FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
October 30, 2009

CONTACT:
Brandon Hensler, Director of Communications, (786) 363-2737 or media@aclufl.org

FORT MYERS, Fla. – On the eve of Halloween, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida is urging Ft. Myers residents to beware of politicians trying to pull tricks by scaring voters into opposing independent oversight of the Ft. Myers Police Department by an inaccurate comparison of the costs of a Citizen Review Board and an elected Citizen Oversight Panel. The comparison appears on the City’s Web site.

The ACLU of Florida asserts that an independent elected Citizen Oversight Panel would strengthen police-community relations and reduce costs to taxpayers due to fewer lawsuits against the police department.

The ACLU sent the following letter to City Manager William Mitchell today outlining inaccuracies in the City’s cost estimates for both the Citizen Review Board and the Citizen Oversight Panel:

October 30, 2009

William P. Mitchell
City Manager
City of Fort Myers
2200 Second Street
Fort Myers, FL

Re: City of Fort Myers’ Comparison of CRB and COB

Dear Mr. Mitchell:

I am writing to request that the City of Fort Myers remove the inaccurate comparison of the Citizen Review Board and the Elected Citizen Oversight Panel (the “Comparison”) from the City’s Web site.

The inaccuracies in the Comparison are designed to underestimate the fiscal impact of the Citizen Review Board (“CRB”), which I am well aware the Fort Myers City Council supports, and to overestimate the fiscal impact of the Citizen Oversight Panel (“COP”), which the City Council does not support.

Accordingly, the Comparison is not balanced factual information, but appears to be designed to influence voters to vote against the COP during the upcoming election on November 3 – violating the spirit, if not the letter of Florida law that law prohibits the use of public funds for electioneering communications by local units of government, except those communications that are limited to factual information. See Fla. Stat. 116.113(2)

A few of the most glaring misrepresentations in the Comparison include the following:

Elections Costs. The Comparison leads voters to believe that the full costs of the November 3 election and all subsequent elections will be incurred solely because the charter amendment creating the COP (and the election of COP members) appear on the ballot. This is patently untrue. The November 3 election is not just for the voters to approve the COP, but also for the Mayoral election as well as for candidates in three wards. Accordingly, the City would have incurred all, or substantially all, of the costs for the November 3 election even if the charter amendment to create the COP did not appear on the ballot. Similarly, the Comparison deceptively implies that the future election of COP members will be much more costly than will certainly be the case.

The proposed Citizen Oversight Panel is a proposed Charter Amendment that would require the City Council to enact an Ordinance that would set the terms of office, qualifications of panel members, training that is required for panel members, and other matters. The Ordinance that would be enacted could set the election for members of the Citizen Oversight Panel for the same elections in which Council Members are chosen, which would make the additional cost of electing COP panel members minimal.

Staffing Costs. The Comparison falsely compares the cost of the CRB without a staff, to the costs of the COP with an overpaid staff. If the COP requires an executive director and administrative assistant, there is no reason to assume that the CRB would not also require similar staffing. Further, the Comparison grossly exaggerates the salaries that would be paid to the COP Executive Director and to the COP’s independent counsel. The City estimates a salary for the Executive Director based on salaries for positions in areas (Miami, Miami-Dade and Key West) that pay much higher salaries. Further, the assumption that the COP would require a full-time (versus a part time) independent counsel is baseless. 

Office space/furniture and IT services. As with the staffing costs, the City’s Comparison assumes costly office space/furniture and IT requirements for the COP, but no similar costs for the CRB – there is no reasonable basis for assuming that both entities would not have substantially similar office space/furniture and IT needs. More specifically, the Comparison presumes that the oversight panel will have to rent commercial office space, while the existing review board apparently doesn't need office space. The oversight panel can be housed in existing City offices at little additional cost to the City.

Given the unbalanced depiction of the fiscal impact of the CRB and the COP, and the City’s clear opposition to a citizen-controlled independent oversight panel, and preference for the citizen review board that the City Council can control through the appointment process, the unmistakable conclusion must be drawn that the Comparison is designed to influence voters into voting against the COP by creating the false impression that that the independent COP (but not the CRB) will be a fiscal drain on the City.

For this reason, and to ensure compliance with state laws that prohibit use of taxpayers’ funds for electioneering purposes by government, we strongly urge the City to remove the Comparison from the Web site.

Alternatively, we request that the Comparison be revised to provide the genuinely neutral and factual information that the law permits.

Please do not hesitate to contact me to discuss this further.

Very truly yours,

Howard Simon
Executive Director

About the ACLU of Florida
The ACLU of Florida is freedom's watchdog, working daily in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend individual rights and personal freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. For additional information, visit our web site at: www.aclufl.org.

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