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HomeMy Public PortalAboutPRR 16-2379Renee Basel From: Jonathan O'Boyle <joboyle@oboylelawfirm.com> Sent: Wednesday, November 2, 2016 6:27 PM To: OConnor, Joanne M.; Renee Basel; Richard Conforti Cc: Jonathan O'Boyle Subject: Chapter 119 Request - Morgan Letter to Coastal Star November 2016. Under Chapter 119, 1 request the letter, drafts of the letter, and emails, texts, messengers, or other electronic communications regarding the letter Morgan sent to the Coastal Star. If the Town thinks something may or may not be responsive, feel free to reach out — in the world of public records, it is far better to ask for permission than forgiveness. I am looking for things in their original electronic format. Please let me know in advance of special service charges. Also, can I get the Brannon transcript that the Town just ordered —that should be readily accessible. Since this request is after hours, let's go ahead and agree that the effective date of this request is November 3, 2016. Below is the website for reference. If anything is unclear, let me know. http://th ecoasta lsta r.com/fo ru m/topi cs/lette r-to-the-editor-gu If-stream-confi dent -it -s -o n-the-right-trac Jonathan O'Boyle, Esq., LLM. Licensed In Pennsylvania* Licensed In New Jersey* Licensed in Florida* The O'Boyle Law Firm, P.C. www.obovielawfirm.com Pennsylvania Office 1001 Broad St. Johnstown, PA 15906 Tel: 814-535-5175 Fax: 215-893-3641 joboyle@oboyle lawfi rm.com New Jersey Office 30 Grove St. Haddonfield, NJ 08033 Tel: 814-535-5175 Fax: 215-893-3641 jobovle@obovlelawfirm.com Florida Office 1286 West Newport Center Drive Deerfield Beach, FL 33442 Office: 954-570-3533 Fax: 754-212-2444 j o b o v l e@ o b oy l e l a wfi rm . c o m IRS Circular 230 disclosure: To ensure compliance with requirements imposed by the IRS, we inform you that any tax advice contained in this communication, unless expressly stated otherwise, was not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (i) avoiding tax -related penalties under the Internal Revenue Code or (ii) promoting, marketing or recommending to another party any tax -related matter(s) addressed herein. NOTICE TO RECIPIENT: THIS E-MAIL IS MEANT FOR ONLY THE INTENDED RECIPIENT OF THE TRANSMISSION, AND MAY BE A COMMUNICATION PRIVILEGED BY LAW. IF YOU RECEIVED THIS E- MAIL IN ERROR, ANY REVIEW, USE, DISSEMINATION, DISTRIBUTION, OR COPYING OF THIS E-MAIL IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. PLEASE NOTIFY US IMMEDIATELY OF THE ERROR BY RETURN E-MAIL AND PLEASE DELETE THIS MESSAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEM. THANK YOU IN ADVANCE FOR YOUR COOPERATION. TOWN OF GULF STREAM PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA Delivered via e-mail November 7, 2016 Jonathan O'Boyle [mail to: ioboyle(aZobovlelawfirm.coml Re: GS #2379 (Chapter 119 Request — Morgan Letter to Coastal Star November 2016) Under Chapter 119,1 request the letter, drafts of the letter, and emails, texts, messengers, or other electronic communications regarding the letter Morgan sent to the Coastal Star. If the Town thinks something may or may not be responsive, feel free to reach out — in the world of public records, it is far better to ask for permission than forgiveness. I am looking for things in their original electronic format. Please let me know in advance of special service charges. Also, can 1 get the Brannon transcript that the Town just ordered — that should be readily accessible. Since this request is after hours, let's go ahead and agree that the effective date of this request is November 3, 2016. Dear Jonathan O'Boyle [mail to: iobovleaa.oboylelawfirm.coml: The Town of Gulf Stream has received your public records requests dated November 2, 2016. The original public records request can be found at the following link: hgp://www2.gulf-stream.org/weblink/O/doc/I03442/Pa eg 1 asox Please be advised that the Town of Gulf Stream is currently working on a large number of incoming public records requests. The Town will use its very best efforts to respond to you in a reasonable amount of time with the appropriate response or an estimated cost to respond. Regarding the Brannon transcript, I believe Joanne O'Connor has already e-mailed you with the advisement that we do not have the Brannon transcript yet, and that it is not expected to be delivered until November 11, 2016. Sincerely, As requested by Rita Taylor Town Clerk, Custodian of the Records TOWN OF GULF STREAM PALM BEACH COUNTY, FLORIDA Delivered via e-mail November 23, 2016 Jonathan O'Boyle [mail to: iobovleeobovlelawfirm.coml Re: GS #2379 (Chapter 119 Request — Morgan Letter to Coastal Star November 2016) Under Chapter 119, I request the letter, drafts of the letter, and emails, texts, messengers, or other electronic