This metal mosquito statue is the size of an adult human, not an adult mosquito, and it sits outside of the Disease Vector Education Center that the district operates in St. Johns County. | Noah Hertz, Jacksonville Today
Published on December 12, 2024 at 10:27 pm
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A fiery Anastasia Mosquito Control District meeting ended Thursday night with the board’s controversial $1,000 Christmas bonuses voided.
The five-member St. Johns County board approved the bonuses for themselves last month, as they have done for several years running. The elected board members receive $4,800 in base pay annually to oversee pesticides and other preventative measures to keep the mosquito population down in addition to public educational outreach and pest research.
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Amy Myers, the district’s attorney, determined that the board likely does not have the authority to give bonuses to themselves. She says the latest bonuses are null and void.
The board asked Myers to reach out to the Florida Attorney General’s Office to be sure her assessment of state law is correct, and to rule whether the commissioners should return all of the bonuses they have received in previous years.
Bonuses have ranged from $100 in 2018 and 2019 to $1,000 last year.
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But that wasn’t enough for Commissioner Martha Gleason. After a failed move to formally rescind last month’s approval of their bonuses, she also received no support on a move to conduct a forensic audit into the district’s finances.
“I don’t know what else we’re not doing properly,” Gleason said.
Gleason voted in favor of the $1,000 bonuses in 2023, but after a constituent reached out about the bonuses potentially running afoul of state statute, she had asked Myers to investigate.
Now, Gleason says she intends to keep bringing forward a proposal for a third-party investigation into the district’s finances until it passes.
“Apparently this board does not care to understand what’s going on financially with this district,” Gleason said.
“That’s your opinion,” Commissioner Trish Becker fired back.
Stinging accusations
Bonuses weren’t the only contentious topic during the Dec. 12 meeting. Outgoing Commissioner Catherine Brandhorst also accused her replacement, Commissioner-elect T.J. Mazzotta, of violating Florida’s “Sunshine Laws” by speaking with Gleason about the Christmas bonuses outside of a meeting.
The accusation was quickly dismissed when a clip she played from the board’s November meeting did not contain the “evidence” she believed was there.
Brandhorst said she must have misheard, but not before she said that she had reached out to the state’s Commission on Ethics about the matter and had called for their resignations.
Gleason asked that Brandhorst not “impugn my reputation or the reputation of somebody else,” and Mazzotta accused her of lying.
When asked if she would contact the state and recall her complaint, she said she would “consider it.”
Speaking after the meeting with Jacksonville Today, however, Brandhorst says that was a bluff and that she had not, in fact, contacted the state.
“I am embarrassed to sit on this board having heard what we just heard,” Gleason said. “My name means a lot. His name means a lot.”
Mazzotta, for his part, said he needs to think about whether he will consider legal action against Brandhorst for making the accusation, but that “nothing is off the table.”
“I don’t want to be judged before I even sit in that seat,” he said.
Brandhorst, for whom Thursday’s meeting capped off a more than 10-year tenure on the Mosquito Control District Board, did not stop at calling out her fellow commissioners.
The outgoing commissioner also added an item to the meeting agenda specifically targeting Ed Slavin, a regular critic of local government in St. Johns County who ran unsuccessfully for the board in November. Slavin had called the questionable legality of the Christmas bonuses to Gleason’s attention.
Brandhorst said Slavin has been accusing her of stealing money from the district, and she wanted to bring attention to the fact that he was disbarred when he was an attorney.
The board’s legal counsel, however, noted he has a constitutional right to criticize the government.
When Gleason allowed Slavin an opportunity to respond, Slavin shared a text message Brandhorst sent him in which she referred to him as “MF.”
Slavin said “MF” was used to mean “motherf*****,” to which Brandhorst replied from the dais that it was meant as “my friend.”
The board meets next in January, when Mazzotta will serve in the seat vacated by Brandhorst.
