Mr. Macbeth Goes to Council
If Mount Dora’s new council reads a lot like Shakespeare, it’s because the tale isn’t new
PROLOGUE
So far, winter in Mount Dora translates to restless, breezy, not-warm nor-so-cold days which resolve into an early night that seems to not so much descend as plunged into an astonishing darkness.
Winter in Mount Dora reads like the prologue of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Fresh from victorious battle against Norway and en route to his King Duncan’s castle, the ambitious prince of Cawdor comes across a blasted heath where the weather, in our parlance, would compare to a Godzilla El Nino kind of day. “So fair and foul a day I have not seen,” he exclaims, cueing onstage the three Weird Sisters with their fateful equivocations. They set three successively greater crowns on his head:
All hail, Macbeth! hail to thee, thane of Glamis!
All hail, Macbeth, hail to thee thane of Cawdor!
All hail, Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter!
Hot stuff for a player like Macbeth, but bloody business is required to achieve that ultimate crown, which we soon enough find out.
Fair and foul. Perhaps a less risible and seducable man — his companion Banquo, say — would not be rapt to hear such tempting equivocations. Banquo remarks,
That trusted home
Might yet enkindle you unto the crown,
Besides the thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange:
And oftentimes, to win us our harm,
The instruments of darkness tell us truths,
Win us with honest trifles, to betray us
In deepest consequence.
Poor Banquo. Macbeth’s bewitched ambition will gut King Duncan, whom he has invited to his own castle, and later murder Banquo because Macbeth, the pawn of witches, is a literalist at equivocation (confusing actual crowns with the metaphor of just rule).
On a most dark and wicked night, Macbeth steals into his king’s chamber, commits regicide, kills the guards and then puts the horrid daggers in their hands — making it look like he found the king murdered by the guards and then killed them. And like that, Macbeth is now king.
The night outside is foul, too. The nobleman Lennox remarks,
The night has been unruly: where we lay,
Our chimneys were blown down; and, as they say,
Lamentings heard i’ the air, strange screams of death,
And prophesying with accents terrible
Of dire combustion and confused events
New hatch’d to the woeful time: the obscure bird
Clamour’d the livelong night: some say, the earth
Was feverous and did shake.
This suggests that all is going to remain rotten in Denmark, or Scotland, until the usurper is usurped of his own head.
Now maybe that night is not quite here yet (El Nino is supposedly just getting started). Looks like it will come calling tonight in the Pacific Northwest, where a jet-stream-fuelled storm parade of snow and rain is getting ready to lash Portland and Seattle.
Or maybe, that night is America this Christmas, as the FBI now claims the massacre in Bernandino was an act of domestic terrorism, Donald Trump is massing a war posse and gun sales across the country rival all other Christmas shopping.
Think people around here aren’t jumpy? Yesterday afternoon someone called in a bomb threat to the Mount Dora Wal-Mart, emptying the store and sending hundreds of shoppers out into the parking lot.
Lake County Arms, Mount Dora’s downtown gun ship, lists 90 handguns, seven rifles (including the Bushmaster M4A3, used by Adam Lanza in 2012 at the Sandy Hook massacre in Newton, Connecticut) and four shotguns on its website, plus information on how to legally procure Class Three regulated heinous weaponry like silencers, machine guns, short-barreled rifles and grenades.
Santa rides now in an armored sleigh, while truly desperate issues like climate change, and bankrupting America become even more lost in the noise.
The time suggests that fair and foul is having its way and how.
ACT I
Mount Dorans are nothing if not in love with their history and combative in their opinions. In January, Gary McKechnie and Nancy Howell’s A Brief History adds to the shelf with Prof. William T. Kenndya’s History of Lake County Florida (1929), R.J. Longstreet’s The Story of Mount Dora (1960), David Edgerton’s Memories of Mount Dora: From then Until Now (1993), James Laux’s Mount Dora, Florida: A Short History (2000) and Images of America: Mount Dora, by Lynn M. Horman and Thomas Reilly (2000). There are also two African-American histories of the town: The Mount Dorans by Vivian Owens (2000) and R. Eugene Hurley’s Mount Dora: The Rest of the Story, Plus! (2000) Clearly, getting this city’s narrative right is important to the folks who love this town.
