The Apopka City Council voted 3-1 on a resolution to censure the mayor “for misleading the City Council, and by the same actions, the people of Apopka through untruthful public comments regarding the employment status of the former City Attorney” Michael Rodriguez at the Wednesday, August 2, council meeting.
Mayor Bryan Nelson voted ‘no.’ City Commissioner Alexander H. Smith was absent from the meeting.
“Again the driver of this resolution, and I know that the mayor made some comments publicly on one of the local news outlets, and I’ll have the record straight being that Commissioner (Nick) Nesta was the one that brought up the employment status of the attorney on both occasions,” said Commissioner Kyle Becker after reading the resolution. “So it being politically charged from my loss in the mayoral races (in March 2022), patently untrue. What drove us to this resolution was the fact, as I stated, within this resolution on June 21st, there was direct public comments for the formal record that were not the same as June 7th, and very untrue as to the status of our city attorney.”
In his rebuttal to the censure before the vote, Nelson explained that he had city attorney Cliff Shepard review whether the council’s April 5 3-2 vote to recommend terminating Rodriguez was sufficient to ending his employment.
Nelson read a memo from Shepard to him dated July 19 about the termination of city clerk and city attorney under the city charter that makes Apopka a “strong mayor” city: “Considering the question in reverse, could the mayor on his own, and without at least two additional supporting votes on city council, terminate Mr. Rodriguez? In my opinion, the answer to both questions is no.”
Read more on page 1A of the Friday, August 4, issue of The Apopka Chief.
The Apopka Chief and The Planter are weekly community newspapers, independently owned and family operated, that have served the greater Apopka area in Central Florida since 1923 and 1965 respectively.
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