Bartolotta has support to stay put

Mayor Suzanne Atwell, Vice Mayor Terry Turner and Commissioner Willie Shaw have no intention of supporting either the firing or the suspension of City Manager Bob Bartolotta and Deputy City Manager Marlon Brown in the wake of forensics investigation findings revealed last week, which allege potential criminal and civil wrongdoing at City Hall.

Those three commissioners said they would prefer to make a decision on both men’s fates after two law enforcement agencies complete investigations of the computer case. The investigation reports are expected within six to nine months.

During a Jan. 6 special meeting at City Hall, John Jorgenson, president of the Sarasota-based The Sylint Group, reported on his firm’s examination of computer files handled by Bartolotta and Brown. Sylint was hired by City Auditor and Clerk Pamela Nadalini to investigate a complaint from a city resident that Bartolotta and Brown had “scrubbed” their computers of data.

The findings, which were revealed verbally, said Bartolotta had deleted more than 11,000 emails, and the company still couldn’t recover roughly 100 of those emails.

Both Bartolotta and Brown also were alleged to have been reviewing emails that were part of an ongoing audit investigation, to which they should have not had access. Further, it was alleged they had been performing numerous email searches to monitor employees they believed might have been conspiring against them, including Nadalini.

Commissioner Shannon Snyder made a motion Jan. 6 to fire Bartolotta, but he had support only from Commissioner Paul Caragiulo.

Instead, the commission voted unanimously to refer the findings to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, at the request of City Attorney Bob Fournier.
Fournier told the Sarasota Observer Tuesday night the findings were referred to both agencies Friday. The FBI and FDLE have yet to assign those cases to investigators, he said, and no details would be released until the investigations were complete.

Fournier said he believed it was possible that city officials, including the commissioners, might not be able to review the agencies’ reports until the end of the year.

Fournier also confirmed Bartolotta and Brown had turned over thumb drives with information stored on them. Brown’s old hard drive, meanwhile, is still unaccounted for, as indicated by Jorgenson Jan. 6. Fournier said the Sarasota City Police Department was not in possession of the item, as alleged by another media outlet last week.

“I had concerns about data breaches and I think the commission did the right thing,” Fournier said. “A suspension or firing is up to the commission and I can’t comment on that.”

In the meantime, Nadalini placed Information Technology Department Director Chance Craig and IT Manager Sandra Coleman on leave Jan. 6, after it was revealed emails had been deleted and the email system had been used to spy on employees and look into the exempt audit investigation.
Nadalini did not return a phone call or email request for comment.

Fournier said he hopes city officials discover whether the email searches allegedly performed were warranted.

“At the very least, we need to talk about general IT protocol going forward,” Fournier said.
The commission unanimously agreed with another motion Jan. 6, to allow The Sylint Group to continue its investigation.

Both Bartolotta and Brown’s computers contained default files on their computers that held emails used to monitor other employees, including Nadalini, and they had performed random email searches that might have included exempt information that shouldn’t have been accessible to them or IT Department employees.

Bartolotta and Brown denied wrongdoing. Both city officials were back to work as usual this week.

Should Bartolotta and Brown be suspended?
The Sarasota Observer polled the Sarasota city commissioners Tuesday to learn whether they had any plans to suspend City Manager Bob Bartolotta and Deputy City Manager Marlon Brown in the wake of the findings of a computer forensics investigation. Here are their answers:

“I will not engage in premature discourse on this topic, because there’s an ongoing investigation. I hope people will respect that. I believe in the process here. I understand the investigation could take a long time, but we need to stay the course.
— Mayor Suzanne Atwell

“It’s extraordinary unlikely either of them (Bartolotta or Brown) did anything inappropriate. Even if they did, it was inadvertent. At best, we have a process control system in the Information Technology Department. But we don’t have a problem with our city manager or our deputy city manager.
— Vice Mayor Terry Turner

“I made myself clear at the meeting that I’m not willing to go down such a route until we have finished the investigation.”
— Commissioner Willie Shaw

“I don’t personally believe there are the votes there to suspend. There are some commissioners who either don’t recognize there is a major problem or are not seeing the problem. I don’t see a sense of urgency from anyone other than myself and Commissioner (Shannon) Snyder to remove the problem and start the healing process for this city.
— Commissioner Paul Caragiulo

“I offered leadership, and it wasn’t the direction the commission wanted to go. (Snyder made the motion Jan. 6 to fire Bartolotta.) A suspension just delays the inevitable, and I won’t support that. If someone offers a termination without cause, I will support that, because we have to pay the city manager’s six months of severance regardless of how he’s fired. All I know is the top three issues this city is facing right now is Bob Bartolotta, Bob Bartolotta and Bob Bartolotta. We have to lance the problem and drain it before we can start healing it and providing leadership to fix it.”
— Commissioner Shannon Snyder

Public Records Request Confusion

The Sarasota Observer made a public records request Tuesday to Public Information Officer Jan Thornburg for a copy of City Auditor and Clerk Pamela Nadalini’s resume and asked to be provided information about the ongoing computer records investigation as it became available.

Thornburg said she had been told Monday that all public records requests must come through City Attorney Bob Fournier’s office. She also said she would refer the Observer’s request directly to Nadalini’s office.

Fournier told the Sarasota Observer Tuesday that he was unaware standard public records requests were supposed to be referred to him.

However, he added, “I had concern about the public records associated with the ongoing investigation and are having them referred through me.”

In the meantime, a second investigation being conducted into the Information Technology Department has been classified as an audit, which means neither the public nor City Manager Bob Bartolotta, who requested a copy of the report last week, has access to it.

Fournier told The Observer that while a draft report has been prepared regarding the IT investigation, it’s unavailable, because outside counsel deemed Nadalini could classify it as an audit last week.
Bartolotta expressed frustration Tuesday with that decision.

“I’ve heard there’s a report out there that supposedly is very favorable to the IT Department, its practices and the IT employees that have since been put on leave,” he said. “It seems very out of the ordinary that such a report would now be listed as an audit.”

Clarification: A "Public Records Request Confusion" sidebar in the Jan. 12 Sarasota Observer stated that all public records requests must come through City Attorney Bob Fournier's office. All media inquiries and public records requests regarding the Information Technology investigation are to be referred directly to the City Auditor and Clerk or the City Attorney's office. Media inquiries that that don't involve the investigation can be referred directly to Public Information Officer Jan Thornburg.