In opinions, we’re also rich. Lauren Ritchie’s fiercely critical Nov. 18 column took the new council’s blunders to task. This prompted a My Word op-ed in the Sentinel by Gary McKechnie. He laid the blame for where council stands now upon the deaf ear and nasty attitude of city government in the past. (I took Gary to task for backing a new council willing to replace city business with Peyton Place — it’s not enough, especially when so far no one has been willing out the crimes in public.) The Mount Dora News has also weighed in, saying the problems at the meeting were city staff’s fault.
Now Jack Koester, 16-year Mount Dora resident, has just published his own My Word column in response to the previous two opinions published in the Sentinel. Stepping around the heat of the previous published opinions, Koester focuses on City Manager Vincent Pastue’s Nov. 13 “SWOT Analysis” memo, which for Koester lists perfectly the critical issues the city is now facing:
- Provide high level of services for residents and businesses.
2. Continue investment in infrastructure both existing and future growth.
3. Maintain steady tax rate.
4. Do not engage in long-term deficit spending for operations.
5. Establish and maintain reasonable fund balance/fund equity reserve balances in order to secure a Standard & Poor’s bond rating of at least A, preferably higher.
Koestler writes,
To me then it is the council’s responsibility to study, discuss, critique and modify those issues as it deems. It may take some time to arrive at a consensus and I, for one, and willing to wait for new members to get their bearings, including gaining a better understanding of their authority, including its limits, and the procedures to be followed.
“In the meantime,” he concludes, “I would suggest that the council focus collectively on addressing these important matters, and where they disagree, do so clearly and respectfully.”
That would certainly be a good thing, but I’m not so sure the new council has any notion of doing so. Rather than show any willingness to cede the limits of their authority and work with established procedures, to me they seem intent on changing the entire playbook.
I came away from with three troublesome observations from the proceedings of the city council meeting on Dec. 1 (I summarized it for the Mount Dora Citizen here) that convinces me of this. Behind each of these, to me, there are witchy shadows at work, equivocators akin to Macbeth’s Weird Sisters.
I wrote about the recent council election as somehow lost in those shadows (as much if not more the fault of those who didn’t ask enough questions nor voted): But now, as the outsiders have taken over the insiders, the scrutiny is even more essential.
Four new council voices voting for three precedents as one.
Is Mount Dora adjusting to new voices in government? Or is something greater coming undone?
ACT II
First, the new council members are attempting to see how much citizen boards can supercede the authority of city government. This showed in two motions submitted by Ms. Tillet, first to charter and create a tree board with heavy input (if not all responsibility) for arboreal decisions; and second, allowing a citizen group to write a proposed commercial discrimination ordinance for the city.
Now, there’s nothing wrong in forming a citizens’ advisory on the city’s urban forest. As I reported back in September, Eustis developed and implemented an extensive, pro-active urban forest plan based on the work of a citizen committee working in concert with city staff. (One of the citizen volunteers was eventually hired as its arborist.)
And it’s not unusual for citizen groups to help craft ordinances. Back in 2007 when real estate bottomed out, some rentals in my First District neighborhood had become problematic with poor care and overcrowded conditions. Since the city had no specific ordinance on the books dealing with the condition of rental properties, I worked with a number of neighbors to advocate for such an ordinance. Now, landlords doing business in our neighborhood are held to standards which promote both safety and good property values.
