St. Johns County Attorney Richard Komando addresses the County Commission on Tuesday, March 25, 2025. | St. Johns County screenshot
Published on March 26, 2025 at 10:51 am
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St. Johns County has a new permanent attorney, and the chair of the County Commission says she can’t trust him.
The county gave the OK on Tuesday for interim County Attorney Richard Komando to take over as the full-time attorney despite accusations by County Commission Chair Krista Joseph that he is biased in favor of specific county commissioners.
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Komando was selected from a pool of three candidates after having served as the county’s interim attorney since former County Attorney David Migut abruptly resigned and took a job as the city attorney in Jacksonville Beach.
Along with his firm, Bradley, Garrison & Komando, P.A., Komando currently serves as the legal counsel to a number of other Northeast Florida municipalities including Putnam County, Bradford County, the city of Keystone Heights and others.
But Komando says the workload of many of those jobs is functionally that of a part-time role, and it won’t affect his ability to serve St. Johns County full time.
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“When you look at places like Baker and Bradford counties, their attorneys have been part-time attorneys since before I came in,” Komando told Jacksonville Today. “It’s not like I’m taking four full-time jobs and trying to work four full-time jobs.”
Most municipalities he works for, Komando says, meet in the evenings. St. Johns County holds its commission meetings in the mornings, meaning the work Komando does in other cities and counties doesn’t overlap with his work in St. Johns.
An issue of ‘trust’
In recent weeks, Komando has been targeted on social media and by Joseph with accusations that he is biased in favor of commissioners who have received more financial support from members of the development community.
Joseph had already expressed frustration with Komando — she was the lone dissenting voice against hiring him as the interim county attorney last year — but things came to a head earlier this month when he said County Commissioner Sarah Arnold should be allowed to vote during a meeting despite her not being present.
Komando offered his legal advice that Arnold should be allowed to vote by phone even though she was calling in from a family vacation. Joseph initially tried to prevent Arnold from casting votes, but she relented based on Komando’s advice.
Since then, Komando has been the target of various social media attacks, some of which have come from the Fight for St. Johns County Facebook page run by Nicole Crosby, who worked as a campaign staffer for Joseph and fellow County Commissioner Ann Taylor.
People rallying against Komando’s selection as county attorney have pointed to donations a woman believed to be his wife made in the 2024 County Commission campaigns for Roy Alaimo and Christian Whitehurst. When the county was in need of an interim county attorney last year, Alaimo was the one who recommended Komando for the job.
Detractors also have pointed to a 2015 incident, reported on by The Florida Times-Union, in which advice Komando gave to the city of Atlantic Beach ended up being faulty. When the article was brought up during Komando’s selection process last year, Whitehurst shrugged it off as as cherry picking evidence by people opposed to Komando’s hiring.
After interviews Tuesday afternoon with each of the three candidates for county attorney — Komando, Michael Rodriguez and Bradley Bulthuis — Komando was selected by a 3-2 vote of the County Commission.
Commissioners Whitehurst, Arnold and Clay Murphy all supported Komando’s appointment.
Arnold and Whitehurst praised his prompt responses and noted that, after Migut’s sudden departure last year, the county’s legal department needs consistency.
Murphy noted that while he would prefer a candidate who is a “clean slate,” he believes the prestige that comes along with hiring Komando and his firm — who represent other municipalities around Northeast Florida — could help St. Johns County at the state level.
“We have to make the decisions based on what’s best for the county,” Murphy said Tuesday afternoon, “not what’s best for our political feelings or our opportunity to be reelected in four years.”
Taylor and Joseph both critiqued Komando’s response time to their own questions, while Joseph said she can’t trust him.
“I haven’t seen responsiveness,” Joseph said, “and I actually haven’t been able to trust him.”
Komando said his only focus was providing good legal advice to the county he calls home.
“I care about St. Johns County,” Komando told Jacksonville Today, “so being selected is an honor for me to be able to continue to work for this county.”
With the move to hire Komando as the county’s full-time attorney, the next step is to negotiate a contract. That contract will determine how much time Komando must spend in his office in St. Johns County and what his salary will be. The job posting for the county attorney role was advertised as starting at $216,000.
