Councilman Steve Friedman’s statement regarding Village Manager Rob Cole's severance agreement and village procedures
Islamorada Village Council, January 7, 2025
Ladies and gentlemen, when I decided to run for this position, I ran on a promise to the voters that I would fight against overdevelopment and attempt to ensure transparency in everything we do as a Council. A governing body that creates, enacts, and enforces policy and should serve the community's best interests, consistent with Village's stated Mission:
To Protect the Residents' Right to Quiet Enjoyment of Life
To Plan for Enhancing Our Village Character
To Preserve Our Community; Its People, Natural Resources, and Pride
To Provide Basic Services to Support our Quality of Life
I asked to remove the item at Tab 7 from the Consent Agenda, which involves a resolution to approve a severance of employment to Village Manager, Rob Cole. I did so because I am troubled by how the matter of severing Rob’s relationship with the Village came about and because I know that Rob likes his job and was not seeking to resign.
From everything I heard before this matter suddenly was presented to me on December 18th, I understood that Rob was doing his job well. I had no knowledge then, and I have no knowledge now, of any conduct by Rob that would justify coercing him to resign in return for several weeks of severance. I was not in favor of the proposal to offer Rob severance when it was initially presented to me by the Village attorney, and I am not in favor of it now — for the following reasons:
The subject of offering severance in return for Rob's resignation was first presented to me by the Village Attorney, John Quick, in a phone call on December 18th. John called me about an email that he previously sent to Council Members on December 17th. The email concerned a written complaint made by a Village employee against Rob.
Because of IT issues in setting up my email account, I hadn't received or reviewed John’s email with the employee's complaint attached, prior to his call. I explained that to John and he forwarded a copy of his email with the complaint to me as we were on the call. John gave me a brief summary of the email. He then said he was conducting a "poll" of the Council Members about whether they were in favor of offering Rob a severance package in return for his resignation. He said he would be communicating the results of the poll to Rob, depending on the vote.
John then asked if I was in favor of offering Rob a severance package in return for his resignation. I told him that I was not in favor of such action because I knew of no basis to suggest that Rob be forced out of his position; and because I believe every employee of the Village, no matter their position, is entitled to due process to address the merit or lack of merit to a complaint against them before being disciplined, terminated or coerced to resign.
At the time of John's call on December 18th, I had no knowledge or evidence — and still have no knowledge or evidence — that would justify criticizing Rob's job performance — much less a request for his resignation in return for a severance package. Consequently, I was extremely uncomfortable with John's request to state whether I was in favor of making such an offer and I told him so.
I was aware of the fact that Rob had responded to a rumor that he had some responsibility for the decision made in Tallahassee to cancel the funding for the Islamorada Fire Department fireboat. However, Rob submitted a detailed factual response that refuted the rumor in an email dated December 12, 2024 that was provided to Council Members. Rob's Statement completely dispelled to my satisfaction the idea that he had anything to do with the boat funding cancellation. Among other things, Rob pointed out was that the Islamorada boat allocation was not the only fireboat allocation vetoed. Another allocation for a fireboat at Marco Island was also vetoed. Additionally, Rob noted that millions of dollars in fire and public safety funding vetoes were part of an overall budget reduction effort.
During our initial phone conversation on December 18, I told John that I objected to being "polled" about my position on a matter as important as terminating another Village Manager less than a year after he had accepted the position. John explained that he had the unenviable task of contacting me and the other Council Members, individually, to find out whether there was support for submitting a severance proposal to Rob in exchange for his resignation.
I do not know, and John did not say whether he had been asked to conduct the poll by one of my colleagues on the Council, or if he decided to initiate the poll himself. I do not know why John didn’t simply suggest that an investigation be conducted into the employee complaint before suggesting that Rob be offered severance — if the employee’s complaint was actually the reason for suggesting severance in the first place. I suspect that it is not but that it may be a convenient excuse for the current effort to force Rob to resign.
In any event, however, I don’t know why John didn’t suggest that there be a meeting of the full Council in public session or, if permissible and appropriate, in an Executive Session to discuss such a critical matter rather than conduct a poll of the Council to offer severance in return for Rob’s resignation.
Assuming that it was the employee’s complaint that precipitated the proposal to offer Rob severance in exchange for his resignation, I told John that I was not in favor of such an offer. There hadn't been any investigation of the complaint or any discussion among ·Council Members about Rob's conduct that would justify such action. On its face, the employee’s complaint did not appear to me to come anywhere near justifying a severance proposal.
So, I told John "no" to offering severance. John informed me that I was the last Council Member contacted and that my no vote was "in the minority." I asked if the minority was 3-2 or 4-1. John told me it was 4-1. I also expressed my concern to John about how I could trust that the information he was giving me was the same information he gave to the other Council Members. John insisted that he wouldn't jeopardize his law license by not providing the same information to all Council Members.
