Levy County Commissioner John Meeks went before the Florida Commission on Ethics Friday and said a policy was being drafted to give all five hardware stores in the county an equal opportunity to sell hardware to Levy County Commission. Meeks owns Bronson Ace Hardware. File photo by Terry Witt

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

                The Florida Commission on Ethics Friday made it clear to Levy County Commissioner John Meeks that a “fair and equitable” rotation policy must be written giving all five hardware stores in the county an equal share of sales to the county commission.

            Meeks, who bought Bronson Ace Hardware in January, a store he managed for nearly two decades, told the Ethics Commission at its meeting in Tallahassee he has already approached staff and asked the county procurement director to write a rotation policy for hardware store sales.

            The commissioner earlier requested an opinion from the Ethics Commission on whether he had a conflict of interest for selling hardware to the county commission.  Ethics Commission Senior Staff Attorney Carolyn Marsh KIanke interviewed Meeks and issued an opinion.

            She said Meeks’ sale of hardware to the county commission is a conflict of interest but she said the law allows Meeks to cure the conflict by making certain the county adopts a rotation policy giving all five hardware stores in Levy County an equal share of sales to the county commission. Meeks said a rotation policy has been drafted as an amendment to the county’s procurement manual.

            “I just want to say that I had concerns about this and I self-reported. I contacted Ms. Klanke myself and asked what the conflicts provision was and were there any exemptions,” Meeks said. “After talking to Ms. Klanke and going over what the options were I went right to the county staff and we have drafted an amendment to our purchasing policy that does allow for the rotation.”

            Meeks said the county previously used a less formal “verbal agreement or maybe not a non-binding agreement” for distributing hardware sales.

            In his letter requesting an Ethics Commission opinion, Meeks said the county had a rotation policy, but county staff said there was no such policy. They said county staff members were simply encouraged to shop for the best price.

            When Spotlight contacted Procurement Coordinator Alicia Tretheway Thursday she confirmed she has written a draft rotation policy as an amendment to the procurement manual but was still in the process of correcting other outdated information and inoperable internet links in the manual and couldn’t release the rotation policy to the media.

            Tretheway said County Coordinator Wilbur Dean was the person who instructed her to write the rotation policy and correct other problems in the procurement manual. She said the county commission wouldn’t be involved in approving changes to the manual. She said Dean was given authority by the board to make any changes he thought were needed.

            Spotlight sent a public records request to Dean late Friday afternoon asking who instructed him to write a rotation policy and to provide any emails that might shed light on the subject. He did not respond to the request on Friday but typically it takes a few days to receive an answer.

            Meeks was commended by one Ethics Commission member for taking it upon himself to request an opinion. The formal opinion probably won’t be released until around the middle of next week.

            Ethics Commissioner Don Gaetz said one critical element of the new county rotation policy is that it must promote a “good faith, fair and equitable rotation” of hardware sales among the county’s five hardware stores.

            “And frankly if you did not do that you would not have rotation,” said Gaetz. “You would have sham purchasing.”

            Commissioner Antonio Carvajal said the rotation policy should track more than just the number of transactions per hardware store. It should track value.

            “One can rotate, let’s say, five or 10 or 15, and one (store) gets all the value and all the rest get a pack of bubblegum,” he said. “That would qualify as rotation.”

            Carvajal said the policy must be transparent to the public. He said the rotation policy also should fairly distribute the county’s business to all hardware stores, “or I am over-visiting a commissioner’s place of employment.”

            Gaetz agreed with Carvajal and recommended his comments be added to the final opinion.

            In her introduction of Meeks’ case to the Ethics Commission, Klanke described what she found when inquiring about how Meeks functions in two roles as a store owner and a county commissioner.

            “Bronson Ace Hardware sells goods to the Levy County employees, primarily through their publicly provided purchasing cards, and also maintains accounts with county departments and in particular the maintenance department,” she said.

            She said those facts were the basis of the Ethics Commission inquiry into whether Meeks had conflicts of interest.

            Klanke said state law prohibits conflicting employment or contractual relationships involving a public official like Meeks.

            “It further prohibits the commissioner from acting in his private capacity as a store owner to sell goods or services or realty through his public agency. This commission has found that the agency of a county commissioner is that of his county commission – here the Levy County Commission – and any part of its political subdivision which here is Levy County and all offices or agencies of this county,” Klanke said.

              She said state statute also prohibits Meeks from holding employment or a contractual relationship with a business entity, in this case Bronson Ace Hardware, if the store is doing business with the Levy County Commission.

            Klanke added that there is an exception to the laws that prohibit Meeks from selling hardware from his store to the county commission. She said the exception is “when transactions are rotated among all qualified suppliers of goods and services within a city or county.”

            Meeks can sell hardware to the county commission if a credible rotation policy is developed assuring all five hardware stores sell an equal amount of hardware to the county.

            One Ethics Commissioner said the policy must be “reasonably administered.” He said there’s no sense in forcing a county worker repairing a pipe in Williston to travel to another city when they could buy the hardware in Williston.

——————-

Enterprise Reporting by Terry Witt July 24, 2020; Posted July 24, 2020