communications regarding the letter Morgan sent to the Coastal Star. If the Town thinks something may or may not be responsive, feel free to reach out — in the world of public records, it is far better to ask for permission than forgiveness. I am looking for things in their original electronic format. Please let me know in advance of special service charges. Also, can I get the Brannon transcript that the Town just ordered — that should be readily accessible. Since this request is after hours, let's go ahead and agree that the effective date of this request is November 3, 2016. Dear Jonathan O'Boyle [mail to: jobovle(i4obovlelawfirm.coml: The Town of Gulf Stream has received your public records request dated November 2, 2016. Your original public records request and response to your request can be found at the following link: hqp://www2.gulf-stream.org/weblink/O/doc/103442/Pagel asux Per your request, we have also attached the response in original electronic format. As for the part of your request for the "Brannon transcript that the Town just ordered," there was no record responsive when your request was made. However, as a courtesy, we wanted to inform you that it is now publicly available on the Town website at the following link: htto://www2.gulf-stream.orWweblink/0/doc/103700/Pa el asux We consider this request closed. Sincerely, R"I d Row" $wiz As requested by Rita Taylor Town Clerk, Custodian of the Records Renee Basel From: Scott Morgan Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2016 11:05 AM To: Mary Leming Subject: Re: The Coastal Star Attachments: Gulf Stream.docx Hi Mary Kate, Attached are my thoughts on the court decision in Word format for review and editing. Thank you. Scott Morgan 561-573-6006 From: Mary Leming <m_k_I@bellsouth.net> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2016 2:35 PM To: Scott Morgan Cc: Jerry Lower, Dan Moffett Subject: The Coastal Star Mayor Morgan - Dan Moffett shared with me your wishes to communicate your thoughts on the latest court decision in the O'Boyle case. If you would like us to publish these there are three ways we can accommodate: 1) If this can be shortened to 200-500 words, I can accept it as a Letter to the Editor. I do think much of what you have written is covered in Dan's upcoming story or has been reported in the past, so it may not be too difficult to shorten this to a standard letter -length. 2) 1 can publish this in the long form, but would need to reach out to the O'Boyle team and provide them with the equal opportunity to submit their comments. I did this once before when they requested we publish some of their thoughts and Mr. Ganger was kind enough to write a response for the town. 3) We can treat your comments as a paid advertisement and you can have control over the length and message. If any of these options are agreeable to you, please let me know. We are running into our deadline for the October edition, so would need this before Friday. I will, of course, need your notes in electronic form to proceed. I might suggest that you consider waiting until our November edition to have your thoughts published. Even in today's Twitter -world, it is sometimes helpful to gauge feedback to a published news story before publishing a response. I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns. Mary Kate Mary Kate Leming Editor, The Coastal Star editor@thecoastalstar.com 561-337-1553 www.thecoastalstar.com Twitter: A1AStar In 2014 and early 2015, the Town of Gulf Stream found itself under assault from Martin O'Boyle and Christopher O'Hare, two residents who overwhelmed the town with thousands of public records requests and dozens of lawsuits. Gulf Stream's public records clerk resigned because of the volume of requests, as did her replacement. It reached a point where Town Hall was virtually unable to perform its regular duties to Gulf Stream residents. Consequently, the Commission made a decision to defend the Town against this ongoing public records abuse. Gulf Stream brought in legal staff to create a uniform and workable policy to respond to public records requests. In addition, Gulf Stream learned through its RICO investigation about statewide abuses committed by the O'Boyle Law Firm and a related and apparently false non- profit O'Boyle company called Citizens Awareness Foundation, which it added to the Town's defenses in the public records lawsuits. Since Gulf Stream took these actions, public records requests have dropped from upwards of 80 in one day down to just several a week, which the Town's staff is now able to handle. In addition, there has not been another public records lawsuit against Gulf Stream in over a year and a half, and of the old lawsuits, Gulf Stream won or forced the dismissal of four of them, and won verdicts or forced the dismissal of