On December 19th I had a chance to do a thorough review of the email John sent to Council Members on December 17th regarding the employee’s complaint. I found it interesting that in his email, John mentioned: and I quote, "this scenario is not addressed in the Village's personnel manual. When not specifically addressed, the normal procedure in these situations is to speak with each of you individually to discuss the Village's options going forward and provide potential legal recommendations on how to proceed."
At no time since our initial phone conversation on December 18 to this date, however, did John provide me with any "options" or "legal recommendations," beyond asking for my vote in favor or against offering Rob severance in return for his resignation. I was basically presented with a “yay” or “nay” proposition. I don't know if John suggested any "options" or "legal recommendations" in his conversations with other Council Members.
However, I do know that other options and legal recommendations were not suggested to me. And, perhaps more importantly, at no time since December 18 did John or any other attorney at his Firm express an opinion to me that they considered the employee’s complaint sufficiently serious to justify an immediate offer of severance in exchange for his resignation.
John also contacted me by phone again on December 19th. This time it was in connection with conducting another “poll” of Council Members. John said he was polling Council Members about their preference for the number of weeks of severance to be offered to Rob should he agree to resign. Once again, I objected to the process of polling Council Members on a matter of such importance to the Village and to Rob without any prior discussion among Council Members and Public participation.
In my mind, this was a matter that should have been addressed initially in a discussion among the full Council at a Public Meeting or, if possible, in Executive Session. Since I was the only Council Member opposed to forcing Rob’s resignation, I told John that if Rob were to be offered a severance package it should be for the maximum amount, which John stated would be 20 weeks’ pay.
In a subsequent phone call with John’s associate, Allison Smith, on December 19th, she informed me that a decision had apparently been made to offer the Village Manager a severance of approximately 6 weeks. I asked how the 4 other council could possibly have come up with the same number of weeks for the severance offer without speaking to one another. Allison told me she could not say because discussing her conversations with other Councilmembers would violate the Sunshine Law.
Following these communications with John and Allison, I reviewed the Village Council Orientation materials provided to me at the orientation meeting of new Council Members held in November. The materials included a memo prepared by the Weiss Serota law firm with the title, "Summary of Florida's Sunshine Law and Public Records Act." The memo contains a bullet point provision with the heading: "No Meetings through Use of Intermediaries."
After reading it, I became concerned that the "polling" of Council Members about offering Rob severance might violate the “Intermediaries” provision of the Sunshine Law, which reads as follows:
"THE SUNHINE LAW IS VIOLATED IF A PERSON (WHO IS NOT A COUNCILMEMBER) ACTS AS A LIASON BETWEEN COUNCIL MEMBERS THROUGH WHICH A DE FACTO DISCUSSION IS CONDUCTED UPON SOME SUBJECT MATTER ON WHICH FORSEEABLE ACTION WILL BE TAKEN BY THE COUNCIL."
After reviewing this provision, I sent John and Allison an email on the evening of December 19th. My email reiterated that I had no knowledge of any facts that would merit asking the Village Manager for his resignation. And I informed John and Allison of my concern about a possible violation of the "Intermediary" provision contained in the Sunshine Law as a result of the “polling” process John had used to determine if there was a majority of the Council Members in favor of offering Rob severance in return for his resignation.
It appeared to me from the language of the “Intermediary” provision of the Sunshine Law that polling Council Members to find out whether they were in favor of offering Rob a severance package in exchange for his resignation involved a subject matter "for which foreseeable action would be required by the Village Council." Obviously, taxpayer funds would have to be expended to fund the severance being offered.
So, in my email to John and Allison I asked the following question: "Is it possible that the decision to offer an employee severance on behalf of the Council without any prior discussion among the Council members, based on each Councilmember's conversation with you as an intermediary, might violate the Sunshine Law."
John responded to me in an email on December 20, informing me that he did not serve as an intermediary because he did not convey "any discussion between Councilmembers." John reiterated that he would not risk throwing his career away for anyone or any client and that no Sunshine laws were violated. And in response to my comment about not having any information that would support Rob’s termination, John informed me that as far as the reasons why other Councilmembers might wish to sever the relationship with Rob, I would need to ask them for their reasons at an open public meeting.
Out of concern that the termination of Rob's employment be addressed by the full Council in a public meeting as soon as possible, I also informed John and Allison that I would be asking Mayor Mahoney to schedule a Special Meeting of the Council to address the subject of severing Rob’s employment with the Village.
