A Tallahassee city commissioner has filed a lawsuit in Florida’s Second Judicial Circuit alleging that an intergovernmental agency is failing to abide by the state’s open-meeting law.
City Commissioner Jeremy Matlow filed the action June 9 in the Leon County Court. The complaint urges the court to find that the Blueprint Intergovernmental Agency, a joint city-county agency that administers the spending of a 1% sales tax approved by county voters, is failing to provide public notice of relevant agency meetings.
A Blueprint attorney, Susan Dawson, rejected the allegations in the lawsuit, which Matlow filed as a Tallahassee resident and taxpayer.
“The agency will vigorously defend against the meritless lawsuit that was filed on June 9, 2020,” Dawson said in an email to the Florida Record.
Blueprint is administered by an Intergovernmental Management Committee (IMC) that consists of the county administrator and the city manager, who are not Blueprint employees, the lawsuit states. The fact that the IMC is composed of public employees does not exempt it from complying with the Sunshine Law, the plaintiff alleges.
“The IMC has delegated authority to provide budget and policy recommendations, approve the purchase of property, award incentives up to $500,000 to private companies and will make the final determination on over $300 million in contracts for local infrastructure projects over the next five years,” the complaint says.
Such decisions are currently not covered by Florida’s Sunshine Law and are made with no public input, according to the lawsuit. In addition, the IMC has had a role in controversial infrastructure projects, such as a decision to provide $20 million to fund repairs at Doak Campbell Stadium, the complaint says.
“The Sunshine Law has been held applicable to advisory boards or committees whose powers are limited to making recommendations to a public agency and which possess no authority to bind that agency in any way,” the lawsuit filed by Tallahassee attorney Marie Mattox says.
The litigation seeks equitable relief and declaratory relief to ensure that the agency will abide by the provisions of the open-meeting law.