resigned - News - The Coastal Star2024-03-28T18:39:18Zhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/feed/tag/resignedOcean Ridge: Vice mayor resigns, faces second felony chargehttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/ocean-ridge-vice-mayor-resigns-faces-second-felony-charge2017-01-04T18:30:00.000Z2017-01-04T18:30:00.000ZThe Coastal Starhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/TheCoastalStar<div><p style="text-align:center;"><strong>Related Story: Town <a href="http://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/ocean-ridge-town-fires-police-lieutenant-over-lucibella-incident?xg_source=activity">fires</a> police lieutenant over Lucibella incident<br /></strong></p>
<p><strong>By Steve Plunkett</strong><br /> <br /> Richard Lucibella, Ocean Ridge vice mayor, resigned from office Dec. 7, the same day he was charged with a second felony connected to an Oct. 22 gathering in his back yard.<br /> “Due to impending litigation between the town of Ocean Ridge and myself, it would be impossible for me to effectively <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960697452,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960697452,original{{/staticFileLink}}" class="align-left" width="96" alt="7960697452?profile=original" /></a>discharge the duties of my office,” Lucibella wrote Mayor Geoff Pugh. “I believe it is in the best interests of our town that I step down.”<br /> Circuit Judge Charles Burton scheduled a hearing for 8:30 a.m. Jan. 10 at the courthouse in West Palm Beach.<br /> Lucibella faces one count of battery on a law enforcement officer in addition to resisting an officer with violence. Both are felonies punishable by up to five years in prison. Town police also charged him with misdemeanor use of a firearm while under the influence of alcohol.<br /> Assistant State Attorney Danielle Grundt added the felony battery charge but decided not to take action on a misdemeanor count of discharging a firearm in public. Her filing canceled a court hearing set for Dec. 8.<br /> Lucibella has pleaded not guilty to all charges. His attorney, Marc Shiner, said through his assistant that he would have no further comment on the case.<br /> Police arrived at Lucibella’s oceanfront home that Saturday night after neighbors complained of hearing gunshots. Officers said they found the vice mayor and one of their supervisors, Lt. Steven Wohlfiel, “obviously intoxicated” on the patio. Officers say they took a .40-caliber Glock handgun from Lucibella and found five spent shell casings on the patio. Police also confiscated a semiautomatic pistol they said Lucibella had in his back pocket.<br /> According to police reports, when officers Richard Ermeri and Nubia Plesnik tried to block Lucibella, 63, from entering the house, he resisted. The officers wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him. Lucibella needed treatment for facial injuries, and Ermeri and Plesnik also required medical attention, according to the reports.<br /> Lucibella was absent from the two Town Commission meetings after the incident, on Nov. 7 and Dec. 5. Pugh said the commission would discuss the vice mayor position and the vacant seat at its Jan. 9 meeting.<br /> Filling the seat temporarily seems “illogical,” Pugh said, because commissioners would have to decide to do that in January, then review names and select someone in February who would then be a voting member only for the March meeting. Lucibella’s three-year term was to expire in March. <br /> Through Shiner, Lucibella has claimed that he is the victim of police overreaction. He maintains officers should not have entered his backyard in the first place, and then that they used excessive force. Shiner has called for Ermeri’s firing and an investigation by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. The use of excessive force is a defense against a charge of battery on a law enforcement officer.<br /> Shiner was an assistant state attorney for nearly 13 years before going into private practice in 2000. Grundt began her legal career at the State Attorney’s Office in 2013.<br /> Police Chief Hal Hutchins reassigned Wohlfiel until completion of an internal investigation of his role in the incident. Both Lucibella and the lieutenant told police they knew nothing about shots being fired.<br /> Pugh said “some folks got really upset” by Lucibella’s arrest and subsequent resignation.<br /> “It’s not the first time we’ve had things happen that make the town look silly,” the mayor said. “Does it make the town look bad? I guess, yes.”<br /> Pugh said the incident also showed that Ocean Ridge “is made up of real people, and people make mistakes.”<br /> <br /> <em>Dan Moffett contributed to this story.</em></p></div>South Palm Beach: New manager riles residents, resigns; council begins search for replacementhttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/south-palm-beach-new-manager-riles-residents-resigns-council-begi2015-07-02T13:30:00.000Z2015-07-02T13:30:00.