But the fair-and-foul note in the current council is revealed by how fast they want it, and how completely free of government control. New first district representative Laurie Tillett was adamant that citizens were demanding this tree board, and that council must have the request for proposal for the tree inventory as well as qualifications and charter for the committee ready for the next meeting. New at-large council member Mark Slaby, saying he was voicing the desire of citizens with “pitchforks in hand,” recommended that the committee alone be responsible for hiring the arborist.
City attorney Cliff Shepard warned that chartering a committee had to be done carefully because of inherent problems down the road. The charter should be careful to define the scope of its responsibility (which trees does it have authority over? and how much work can they proscribe, since other city departments are impacted?). Also, if the committee is to be a city board, then positions would have to be filled according to state sunshine laws and the process would have to be open.
Even Mayor Girone, perhaps now settling into the realities of the city’s day-to-day business, suggested a tap of the brakes, because the right process would be achieved by creating a board in such haste. Other council members also chimed in, second district rep Cal Rolfson to complain that a creating a tree board was premature when the proposal hadn’t been written, and at-large representative Marie Rich to clarify that only the city manager could hire city staff such as an arborist.
It was telling that during public comment a citizen asked if a quasi-governmental citizen board could be created not subject to sunshine laws requiring an open filling process. Mr. Shepard said that if the board is an official body of the City, then No.
Keep in mind these intersections of the new council’s will and the warnings of city manager Shepard in what follows.
is that they are trying to get government’s hands completely off the process? And they want it done fast — like right now? Is it just campaign rhetoric paying dues, or the tenor of blues that we’ll be hearing for a long while?
ACT III
It was also clear that the new council members are trying to see how much authority council can usurp from city staff.
The first suggestion of this came up in assistant city manager Mark Reggentin’s presentation on utility relocation projects in advance of the Florida DOT’s expansion of 441 and 46 in advance of the Wekiva Parkway exit into North Lake County. It’s a big, expensive, laborious project, has been underway for a decade and will make commuting miserable around here for the next few years as construction begins in earnest. A necessary evil that just might bring Mount Dora economic prosperity that it has never known. (That is, if the Innovation District is planned and developed without selling out to single-family homes). Reggentin was there to get council’s approval on a Joint Planning Agreement (or JFA) with the Department of Transportation, which will give the city a great amount of latitude in working on the early stages of the project.
Though it was evident that council approval of JFA really was pro-forma — the deal had been struck in 2013 — that didn’t stop Mr. Slaby and Ms. Tillett from seeing what they could do to change the blueprint for a land-level intersection. Mr. Slaby wondered why such a thing could have been done, when it would so negatively impact the First District. Ms. Tillett then asked if there was time to change the plan. Mr. Reggentin, seeming both humored and peeved, said any change now would cost the city millions of dollars since the DOT would pass the costs of their re-work back on Mount Dora. “The wheel is already in motion,” said Mr. Pastue, but it was clear that Mr. Slaby and Ms. Tillett were not happy with the lack of their council influence to change past decisions.
The second time strong-council maneuvering showed up was during council’s next s attempt to schedule a meeting with representatives of Medallion Home to discuss their long-standing dispute with the city over zoning violations. Because new housing starts have slowed, Medallion has tried to avoid its residential tax burden on 120 undeveloped acres by declaring the land for agricultural tax exemption, planting some pine trees as evidence. The city’s zoning regulations forbid a farming operation within a residential planned unit development, and since August held the developer in violation. Earlier in the year Lake County Property Appraiser Carey Baker had approved the agricultural exemption over the city’s objections. (Baker, incidentally is a First District rental landlord who vigorously opposed the city’s rental ordinance back in 2007.)
When the new council first moved to set up the private meeting on Nov. 17, Mr. Shepard said that only the city attorney legally could set up a “shade” meeting, and said they would have to cancel it. At the Dec. 1 council meeting council scheduled an “open special session” on Dec. 8 to meet with Medallion and council, city staff and legal representation. The meeting is open to the public but public comment will not be allowed.
