Opinion By Linda Dean Cooper

As founder of Spotlight on Levy County Government, this is my reply to Manager Mary Ellen Harper’s press release and County Attorney Nicolle Shalley’s email to Spotlight.

I find it very interesting that County Manager Mary Ellen Harper used attorney Shalley’s email addressed to me as a press release.  This begs the question: What did the Spotlight FB page and website write that got the highest paid employees so up in arms?  Too much time on their hands?  Did I strike a nerve?  Was it misinformation? 

Word Salad/Smoke Screen

The public should question why Shalley wrote a seven-page email to Spotlight to defend her job performance, two county employees, and commissioners.  Shalley is paid $85 an hour plus benefits and retirement benefits and has a list of outside law firms for litigation.  Perhaps it’s time to cut the county attorney employee position and hire an experienced local general government municipal law firm.  

Ethics Laws Supposedly Apply to County Employees. Are They Enforced? Who Oversees Financial Forms for County Employees?

Attorney Shalley seems to take offense to my statement about the lack of safety nets for the public concerning elected officials and county employees.  Below is one of Shalley’s statements in her email, which was in red:

“Many State Ethics laws do apply to County employees and Section 112.3145, F.S. requires annual financial disclosure by certain “Local officers” which includes “Any person holding one or more of the following positions: mayor; county or city manager; chief administrative employee of a county, municipality, or other political subdivision; county or municipal attorney; finance director of a county, municipality, or other political subdivision; chief county or municipal building code inspector; county or municipal water resources coordinator; county or municipal pollution control director; county or municipal environmental control director; county or municipal administrator, with power to grant or deny a land development permit; chief of police; fire chief; municipal clerk; district school superintendent; community college president; district medical examiner; or purchasing agent having the authority to make any purchase exceeding the threshold amount provided for in s. 287.017 for CATEGORY TWO, on behalf of any political subdivision of the state or any entity thereof. For example, as the County Attorney, I am required to file annual financial disclosure with the Commission on Ethics. You can search those public filings at [https://disclosure.floridaethics.gov/PublicSearch/Filings.”

Shalley’s 2023 Form 1: Includes Shalley’s name and agency as Levy County, County Attorney. N/A for primary and secondary sources of Income.  It appears her county salary must not be considered primary or secondary income, so it is listed as N/A.   Real property or intangible personal property is listed as N/A.  She listed four names of creditors and N/A for interests in specified businesses.   That’s all the information included in her 2023 Form 1. 

Commissioner Desiree Mills Form 6: Lists her name, elected as constitutional officer of levy county and her district 3, gave her net worth, listed her four assets, six creditors, had no other joint and several liabilities to report in liabilities over $1,000.  Mills’s list of income exceeding $1,000 was her farm and county commissioner salary. Secondary sources of income were listed as N/A, and interests in specified businesses were listed as N/A.  She did certify she had completed the required training under F.S.  Section 112.3142.

Here is a link on the Florida Ethics website for the financial forms: https://disclosure.floridaethics.gov/PublicSearch/Filings

In response to Shalley’s statement in her email/press release: “For example, as the County Attorney, I am required to file annual financial disclosure with the Commission on Ethics.” Yes, file an annual financial disclosure with the Commission on Ethics, but as an employee, your requirements for Form 1 are very different, and you are not held to the same standard as an elected official’s Form 6. 

Question for County Manager Mary Ellen Harper

Who instructs applicable county employees to submit financial statements to Ethics, you or Human Resources?  Do the employees subject to filing form 1, have proper ethics training to know their responsibilities and forms to file?  Are such forms filed in personnel files to ensure the county employees follow proper ethics training and filed forms?

I did not do a deep dive for all Levy County Form 1 or Form 6 Statements of Financial Disclosure, but the little bit I researched provided minimal information; not all director/management employees filed a Form 1 financial statement with the state. The last building official financial statements were marked confidential, I could not find the previous Planning and Zoning Director’s Stacey Hectus Form 1 on file. She processed and presented the 3RT sand mine exception to the Planning Board and BoCC. Hectus’s replacement has filed her financial statement.

Two Significant Failures During Attorney Shalley’s Tenure

Shalley was hired in September 2021. In June 2024, the county lost the civil suit between Levy County commissioners and Clerk of Court Danny Shipp over access to the records in the ADG system after staff were denied specific access.  

Three months later, on September 17, 2024, the Circuit Court of the Eighth Judicial Circuit in and for Levy County, Florida, issued an order quashing the approval of the 3RT Sand Mine Special Exception. “Quash” means that the approval for the 3RT Sand Mine was voided

Sand Mines Permitted by the DEP – No Need for County Redundancy

Why is Levy County duplicating the permitting process and bureaucracy with additional fees that the State is already regulating? Sand mines are regulated and permitted by the DEP. The past County Planning and Zoning Department Director Stacey Hectus and Attorney Shalley failed the BoCC, the 3RT applicant, and Levy County citizens with their unnecessary and long-drawn-out expensive process.

Borrow Pits are like sand mines but do not conduct any on-site sorting, grading, or washing of the material and are permitted by our local Water Management District.

Time to Go Back to Contracting All Legal Services?

Attorney Shalley is not a litigator, which is not unusual for a county attorney. Lawsuits against the county are contracted.  She is the legal advisor to the BoCC on whether to move forward with litigation and the legal advisor for the Board.  If Shalley has time to write a 7-page rebuttal to a Facebook page and website, along with two costly failed legal scenarios, perhaps it is time in this next budget session to contract general legal services again as was done before the last two attorneys hired by the BoCC.

Below are PDFs of Harper’s full press release, a copy of Attorney Shalley Form 1 2023 financial statement, Commissioner Desiree Mills Form 6 2023 financial statement