DeLand, FL – All members of Volusia County’s advertising authority boards will be required to attend a Sunshine Law refresher class yearly from now on.
That’s the word from the Volusia County Council during its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday at the Historic Volusia County Courthouse in DeLand.
VCC members approved District 3 Representative Deb Denys’ motion by a 4-0 vote after she argued that the county needed to have such a policy in place due in part to Sunshine Law violations recently discovered at the Halifax Area Advertising Authority.
HAAA members were forced to back-track last month on a 4% pay raise for Executive Director Tom Caradonio after it was discovered that a committee meeting in October discussing his job performance wasn’t publicly advertised as required by the Sunshine Law.
County officials acknowledged during Thursday’s VCC meeting that no minutes were taken of the October 21st meeting of the HAAA’s Human Resources Advisory Committee, also a violation of the Sunshine Law.
Because of those errors, the HAAA will have to re-do the meeting with proper public notice and the HAAA Board of Directors will need to re-approve Caradonio’s pay raise at a future meeting.
County Attorney Dan Eckert told the VCC that the lack of public notice and minutes taken were honest mistakes made by staff who weren’t on the same page.
The new policy requires all ad authority board members – which are unpaid volunteer positions – to undergo a similar kind of Sunshine Law training that VCC members get on a yearly basis.
District 4’s Doug Daniels, District 5’s Fred Lowry and VCC Chairman Jason Davis also voted yes. The other 3 council members – At-Large Rep Joyce Cusack, District 1’s Pat Patterson and District 2’s Josh Wagner – were not in attendance.
The HAAA along with its sisters in Southeast Volusia and West Volusia are responsible for using the county’s bed tax money to promote its respective parts of the county as a tourism destination.
Thursday’s VCC meeting is the first held outside of council chambers since council members approved a nearly $600,000 renovation to the chambers 2 weeks ago. The chambers should be ready for use again for the VCC’s first meeting in February. All VCC meetings until then will be held at the 2nd floor of the courthouse.
Copyright 2015 Southern Stone Communications.