It will be interesting to see how much this new council will try to twist the city’s arm — and Mr. Reggentin’s in particular — to assist Medallion around the zoning violation. Mayor Girone, a resident of the Lakes of Mount Dora, also received considerable campaign support from Medallion Home’s principals during his unsuccessful bid in 2013 for the at-large seat currently held by Marie Rich, and he is a pro-residential development voice in plans for the Innovation District, squaring off directly against Mr. Pastue and Mr. Reggentin.
The third instance was in in council’s vote to force planning and zoning to speed up the approval process of three easements for Epic Theater. Epic’s developer is facing deadlines in January that have heated up due to delays in the project, now a year and a half in the planning. However, Mr. Reggentin said the request would lean heavy on planning and zoning’s normal process and would require significant additional staff resources and have to be completed without the usual public notice or open meeting processes that accompany development approvals.
And although Mr. Shepard warned of “mission creep” — “If we do it for one, we will have to change the application process for all” — council handily voted to make Reggentin’s staff expedite the request. “This is what the community wants,” Mr. Girone said, and Mr. Slaby added that the city must get better at customer service.
As the now-painfully-small dissenting council voices said, this sets a dangerous precedent. And with all the developers and development crowding in now, it’s more than a little suspect. Does council aim to revise city procedure in order to create a more developer-friendly environment? As I wrote in my series at the Mount Dora Citizen on the Innovation District, this is possibly the most dangerous course the city could take at this juncture. Without prudence and patience and careful decision-making, it’s just too damn easy for Mount Dora to become the next Clermont. “We’re definitely at a crossroads,” said Mark Reggentin when I asked him for comment on the Innovation District plan. “There are only two ways we can go.”
Another new citizen committee I’ve heard rumors of would be tasked with economic development, and its obvious what city authority it was attempt to usurp decision-making from. The new council has already reshuffled the deck of volunteers working on planning and zoning, so their direction seems already clear enough. Former council member Denny Wood, whom the Mount Dora News has called “the stuff legends are made of,” is rumored to be a leading candidate to head the committee.
ACT IV
Perhaps the most telling (damning?) indication of a concerted attempt to shift (usurp?) power in the city came with the last item on the council’s agenda, the review of the contract of city attorney Cliff Shepard. Lauren Ritchie has previously reported that Mr. Slaby and others have said Mr. Shepard and other city staffers had violated Florida’s open-meeting laws by holding private conversations, and at the Nov. 17 got a discussion of Shepard’s contract on the agenda for the Dec. 1 meeting.
This beef about city staff holding private meetings with city council members is a longstanding one. A Sunshine Law violation charge, filed earlier this year by local attorney James Homich (long a foe of Mark Reggentin over zoning violations on his own property) for “a citizens group” accused former Mayor Cathy Hoescht, former council members Ryan Donovan and Michael Tedder, and current council members Marie Rich and Cal Rolfson of breaking Sunshine Laws by meeting privately with city manager candidates to discuss the need for the assistant city manager position Mark Reggentin eventually filled. The State’s Attorney declined to pursue the case, saying here no evidence of violation had been provided other than an allegation “based solely on assumption and conclusion that a violation had occurred due to a same type of question being asked of the potential candidates by city council members.”)
Obviously, there is something wrong to them about close communication between council and city staff. As Ritchie wrote in her Nov. 18 column, “a great deal of work in explaining issues and educating council members across the state is done between staffers and individual elected officials in meetings, memos and phone conversations. This is normal. Otherwise, elected officials everywhere would spends hundreds of hours in unnecessary public forums.” Aren’t council meetings long enough?
That Mr. Shepard has informed legal opinions in sharp contrast with the aims of the new council was evident when council requested a review of his contract. That fact that Mr. Slaby summarily moved to fire Mr. Shepard on the spot simply because “the city needs fresh eyes” was what stunned everyone in attendance and got news of our little town into the Lake Sentinel the next day. (The report was filed by Lake County reporter Crystal Hayes, who has acknowledged the city’s disaffected citizens far more that Ritchie has.