six additional non-public records lawsuits. (O'Boyle v. Gulf Stream, 2014 no. 5189; O'Hare v. Gulf Stream, 2014 no. 18102; O'Hare v. Gulf Stream, 2014 no. 818; and Citizens Awareness Foundation, Inc. v. Gulf Stream, 2014 no. 3396; O'Boyle v. Gulf Stream, UDSC 14 no. 81248; O'Hare v. Gulf Stream, USDC 13 no. 81053; O'Hare v. Gulf Stream, 2014 no. 7327; O'Boyle v. Morgan, et al., USDC 14 no. 81250; O'Hare v. Gulf Stream, 2014 no. 720 and O'Hare v. Morgan, 2013 no. 17717). I cannot overstate how the volume of lawsuits and records requests back in 2013 and 2014 overwhelmed our small staff. The clerks regularly worked nights and weekends; they put off other town responsibilities to handle the growing number of requests; they hunted through dusty storage boxes, old file cabinets and closed land use folders trying to respond to requests that poured in almost daily; they called Commissioners, ARPB members, past employees and active and retired policemen to identify documents and their possible locations; but, the quantity of these requests was simply not manageable, and some documents were inadvertently missed. At no time did staff refuse the legitimacy of Mr. O'Boyle or Mr. O'Hare's requests or otherwise try to prevent them from receiving documents, regardless of how complex and burdensome their requests had become. For example, one such request required production of "All photos of people riding bicycles on N. Ocean Blvd. in the Town's public record." Since Town records go back to its founding in 1925, this request necessitated a time- consuming, needle -in -the -haystack type of search, and for which we were still sued over a "gotcha" photograph. Another case currently being litigated is one that involves some inadvertently missed documents. Although the Town acted in good faith in trying to locate all records requested by Mr. O'Boyle, those missing records constituted a technical violation of the public records law, so we offered to settle the case. Mr. O'Boyle's settlement demand, however, was so outrageously high that the Town concluded it was in its best financial interest to take the case to trial and let a judge determine the reasonable amount of fees. That case was tried recently and the judge will be holding a hearing on fees in the near future. The Town is confident that pursuant to Florida law, the court will only award fees up to the performance of the records request and not beyond. Mr. O'Boyle, on the other hand, drove up his legal fees well beyond that point in time and is now trying to collect that money, and more, from Gulf Stream. Mr. O'Boyle is only entitled to receive a small fraction of his settlement demand and of the attorney's fees he spent in the case. This is why the Town elected to try this case, as it will any other case where it appears that Mr. O'Boyle built up large attorneys' fees just to profit the O'Boyle law firm or Mr. O'Boyle's foundation. Gulf Stream will continue to defend the remaining O'Boyle and O'Hare lawsuits until our two litigious residents drop the meritless cases and accept our reasonable offers of settlement on the others. Renee Basel From: Mary Leming <m_k_I@bellsouth.net> Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2016 1:37 PM To: Scott Morgan Subject: Re: The Coastal Star Thank you. I will send back a shortened version for your review. Because of the storm, it may be next week before we can get to this, however... Mary Kate Mary Kate Leming Editor, The Coastal Star editor@thecoastalstar.com 561-337-1553 www.thecoastalstar.com Twitter: A1AStar From: Scott Morgan <SMorgan@gulf-stream.org> To: Mary Leming <m_k_I@bellsouth.net> Sent: Tuesday, October 4, 2016 11:05 AM Subject: Re: The Coastal Star Hi Mary Kate, Attached are my thoughts on the court decision in Word format for review and editing. Thank you. Scott Morgan 561-573-6006 From: Mary Leming <m_k_I@bellsouth.net> Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2016 2:35 PM To: Scott Morgan Cc: Jerry Lower; Dan Moffett Subject: The Coastal Star Mayor Morgan - Dan Moffett shared with me your wishes to communicate your thoughts on the latest court decision in the O'Boyle case. If you would like us to publish these there are three ways we can accommodate: 1) If this can be shortened to 200-500 words, I can accept it as a Letter to the Editor. I do think much of what you have written is covered in Dan's upcoming story or has been reported in the past, so it may not be too difficult to shorten this to a standard letter -length. 