The next day, December 20th, I sent an email to the Village Clerk, Marne McGrath. My email requested a Special Meeting of the Council for two purposes. The first purpose was for a discussion of matters related to the Village Manager's employment. The second purpose was to discuss making a request to the Village attorney to provide the Council with proposed alternative procedures to address, investigate and attempt to resolve Village employee’s complaints, including those involving the Village Manager, before requiring the Council’s involvement.
My concern was this: The Village has terminated nearly 20 different Village Managers in 20 years. Is the Council going to terminate Village Managers simply because a Village Employee may lodge a complaint that has not been investigated, much less verified, and for which the Village Manager has not been afforded an opportunity to respond, and the Village Attorney has not provided any opinion to the Council that would justify such a termination?
Marne sent a blind copy email to Councilmembers on December 20, asking about their availability for a Special Meeting. Marne also responded to my email on the same day, informing me she had contacted Sharon about my request for her to call a Special Meeting about Rob's employment. Marne informed me that Sharon expressed concern about the Council's availability over the holidays and suggested that the matter be brought up during this meeting. Therefore, as far as I know, there was no support for my request for a Special Meeting.
On the afternoon of Sunday, December 22nd, I received another call from Allison, acting in place of John who was on holiday. She called to inform me that the proposal to offer Rob severance in return for his resignation had been accepted in principle. I again expressed my disdain for the process. Allison told me that John had consulted an ethics expert who advised that the polling process did not violate the Sunshine Law.
On December 23rd, Allison sent me a draft separation agreement attached to an email. The draft agreement provided that Rob would receive approximately 3 months' pay in exchange for his resignation. When I asked Allison how the number of weeks of severance pay had been determined, she said that she could not answer that question because she could not disclose conversations with Council Members.
On December 23rd I received an email from HR director, Jamie Terry, informing me of the required performance evaluation due for Mr. Cole. After I made a request to see all prior evaluations of Rob, she sent me two. One was from Mark Gregg and the other from Elizabeth Jolin. Neither evaluation contained any negative feedback about Rob's work as Village Manager. There were no written evaluations from Buddy, Sharon, or Henry Rosenthal. I don’t know if they provided oral evaluations.
I received another email from Allison on December 27th which included a revised separation agreement for Rob. She followed up that email with another email on January 3rd, 2025, which attached another revised version of the separation agreement and mentioned she would be contacting me by phone. I presumed for the purpose of asking if I had any edits or comments about the agreement. I replied by email that there was no need to call; my only concern was that the Rob be indemnified from any possible litigation brought by a Village employee in the future. Allison sent me back an email confirming that such an indemnification was provided in the agreement.
In closing, I have laid out in detail the facts as I know them to be about this matter for purposes of full transparency. I am truly troubled by how such a critically important decision as severing the employment of our Village Manager was made without any discussion among Council Members and without providing the public the opportunity to weigh in on the advisability of terminating another Village Manager who was hired less than a year ago and, to my knowledge, had done nothing to deserve being forced to resign.
I am not a lawyer, but I did not believe when Mr. Quick first polled me for my vote, nor do I believe now, that the matter complained of by a Village employee justifies the knee-jerk response of coercing our Village Manager to resign. There has been no investigation of the complaint. There has been no opportunity for Rob to provide a response to the complaint.
When did we decide that it was acceptable to terminate Village Managers without due process, if employees should make complaints about their conduct? What kind of precedent does this set? And, most importantly from my point of view as a newly elected public official in a Village that has experienced a revolving door of Village Manager hirings and firings in recent years, why is it considered acceptable to follow a process that evades the spirit, if not the letter, of the Sunshine Law?
In my opinion, what has happened here is totally unacceptable. I know from speaking to him personally, Mr. Cole likes his job. He did not want to resign. Yet, a majority of the Council apparently saw fit to force him to resign, without due process, without any prior discussion of the merits of forcing his termination, and without any plan in place for his replacement. Is this good governance? I don’t think so. Personally, I think coercing a Village Manager to resign without any plan in place to replace him is irresponsible.
I apologize to the Citizens of Islamorada for what I see as the Council’s dereliction of its duty to the Community. You deserve better. And to Mr. Cole, I express my sincerest apology for the manner in which this Council has treated you. I thank you for your service to our Village. You, too, deserved better.
In closing, I return to Mr. Quick’s advice that if I want to know the other Council Members’ reasons for their actions, I would have to ask you at a public session. So, at this public meeting I ask my fellow Council Members for the courtesy of their responses to the following four questions:
Whose idea was it to ask the Village Attorney to poll the question of offering severance to Rob?
What are your reasons for wanting to sever the relationship with Rob?
Why do you think it is prudent to force Rob to resign from his position when there is no plan in place for his replacement?
What is your plan to replace Rob as Village Manager?