Update on the City of Stuart.
Here’s an update from Save Martin County. This is a very dependable source of information. If you live in Martin County and you are concerned you should definitely follow and participate.
Save Martin County is an environmental advocacy group and online resource in Florida to promote sustainable land use and oppose improper development.
She’s so much more! When you see something that you simply can’t believe she is your reality check.
So make sure you follow her!
I want to make sure we have the info as it is happening.
Things you need to know:
“The TYRANNICAL TRIO have scheduled a budget meeting next Wednesday 9/9 at 5:15pm and guess what they slid in? Mike Mortell’s hiring.
No applications to consider. No real public hearing. No committees. Just cramming this bad decision down our throats.
You know, because Merritt Matheson thinks that we’re all a bunch of kids and we should look up to them as the adults in the room.
So we are just going to ignore the following:
• His wife hitting a park car and leaving the scene of the accident with Mortell going to talk to the police. No charges filed.
• Mortell being told he had a suspended license and not remedying it but then lying to MCSO when pulled over that he didn’t know it was suspended. (Fun fact: he had been told by the Chief of Police)
• Mortell using the City office & resources to practice law for his private clients. His contract allowed him to keep his private clients, but not to use public resources to do it. These resources included the time and effort efforts of the city paralegal for which he also billed his clients so she was getting paid by tax dollars like he was to work during the day, but then they both also were paid for their service to his private clients.
• Mortell using access that only he knew about regarding documents from a discovery case to mark up and send to somebody for them to sue somebody personally.
• Mortell disclosing private financial information about a city resident to another city resident (me) when it was none of my damn business.
Hiring him back also means that the Senate Bill 180 lawsuit will probably be rescinded. That puts the city in a world of jeopardy including but not limited to developers getting their way with this shitty backstabbing commission claiming “developer rights.”
Some questions:
Is he now required to pay back his severance? Are they going to eliminate his ability to have private clients? Are they going to restrict his ability to conduct public records request for his friends where he marks them up so they can take personal litigation action against others? Is he going to continue to send vindictive emails to residents when he doesn’t like what they say and call them names? And yes there are multiple examples of that.
There’s more but I’m so disgusted by the LACK OF TRANSPARENCY that I can’t even finish my thoughts right now.
I strongly recommend everybody send an email to the commission and to the city attorney.
FYI I can promise you there will be some lawsuits filed if this man gets re-hired. And that’s in addition to whatever investigations are already happening because of the actions during the election by the Tyrannical Trio… because if FDLE is not investigating, they should.
Link to the meeting: https://stuartfl.portal.civicclerk.com/…/files/agenda/2263
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