2) 1 can publish this in the long form, but would need to reach out to the O'Boyle team and provide them with the equal opportunity to submit their comments. I did this once before when they requested we publish some of their thoughts and Mr. Ganger was kind enough to write a response for the town. 3) We can treat your comments as a paid advertisement and you can have control over the length and message. If any of these options are agreeable to you, please let me know. We are running into our deadline for the October edition, so would need this before Friday. will, of course, need your notes in electronic form to proceed. I might suggest that you consider waiting until our November edition to have your thoughts published. Even in today's Twitter -world, it is sometimes helpful to gauge feedback to a published news story before publishing a response. I hope this is helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions/concerns. Mary Kate Mary Kate Leming Editor, The Coastal Star editor@thecoastalstar.com 561-337-1553 www.thecoastalstar.com Twitter: A1AStar Renee Basel From: Mary Leming <m k_I@bellsouth.net> Sent: Sunday, October 9, 2016 5:22 PM To: Scott Morgan Subject: Letter to the Editor Attachments: Gulf Stream V2-vp.doc Mayor Morgan - I am attaching an edited version of your letter. We were able to get this down to near 500 words and I believe still retain the message you hope to deliver. If you see any errors, please let me know. It's always possible we inadvertently inserted some in the editing process. I will be out of the country this coming week and back on Sunday the 16th. I do hope to have Internet access, but you can't always count on that in the Bahamas. Our deadline for fine tuning this would not be until later in the month; sometime around the 26th. Hope you survived the storm with little or no damage. Sincerely, Mary Kate Mary Kate Leming Editor, The Coastal Star editor@thecoastaistar.com 561-337-1553 www.thecoastalstar.com Twitter: A1AStar Letter to the Editor Suggested headline: In 2014 and early 2015, the town of Gulf Stream found itself under assault from Martin O'Boyle and Christopher O'Hare, two residents who overwhelmed the town with hundreds of public records requests and dozens of lawsuits. Town Hall became virtually unable to serve Gulf Stream residents. To defend against this ongoing public records abuse, Gulf Stream brought in legal staff to create a policy to respond to records requests. In addition, Gulf Stream learned through its RICO investigation about other Florida abuses committed by the O'Boyle Law Firm and a related O'Boyle company called Citizens Awareness Foundation, which it added to the town's defenses in the public records lawsuits. Since Gulf Stream took these actions, public records requests have dropped from 80 -plus per day down to several a week. In addition, there has not been another public records lawsuit against Gulf Stream in over a year and a half. Of the old lawsuits, Gulf Stream won or forced the dismissal of four of them, and won verdicts or forced the dismissal of six additional nonpublic records lawsuits. I cannot overstate how the volume of lawsuits and records requests back in 2013 and 2014 overwhelmed our small staff. The clerks regularly worked nights and weekends; they put off other town responsibilities; they hunted through old file cabinets and closed land use folders trying to respond to requests pouring in almost daily; they called commissioners, board members, past employees and active and retired police to identify documents and their possible locations. But, the quantity of these requests was simply not manageable, and some documents were inadvertently missed. At no time did staff refuse the legitimacy of O'Boyle's or O'Hare's requests or try to prevent them from receiving documents. For example, one such request required production of "All photos of people riding bicycles on N. Ocean Blvd. in the town's public record." Since town records go back to its founding in 1925, this request necessitated a needle -in -the -haystack search, and for which we were still sued over a "gotcha" photograph. A case currently being litigated involves some inadvertently missed documents. Despite a good faith effort to locate all requested records, missing records constitute a technical violation of the public records law, so the town offered to settle the case. O'Boyle's settlement demand, however, was so outrageously high that the town concluded it was in its best financial interest to go to trial and let a judge determine reasonable fees. That case was tried recently and there will be a hearing on fees in the near future. The town is confident that under Florida law, the court will award fees up to the performance of the records request and not beyond. This is why the town elected to try this case, as it will any other case where it appears that O'Boyle built up large attorneys' fees. Gulf Stream will continue to defend the remaining O'Boyle and O'Hare lawsuits until our two litigious residents drop the meritless cases and accept our settlement offers on the others. Scott W. Morgan Mayor, Gulf Stream