By Reggie Connell, Managing Editor
The Apopka City Council, at its June 21st meeting, learned that Apopka City Attorney Michael Rodriguez is still employed by the City, despite resigning at the May 3rd Council meeting.
It's also counter to what Mayor Bryan Nelson told the Council at the previous meeting.
Commissioner Nick Nesta, at the July 7th City Council meeting, asked Nelson a very direct question during the city commission reports:
"Just to understand completely... Attorney Rodriguez (City Attorney Michael Rodriguez) is no longer employed by us, correct?"
"As of today," said Nelson. "As of 1:30... yes."
Then, at the June 21st City Council meeting, the Council voted 5-0 (including Nelson) to approve the minutes from the June 7th meeting, which included a similar statement:
"Commissioner Nesta asked for clarification that Attorney Rodriguez is no longer employed by the City, and Mayor Nelson stated as of today."
"At this point, I have serious concerns about the directions this council is taking and the means of which certain things have been communicated," Rodriguez said on May 3rd. "I ultimately fear that I can no longer ethically represent this council. I fear this council may be on the verge of conducting ultra vires actions, and I cannot remain as its city attorney. Therefore I am tendering my resignation so I can save you some money. I will make arrangements with the Human Resources director to finalize the matters. I will save you the time. I will assist in the transition to bring in a successor Council, and I will basically tender my resignation and proceed forward pursuant to Florida State statutes."
Rodriguez was hired as City Attorney and ratified by the City Council in May 2019.
The revelation happened at an unlikely point in the meeting - the consent agenda.
"We have 11 items on the consent agenda," Nelson said. "Does anyone need to pull an item?"
"Yes," said Nesta. "Number one for me. It's the 18 East Station Street Code Enforcement Lien. I never got any answers about what that's about or what that's from. Code enforcement didn't know what that was, either. So I don't know how that got on here. Somebody had said, I guess that, and this leads me to something very important that, I guess, former City Attorney Rodriguez put this on here?"
"I don't know," said Nelson. "I don't know how it got on there."
"Do you know what it is?" Nesta asked.
"No," said Nelson.
"Well, that leads me to... speaking about the city attorney directly... let's go through a timeline here. On April 5th, we had a 3-2 vote to fire him. On April 19th, a 4-1 vote to seek additional help to look at our charter. He resigned on May 3rd very abruptly and aggressively here and then tendered his letter the next day. And the last meeting, I specifically asked, 'Is he no longer employed here?' And you (Nelson) said as of 1:30 [pm] that day he was no longer employed by the City of Apopka... so is he employed by us, or is he not?"
"He is," said Nelson.
"How is that possible?" Commissioner Kyle Becker asked. "It's in the minutes that we just passed that you said his employment ended as of that day."
"He hadn't signed the agreement," Nelson said.
"That doesn't matter," Becker said. "Mr. Rodriguez voluntarily resigned. He resigned effective May 3rd. So if you want him back as an employee, he has to go through the ratification process again.
Nesta then asked Nelson about the payments Rodriguez was receiving after his resignation.
"He quit... Do we continue to pay him?"
"Yes, he's working for us," said Nelson. "He spent two hours with me today."
"I've sent emails that he's cc'ed on," said Nesta. "I've asked very specific things, and he's never responded. Is he working for you or working for us?"
"He's been absent the past three meetings for the past two months," said Becker.
"Because he doesn't want to deal with the Council," Nelson said.
"So he gets to pick and choose what job he gets to do?" Nesta said. "He works at the pleasure of the Council. Talk about working outside of the city charter, which he loves to spout. This is just crazy to me. Did he quit? Or is he still our attorney?"
"He's working behind the scenes," Nelson said.
"In perpetuity?"Nesta asked.
Nesta asked Nelson about the separation agreement that Rodriguez had yet to sign. Nelson said that Rodriguez was employed until July 3rd and that he would receive 10 weeks' salary as severance compensation. But Nesta corrected those figures.
"I was able to get some documents," he said. "He's gotten paid very similarly every single week, except for last week, where he cashed in his PTO (Paid Time Off), around $7,000. From there, he's getting paid [through] June. July 7th is his termination date. And it's 13 weeks of his base salary, which is somewhere between $35,000 and $40,000. And he's getting paid to leave on top of the PTO on top of all these payments again, that he's not working for the Council. I had a lot of legal questions and have not had a single word... I haven't had any responses. So again, I don't know who he's working for right now. And I don't know how he's getting paid right now since he doesn't work for any of us."
The Council also debated what it could and could not do in regard to the City Attorney position, but Becker summed up the situation it found itself in.
"He voluntarily resigned on May 3rd... so even if you dispute the action that we took on April 5th, he voluntarily resigned on May 3rd. So that's an immaterial argument to this conversation. When he resigned on May 3rd... hey, cut him a check for his accrued PTO. Thank you for your service, and on to fill the city attorney position and move forward. But clearly, we can't do that. We've got to play games here."
"We aren't playing games," said Nelson.
But Nesta agreed with Becker that games were being played on the Dais.
"I have his resignation letter right here," said Nesta. "I mean, it's just, this is just pure insanity. And these kinds of games make these meetings so much longer. I know everyone complains that they're so long, but it's these games right here that the voters don't want. And they've actively said that. They don't want long meetings. It's because we have to take deeper dives into almost every single thing that we do because there are games being played. The voters elected us to do ethical things, and we're supposed to vote in that correct way. I just can't get over it. This is acting outside of the city charter. So I don't know where we go from here. I mean, this is really bad. Actually, I just think ethically, the ethics behind this are really shady."
This is a developing story and will be updated in future editions of The Apopka Voice.
