, I believe I can get it,” Caruso replied, confirming with City Manager Kevin Sweet that he had asked for and received requested documents previously. 

Commission agrees to merge two committees into one, pushes idea of liaisons

McCann then attempted to get the commission back on track, returning to Bruce’s original motion to combine the two committees and reduce member numbers to seven. The motion passed 4-1, with Caruso dissenting based on his desire to speak to existing members first. Direction by the commission was given to still reach out and determine if all five members would be willing to stay on the combined board.

Bruce later suggested looking into having commission members serve as liaisons to some committees, an idea mentioned earlier in the meeting by Caruso, which McCann said would have to include caution that no commission members posed any undue influence on committee decisions by attending. 

City attorney Anthony Garagense said that cities frequently establish council liaisons,and that the job consists of “being there to listen and be the conduit between the commission and the board.”

As discussion continued, Underwood herself suddenly stood up from the audience and called out that she was present and “tired of this, everybody’s tired of this.” As audience members reacted, McCann promised she would be given the opportunity to speak during public input. 

Returning to the matter of liaisons, in which commission members conferred as to what committees they might be best assigned to, Diaz questioned if they would be voting amongst themselves as to who would be a “government-imposed overseer.”

“That’s interesting wordsmithing,” McCann replied. “I think the intent and the wording was a liaison to help communicate with the different boards.” 

“Of the responses that I got from asking questions of boards, a lot of them just said we would like someone from the commission to actually show up,” Baker said.

Diaz said that if the commission were to “impose” a liaison, each committee should have its choice as to which dais member served it, a point to which McCann conceded but then reiterated that the liaison would not “oversee anything” and would be used to convey information to the commission. 

Then Diaz asked Garaganese if two or more board members conferring outside of a public meeting to discuss that board along with commissioners would be considered “questionable activity,” appearing to accuse Caruso and McCann of potentially violating Sunshine Laws by both speaking to veterans following discussion of the Veteran and Veteran Family Advisory Committee at the commission’s Jan. 29 meeting.

McCann addressed the accusation, saying he hoped he was mistaken as to what Diaz was referencing. He said he was a lifetime member of the local VFW post and spoke at their general membership meeting but that Caruso was not present, as he is not a member. 

“When they ended the meeting, I attended the auxiliary meeting and there were folks having dinner and drinks at the VFW after the fact,” McCann said. “Commissioner Caruso came in and talked to people after the fact. I wasn’t participating in a conversation with the commissioner, with other people or with us about it, he happened to have walked in two hours later. Just to be clear, there was no Sunshine Law violations, and there are 100 witnesses for that.”

Garganese said that matters that could perceivably come before a board involving official city business for which they’re responsible for would be advisable for two members to not discuss outside of a publicly advertised meeting, but that the matter of a board existing would most likely not pose issue for discussion as the commission itself has sole direction on whether a board exists or not. 

Diaz later requested that public comment be moved up before reports, during which Underwood said she was offended that her name “was dragged through this.”

“Let me be clear: I’m not friends with any of you … you guys work for us, you work for the taxpayers,” Underwood said. “You guys have made no decisions tonight, you haven’t for three hours … You guys have gone on and on and on and on about these committees. Make a decision, move on, get efficient — that’s the point of my letter. I want you to know that time is wasted on that committee.”

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