Item J3* CLOSED SESSION 1:30 P.M. *
BOARD OF COUNTY COMNIISSIONERS
AGENDA ITEM SUMMARY
Meeting Date: 1/16/13 — KW Division: County Attorney
Bulk Item: Yes No XX Staff Contact Person: Pedro Mercado, 292-3470
AGENDA ITEM WORDING.
An Attorney -Client Nosed Session in the platter of Christina E. Keegan v. Monroe County, Florida,
Case No. 09-CA-893P.
ITEM BACKGROUND:
Per F.S. 286.011(8), the subject matter of the meeting shall be confined to settlement negotiations or
strategy sessions related to litigation expenditures.
Present at the meeting will be the Commissioners, County Administrator Roman Gastesi, County
Attorney Bob Shillinger, Assistant County Attorney Susan Crimsley; Assistant County Attorney Derek
V. Howard; Assistant County Attorney Steve Williams and a certified court reporter.
PREVIOUS RELEVANT BOCC ACTION:
12/ 12/ 12 B OCC continued Closed Session to 1:30 p.m. on 1/ 16/13 in Key west, FL
CONTRACT/AGREEMENT CHANGES.
N/A
STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS:
NIA
TOTAL COST:. Court Reporter costs INDIRECT COST: BUDGETED: Yes No
DIFFERENTIAL OF LOCAL PREFERENCE:
COST TO COUNTY: Court Reporter costs SOURCE OF S:
REVENUE PRODUCING: Yes No xx AMOUNT PER MONTH Year
APPROVED BY: County Atty oMB/Purchasing Risk Management
DOCUMENTATION: Included Not Required
DISPOSITION: AGENDA ITEM #
Revised 2/05
County of Monroe
The Florida Keys
Robert B. Shillinger, County Attorney**
Pedro J. Mercado, Assistant County Attorney **
Cynthia L. Hall, Assistant County Attorney **
Christine Limbert-Barrows, Assistant County Attorney **
Derek V. Howard, Assistant County Attorney**
Steven T. Williams, Assistant County Attorney**
Peter H. Morris, Assistant County Attorney
Patricia Fables, Assistant County Attorney
Chris Ambrosio, Assistant County Attorney
** Board Certified in City, County & Local Govt. Law
May 25, 2017
Kevin Madok, Clerk of the Circuit Court
Sixteenth Judicial Circuit, State of Florida
Monroe County Courthouse
500 Whitehead Street
Key West, FL 33040
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS
Mayor George Neugent, District 2
Mayor Pro Tern David Rice, District 4
Danny L. Kolhage, District l
Heather Carruthers, District 3
Sylvia J. Murphy, District 5
Office of the County Attorney
1111 121h Street, Suite 408
Key West, FL 33040
(305) 292-3470 — Phone
(305) 292-3516 — Fax
In Re: Christina E. Keegan v. Monroe County, Case No.: 09-CA-893P
Dear Mr. Madok:
Please find enclosed herewith the transcript of the January 16, 2013 closed attorney/client
session of the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners regarding the above -
referenced matter. Under F.S. 286.011(8), the transcript may be part of the public record
because the litigation has concluded.
Thank you for your assistance with this matter. Please contact me should you have any
questions.
Sincerely,
obert B. Shillinger
Monroe County Attorney
Enclosure
BOARD OF COUNTY COMMISSIONERS OF MONROE COUNTY
ATTORNEY -CLIENT CLOSED SESSION
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 16, 2013
Re: Christina E. Keegan v. Monroe County, Florida
Case No. 09-CA-893P
COUNTY COMMISSIONERS: ONOKAL
George Neugent, Mayor
Danny Kolhage, County Commissioner
Heather Carruthers, County Commissioner
David P. Rice, County Commissioner
Sylvia J. Murphy, County Commissioner
STAFF:
Robert B. Shillinger, County Attorney
Derek Howard, Assistant County Attorney
Susan Grimsley, Assistant County Attorney
Steve Williams, Assistant County Attorney
Roman Gastesi, County Administrator
TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
Proceedings of the Board of County Commissioners of
Monroe County Attorney -Client Closed Session, at the Harvey
Government Center, Key West, Monroe County, Florida, on the
16th day of January 2013, commencing at approximately 2:10
p.m. and concluding at approximately 2:17 p.m., as reported by
Susan L. McTaggart, Court Reporter and Notary Public, State of
Florida at Large.
All Keys Reporting
Olde Town Centre
9701 Overseas Highway
Marathon
305-289-1201
600 Whitehead Street
Suite 207
Key West
305-294-2601
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P R O C E E D I N G S
MR. SHILLINGER: The persons attending the meeting
will be the County Commissioners, the Administrator,
myself, Assistant County Attorneys Susan Grimsley, Derek
Howard, and Steve Williams, and a certified court
reporter. Since the law prohibits any other person from
being present at the closed session, only the
Commissioners, the Administrator, the attorneys for the
County, and the court reporter will remain in the
meeting room, and all other persons will be required to
leave the room.
All right. So we'll now close the public session.
MAYOR NEUGENT: The public session is closed and we
will call the closed session to order.
MR. SHILLINGER: For the record, this meeting is
being held at the request of myself, Bob Shillinger, the
County Attorney, who announced at a BOCC meeting on
December 12, 2012, that I needed advice in the matter of
Christina Keegan v. Monroe County, Florida, Case No.