What Mr. Slaby’s motion amounted to was eliminating the city authority most in the way of the new authority the new council is trying to invest themselves in. Firing Shepard outright would have created the perfect legal vacuum for allowing some of these moves to go forward. Just think of the meeting with Medallion on Dec. 8 without the city attorney in attendance.
While some of the other council members were trying to digest the gall of Mr. Slaby’s request, Mr. Rolfson asked the most pertinent question of all: Could anyone say one thing about Mr. Shepard’s performance over the past 10 years that would give any reason for terminating his contract?
The table was silent, as was the room, and that silence was defining.
As it turned out, without any other vocal support, the motion was weakened to agreeing to put out a request for quote for alternate legal services within 90s days. (Ms. Tillett and third-district rep Ed Rowling — who hadn’t said much all meeting — didn’t speak up, and Mr. Crail supported the weaker motion.) Even when that was approved, there were audible gasps of astonishment in the room. Clearly not many see any sense at all to review Mr. Shepherd’s performance.
While the effort to remove Mr. Shepard may have lost some traction, the fight’s far from over. If the fate of the newcomers’ ambitions are tied up in a less invasive, intrusive legal eye, they will continue to butt heads with him. As of now, he’s on a 90-day leash. I just hope Shepard doesn’t tire of such disrespectful treatment and go elsewhere. He would be exceedingly most difficult to replace; he’s saved the city millions in avoided litigation costs, and his expertise in working with city governments around the state is rare.
ACT V
Weird weather continued into Mount Dora on Saturday for the Christmas parade, overwarm and sunny at one moment and then hard-breezy, cloudy and cool the next. With wider swings, this is what they call senior citizen control up north. Here, is just keeps everyone guessing. (I don’t think the kids enjoying the parade cared either way.)
We shouldn’t expect more. There are lots of new normal to content with — Godzilla El Nino is just one them, and not yet more than a local irritant.
The Macbeths of the world may get their way, but as we know from Shakespeare’s tale, you should be careful about what you game for.
There’s a potential for massive backfire. Creating citizen boards with too much responsibility and too little governance is a huge risk for sunshine law litigation. Blurring the lines of authority between council and city staff could immensely bog down the workings of government. Firing staff without proper justification will only make qualified replacements steer clear of Mount Dora. And getting rid of the city attorney right when so much crucial decision-making is needed to steer through the immense and immediate thicket of development issues is stupid beyond measure.
But hey — citizens first. How did they get so empowered? The angst reminds me of that of a teenager who has been told No who finds some witches on a blasted heath outside of town to assured them that their cause is just and real and all they have to do is get rid of the authority.
The whisper campaign of crimes and misdemeanors by city leaders and staff provided the fuel to get this far. It launched successful shadow campaigns, but now the votes have been cast, using it as political capital now is the impasse. It keeps the new council focused on a narrow agenda, but it doesn’t bear much scrutiny by the light of day.
What are we going to do?
I hope that Mr. Koester is right — that council will take time to review Mr. Pastue’s very well thought-out analysis of the crossroads the city now faces. I too hope they study, discuss, critique, modify and then ratify the issues in a respectful manner.
But given their continued aggressiveness at the Dec. 1 meeting, I’m not holding up much hope for that. We are, as a city, are now bothered and bewitched by a spiteful animus that means business. The time, as they say, is not free.
I don’t think they will survive themselves. Overreachers never do. Let’s hope they settle down and read Mr. Pastue’s memo.
But if the major business of this town gets sidetracked and ultimately sold short for gotcha ambition, it is our fault for not bothering to see it for what it is before it is too late.
— David Cohea (djcohea@gmail.com)
Correction: The houses Mr. Homich owns that faced zoning violations were successfully defended under the city’s historic preservation ordinance.