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><strong>By Dan Moffett</strong><br /> <br /> Three months after leaving Princeton, N.J., and taking over as the town manager of South Palm Beach, Jim Pascale told residents they should think about whether the town should continue to exist.<br /> Many were caught off guard. They were planning to celebrate South Palm Beach’s 60th anniversary later this year.<br /> Bad timing aside, Pascale won’t be remembered for a lack of chutzpah in talking about offing the town that just hired him. But as a career move, it was pretty much suicidal.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960582452,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960582452,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="84" alt="7960582452?profile=original" /></a> “He had a lot of ideas and was putting them all out at once to see which ones would stick. People just weren’t able to deal with that. It was too much,” said Mayor Bonnie Fischer. “They thought his ideas showed he didn’t understand what people liked best about the town. He told us he just wasn’t a good fit for the town, and so he resigned.”<br /> Pascale’s brief and stormy tenure ended the first week of June when he approached town officials and told them it would be best for everyone if he resigned. <br /> That was one idea most everyone seemed to like.<br /> “When I came here, I tried to look at the town with fresh eyes and ask, ‘What’s in the best interest of the residents of South Palm Beach?’ ” Pascale said. “Maybe not everyone understands that.”<br /> Pascale spent 30 years as a public servant in a town known for its ivy-covered halls of academia, but what worked in Princeton didn’t play in the palm tree-lined condo corridors of A1A.<br /> Besides proposing that South Palm Beach might be better off as an unincorporated community, Pascale offered other ideas that set off the firestorm around him.<br /> He called the town’s Police Department “an accident waiting to happen,” saying officers were poorly trained and an insurance liability that could bankrupt the town. He said it was time to consider contracting with an outside agency to save money and minimize risk.<br /> Pascale, 63, also said the town should consider spending as much as $10 million to buy the Oceanfront Inn site and turn it into a park, a proposal that horrified many taxpayers who live on fixed incomes.<br /> Pascale’s departure cost the town 10 weeks’ severance pay — a little more than $20,000 — as well as considerable embarrassment, weeks of internal upheaval and another round of interviewing candidates.<br /> “He came forward and said, ‘I know I don’t have the backing of the Town Council and the people,’ ” Vice Mayor Joseph Flagello said of the manager’s exit. “ ‘It doesn’t seem to be working out,’ he said. He’s pragmatic. It’s like, ‘Why would I want to be here?’”<br /> <br /></p>
<p><span class="font-size-3" style="font-family:georgia, palatino;">New manager discussed</span> <br /> The Town Council took up finding a new manager at two hastily called and minimally advertised special meetings on June 4 and 18. <br /> Town Attorney Brad Biggs said the town’s charter requires only 24-hour notice for a council meeting and does not require publishing an agenda or giving a reason for gathering.<br /> <a href="{{#staticFileLink}}7960582474,original{{/staticFileLink}}"><img class="align-left" src="{{#staticFileLink}}7960582474,original{{/staticFileLink}}" width="87" alt="7960582474?profile=original" /></a> During the June 18 meeting, Councilwoman Stella Gaddy Jordan and Flagello clashed over hiring a replacement. Jordan wanted the town to look next door to Manalapan and quickly move to hire Town Manager Linda Stumpf, whose contract expires later this year and who, Jordan says, also is a candidate for the Ocean Ridge manager’s job.<br /> “She has 39 people in her employ,” said Jordan. “Her knowledge is not only diverse but it’s right for our needs. I think she is the best candidate we have. I want to make sure we make the right decision this time around.”<br /> Flagello said it would be an “irresponsible” mistake for the town to hire someone it hadn’t interviewed or fully vetted and that Stumpf’s selection shouldn’t be “bulldozed through.”<br /> “She may be right for the job. She may be perfect, but I’ve never met the woman,” Flagello said. “We haven’t gone through any process. We haven’t interviewed her. We haven’t even done a background check on this person. On the minute chance something would come up, we’d have egg on our face because we haven’t done our due diligence.”<br /> Fischer sided with Flagello and said the council had to protect the town by formally interviewing Stumpf and considering other candidates: “We just can’t go hire somebody that hasn’t gone through what everybody else has gone through. There should be a level playing field.”