CA-P-09-893. At that meeting the board approved holding
a closed session on January 16. That's today. Public
notice was given through the announcement at that
meeting as well as through publication of today's
agenda.
For the record and benefit of the court reporter,
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each of us will state our name and position, starting
with the commission.
COMMISSIONER KOLHAGE: Danny Kolhage, Commissioner,
District 1.
COMMISSIONER CARRUTHERS: Heather Carruthers,
Commissioner, District 3.
MAYOR NEUGENT: George Neugent, Commissioner,
District 2.
COMMISSIONER RICE: David Rice, Commissioner,
District 4.
COMMISSIONER MURPHY: Sylvia Murphy, Commissioner,
District 5.
MR. GASTESI: Roman Gastesi, County Administrator.
MR. SHILLINGER: Bob Shillinger, County Attorney.
MR. HOWARD: Derek Howard, Assistant County
Attorney.
MR. WILLIAMS: Steve Williams, Assistant County
Attorney.
MS. GRIMSLEY: Susan Grimsley, Assistant County
Attorney.
MR. SHILLINGER: Just as a reminder, we can only
discuss settlement negotiations and strategy relating to
litigation expenditures. We can't take any decisive
action this morning. We can only provide information
and direction to the legal staff. Any decisions this
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board makes concerning this case must be done in a
meeting open to the public.
And just to tee it up before I turn it over to
Mr. Howard, this is a takings case. He's received an
offer of settlement that's quite frankly so low that it
would be ridiculous to turn it down, but he wanted to
make sure he had some opportunity to discuss it and get
some input from you before we brought this back. We
have an item on the agenda later in the afternoon. So
having said that I'll turn it over to Derek.
MR. HOWARD: Good afternoon. As Bob said, we did
receive a settlement offer from Mr. Tobin, who
represents the plaintiff. Just to give you just a few
facts, Ms. Keegan filed a regulatory takings claim after
she had applied for a ROGO allocation and she was in the
ROGO queue for four years. She received an
administrative relief offer in the form of an offer to
purchase. She then filed this inverse condemnation
suit. After the suit was filed she actually received
the allocation that she had applied for through the
normal course, not through administrative relief.
Thereafter we moved for summary judgment on the
regulatory takings count, and we have our motions for
summary judgment set for hearing this Friday, but Mr.
Tobin would like to settle this matter, and I would
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recommend that we accept the offer.
Essentially the offer is that the County will keep
the allocation open and available to his client for a
period of one year, after which time it would expire and
Ms. Keegan would have to apply for another allocation.
And we agreed to pay plaintiff a total sum of $1,500.
This is so nominal. I know the board is hesitant to,
you know, settle these, you know, cases not to invite or
encourage additional litigation, but this is certainly a
sum that would not do that and certainly far less than
we would spend in bringing this case to a closure even
if we prevailed on our motions for summary judgment. So
with that said I would recommend that the board accept
the settlement offer.
COMMISSIONER MURPHY: And that's fine, Derek, but
did you ever get a feeling of why 1,500?
MR. HOWARD: I would suppose it was inclusive of
court costs and attorney's fees, and I can tell you that
you it's certainly not all-inclusive. There wasn't a
whole lot of work done on this case, to be honest with
you. The only paper that was really filed was, in fact,
the Complaint, and then the case largely languished for
a couple of years. So there wasn't a whole lot of
lawyering going on, and the $1,500 is, you know,
largely, I would think, would be attributed to, you
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know, just the cost of litigation, the filing fee, et
cetera. So no one's getting rich off of this case.
COMMISSIONER MURPHY: Obviously.
COMMISSIONER CARRUTHERS: And writing this check
ends the deal forever?
MR. HOWARD: It ends it all.
COMMISSIONER MURPHY: For one year she has to pick
up the permit?
MR. HOWARD: Yeah. It's currently being tolled.
But the settlement provides that we'll keep it open at
the very least one year. She's certainly entitled to
tolling if other similarly situated landowners are
entitled to tolling, but we had to put, you know, some
sort of expiration period on it.
MR. SHILLINGER: And just so I'm clear on the
amount, the agenda item in the action item is 1,600. So
we're saying 1,500?
MR. HOWARD: We're saying 1,500. The informal
settlement agreement that we received was for 1,500.
MR. SHILLINGER: Okay. So we're clear.
MAYOR NEUGENT: If it is 1,600, we agree on that,
too.
COMMISSIONER KOLHAGE: Well, if we wait another
month maybe it'll go down to 1,400.
MAYOR NEUGENT: Okay.
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MR. SHILLINGER: Any questions?
All right. I think we have the direction. We'll
bring the action item back in the open session.
MAYOR NEUGENT: We'll close the closed session.
(Proceedings concluded at 2:17 p.m.)
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C E R T I F I C A T E
STATE OF FLORIDA )
COUNTY OF MONROE )
I, Susan L. McTaggart, Court Reporter and Notary
Public, State of Florida at Large, do hereby certify that
I was authorized to and did report by stenotype the
proceedings in the above -entitled matter, and that the
transcript is a true record of said proceedings.
Dated this 29th day of March, 2013.
Susan L. McTaggart, Court Reporter
All Keys Reporting — Court Reporters — (305) 289-1201
Locations in Key Largo, Marathon & Key West