Williston Hasn’t Been Transparent about Christmas Gift Cards

By Terry Witt – Spotlight Senior Reporter

Williston City Council members were complimented Monday for their efforts to make council meetings open and transparent but criticized for failing to practice the same openness when explaining why $150 Christmas gift cards were given to 38 city employees while other employees were left out.

Spotlight on Levy County Government Founder and Administrator Linda Cooper said the public still hasn’t been told the full story about why 38 employees were gifted with Tractor Supply gift cards before Christmas but employees of the Williston Police Department, Williston Fire Department, and Williston Airport were left out.

“Williston provided Spotlight with a list of employees who received the gift cards but provided no details about who made the decision and what process was used to select the employees who received the cards and why so many employees were not included in the Christmas giveaway,” Cooper said.

She also stood before the council to reject the city’s attempt to charge Spotlight $61.95 for public records that were never requested in connection with its investigation of the gift cards.

“I will not be paying the $61.95 for information requested concerning the 2021 Christmas gift cards. The request was not for documents but for information that should have been provided to the council and the public months ago,” Cooper said.

Spotlight has made public records requests for information concerning the Christmas gift cards. The city provided the 38 names of employees who received the cards, but not the departments they work for as requested.

Council President Debra Jones texted Spotlight recently to say the public records requests were becoming annoying and taking up staff time. She said as far as the city was concerned the matter was closed, but she suggested Spotlight submit questions to City Manager Jackie Gorman regarding the gift cards and Gorman could respond.

The questions were submitted to Gorman as a written public information request, not a public records request. City Clerk Latricia Wright later notified Spotlight when the “public records request” had been completed. She said the 13 pages could be picked up at City Hall for a price of $61.95.

City officials have often bristled at questions about the gift cards. They knew controversy was swirling around the giveaway soon after it happened. The controversy hasn’t gone away.

In January, Jones instructed Gorman to prepare a report explaining the circumstances surrounding the $5,700 Christmas card giveaway. The report Gorman issued was an email that wasn’t recognizable as a report. It gave a brief history of how previous City Manager Scott Lippmann created the policy that guides how the scrap pile money can be spent. Retiring Chief Dennis Strow said the scrap pile money was used in the early days of the program to buy safety equipment like boots for linemen.

Strow said the city administration approached him after the fact and offered to give city police a safety bonus equal to what other employees had received as a gift card around Christmas, but he wasn’t comfortable taking the money and turned it down.

“I didn’t like the way the money was collected and then dispersed. I didn’t feel good about it and I didn’t take it. I’m glad the police department was excluded from it,” Strow said.

Strow said the city has a policy that gives city employees a $50 safety bonus at the end of the year plus eight hours of vacation time if they haven’t had any safety issues during the year. He said part-time employees can earn a $25 safety bonus through the same policy. He said the city can’t change the safety bonus to $150 as a makeup for police not getting anything at Christmas.

“In the past, safety equipment, boots, stuff like that for the lineman that was not budgeted and that’s what the money was originally used for. This past year they used it for gift cards at Tractor Supply,” Strow said. “I’m not sure what’s going on. I have a philosophy that if I know something’s going on, I’m going to tell it. I’m not going to hide any facts and let the chips fall where they may.”

Fire Chief Lamar Stegall said he believes in transparency in government. He said he was also approached by city administration after the fact about compensating his department with gift cards, but he declined to accept the offer.

“I haven’t been involved in this at all. I heard about it. They came and approached me about it and it wasn’t the right thing to do to take those cards, so I didn’t take the cards after the fact,” he said.

Cooper said a better way to spend the $5,700 of scrap pile money would have been to purchase a marquee or sign for the front of City Hall that would notify people of upcoming events or important notices. Residents could drive past the sign and see the announcements. She said a marquee or a sign of this type would have been helpful when City Hall was closed for COVID rather than forcing someone pushing a loved one in a wheelchair to walk up to the front door of City Hall to read a notice that they couldn’t enter the building.

She said it’s time for the city to give a full explanation of the circumstances surrounding the Christmas gift cards.

“This was done in December. We’re in April and we’re still not getting answers,” she said.