<br /> The council unanimously decided to consider Stumpf along with four other candidates with managerial experience who had interviewed with the town along with Pascale late last year: Mark Kutney of Loxahatchee Groves, Robert Kellogg of Sewall’s Point, James Drumm of Zephyrhills and Kenneth Sauer, formerly of Haines City.<br /> Council members said they hope to make a decision this month.</p></div>Boca Raton: Departing board member criticizes airport salarieshttps://thecoastalstar.com/profiles/blogs/boca-raton-departing-board-member-criticizes-airport-salaries2013-05-29T17:12:10.000Z2013-05-29T17:12:10.000ZChris Felkerhttps://thecoastalstar.com/members/ChrisFelker<div><p><strong>By Rich Pollack</strong><br /> Minutes after being censured for violating bylaws, a member of the Boca Raton Airport Authority abruptly resigned, but not before raising questions about the salaries of airport staff, specifically the airport director.<br /> Dave Freudenberg, a former Boca Raton City Council member wrapping up his two-year term on the authority, told other members he began looking closely at the authority’s budget when the federal government announced it might stop funding salaries for controllers at the airports tower.<br /> Although the Federal Aviation Administration has reversed course and announced that it will fund tower operations at least until the end of September, Freudenberg said he still believes the public should know how much money the airport authority has and how that money is spent.<br /> “I have a real concern about what’s going on behind the scenes,” Freudenberg said, after tendering his resignation at the end of the authority’s meeting last month. “I think it’s time we look behind the curtain.”<br /> Freudenberg said he was specifically concerned with the salaries and benefits paid to the six full-time staff members. In the authority’s current budget, personnel expenses are listed at $1.2 million.<br /> Salary records obtained by Freudenberg show that airport director Ken Day receives a salary of more than $218,000 a year, while all six of the authority’s employees are each paid more than $89,000.<br /> “We have $1.2 million of employee expenses for six employees,” he said. “Stuart has $400,000 for five employees.”<br /> According to Freudenberg, Day’s salary is above an $80,000 average salary for general aviation airport directors and more than the salary of the Palm Beach County’s airport director, who is responsible for Palm Beach International Airport and three smaller county airports.<br /> Airport Authority members and staff countered Freudenberg’s concerns, defending the salaries and pointing out that no taxpayer dollars are used for employee compensation.<br /> “I find the staff of this airport to be 100 percent efficient,” authority Chairman Frank Feiler said during the meeting. “I don’t feel they’re overpaid. I wish we would pay them more because the value of what they do enables us to have an operating budget of the size that we do.”<br /> Feiler said that the airport staff deserves credit for operating the facility efficiently and effectively. “It is well run, well managed and well thought of,” he said.<br /> The airport — which has more than 50,000 arrivals and departures every year — currently has an operating budget of $3.2 million and more than $6.5 million in reserves.<br /> Janet Sherr, the airport’s director of landside operations, says Day deserves a lot of credit for building those reserves from $600,000 during his 13 years as director.<br /> "The airport is running beautifully,” she said. “We have contained the noise problem, constructed a tower that is operating well and increased reserves to $6.5 million.”<br /> She said one reason for the airport’s strong financial position is its ability to generate revenue from non-aviation related sources. More than half of its revenue comes from rents paid by three businesses, the Cinemark Palace 20, City Furniture and Boomers! Boca Raton.<br /> The remaining revenues come from rents to the two contracted operators at the airport — Boca Aviation and Signature Flight Support — and from a percentage of the fuel purchased by the operators.<br /> Sherr said the airport has received state and federal dollars for capital improvements and for salaries for air traffic controllers. The authority, however, is prohibited from using that money for its staff salaries, she said.<br /> Prior to his resignation, Freudenberg was the subject of complaints by staff members who said he was disruptive and abusive in demanding documents. An investigation by authority attorney Dawn Meyers concluded that Freudenberg had violated authority bylaws and a vote was taken to publicly censure him.<br /> Prior to the censure and subsequent resignation, the Boca Raton City Council — which appoints Airport Authority members — had voted to fill Freudenberg’s expiring term with local attorney Mitch Fogel.</p></div>