City Council must approve proposed settlement at July 19 meeting
The city of Apopka will pay Richard Anderson, its former city administrator, $60,000 if the City Council approves a proposed agreement to settle the city’s suit against Anderson and his counterclaim against the city.
The agreement is contingent upon approval by the City Council at its July 19 meeting.
Documents detailing the terms of the proposed agreement say the $60,000 payment – if approved by the City Council – would “resolve and settle all claims and counterclaims raised or which could have been raised.” The lawsuit was filed by the city in June 2016.
Anderson filed a counterclaim against the city – his employer for 42 years – this past May.
If the City Council votes to approve the settlement, the city will have 30 days to pay Anderson the $60,000. If the deal is rejected by the City Council, the two sides will file a joint motion to lift a stay that was put on the case this week by Circuit Court Judge Julie H. O’Kane. The stay means no work will be done on the case by either party until the City Council votes on the proposed agreement on July 19.
Details of the proposed settlement were worked out between Anderson and Apopka Mayor Joe Kilsheimer, along with attorneys representing Anderson and the city, during a court-ordered mediation conference held June 29 at the Orlando office of mediator Viktoria Collins.
In the three-page proposed settlement agreement, Anderson acknowledged “that there have been no assurances made by the mayor or anyone else that the City Council will vote to approve the contingent mediated settlement agreement, that there have been no promises or statements of any kind made by the mayor as to how he will vote on the contingent mediated settlement agreement, and that the terms of this contingent mediated settlement agreement are not binding on the parties unless and until the City Council votes to approve same.”
According to O’Kane’s order to stay the case, if the City Council rejects the proposed settlement, the two sides will have 30 days to propose new deadlines for progress in the case.
In her filing, Collins said that the mediation conference was held at the Orlando office of Collins Law and Mediation in Orlando. It was attended by Mayor Kilsheimer and attorney Patrick A. Brackins, and Anderson and his attorney Michael Jones. City attorney Cliff Shepard joined the conference via telephone as he was out of state.
The lawsuit brought by the city and the counterclaim brought by Anderson came after Anderson’s truck was involved in a crash on State Road 46 in Lake County on April 5, 2016.
Anderson was accused of being the driver of his truck during the wreck and leaving the scene of the crash that injured Michael Scott Falcon of Grand Island, a small community in Lake County. However, prosecutors said they couldn’t prove that Anderson was behind the wheel of his truck and, as part of a plea deal earlier this year, Anderson pleaded no contest to charges filed against him by the Florida Highway Patrol. He received three years felony probation and had his driver’s license suspended for three years.
Judge Lawrence J. Semento also withheld adjudication, meaning Anderson will not have a felony record if he successfully completes his probation.
The city sued Anderson, saying he breached the contract by not telling city officials about the crash and he brought bad light to Apopka because of the news surrounding the crash.
Apopka’s original suit against Anderson was dismissed on February 22 by Circuit Court Judge Julie H. O’Kane, but she allowed the city to re-file the second complaint, which the city did on March 13. The city sued Anderson for $155,000, which is double the amount that Anderson would have been paid had the contract been fulfilled by its completion date of mid-September 2016. He was fired by the city from the lobbyist job on June 1, 2016, after he was arrested by the Florida Highway Patrol.
In its second complaint against Anderson that was filed in March, the city listed 58 allegations against Anderson, who was serving as a lobbyist and special-projects manager at the time after he had retired as the city administrator.
Anderson filed a counterclaim on May 15 against the city, saying that Apopka breached the terms of its lobbying contract with him by firing him as a lobbyist and damaged him in the process following the crash involving his truck.
Anderson has also settled a civil suit that Falcon filed against him. Terms of that settlement were not made public.
