Michael Rodriguez tendered his resignation as city attorney following a contentious battle with the Apopka City Council over how he performed his job.
Rodriguez announced his resignation at the Wednesday, May 3, City Council meeting.
“At this point, I have serious concerns about the direction this council is taking and the means of which certain things have just been communicated,” he said during his attorney’s report at the meeting. “I ultimately fear that I can no longer ethically represent this council. I fear that this council could be on the verge of conducting ultra vires action, and I cannot ethically remain as its city attorney. Therefore, I’m tendering my resignation so I can save you some money.”
During his report,
Rodriguez also told the City Council he will help with the transition to the new attorney.
At the April 19 City Council meeting, the City Council voted 4-1 to get a declaratory judgment on Rodriguez, meaning that the City Council would bring in a third-party attorney to view the city charter related to terminating him. Mayor Bryan Nelson cast the only vote of opposition.
At the April 5 City Council meeting, the council voted 3-2 to recommend termination of Rodriguez. Nelson and City Commissioner Alexander H. Smith had voted no.
Rodriguez’s May 3 announcement of resignation came after the City Council report toward the end of the meeting. During the report, City Commissioner Kyle Becker discussed how the City Council could follow up with the 4-1 vote of declaratory judgment.
An option that Becker presented was that the City Council would have to draft a letter to the attorney general and provide the official April 19 meeting minutes when the 4-1 declaratory judgment vote took place. Those minutes haven’t been officially approved yet, so that option would have to take place after the May 17 meeting, Becker said.
Becker also brought up to the City Council the name of the third-party legal attorney he considered to review the city charter: Hala Sandridge, a Florida Bar board-certified attorney in appellate practice and shareholder of the Tampa-based law firm Buchanan Ingersoll and Rooney.
After getting approval from Nelson with this option, Becker said he would draft the letter and the City Council would sign the document at the next City Council meeting, when the April 19 minutes would be available. However, the decision to move forward with this was made before Rodriguez announced that he was tendering his resignation.
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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