A Leon County circuit judge dismissed a complaint alleging that the Florida Department of Transportation and a contractor failed to completely cooperate with public-records requests about contentious state-funded flights of illegal migrants to Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts.
Judge Angela Dempsey made two similar findings last week denying the complaint filed in October by the non-profit Florida Center for Government Accountability against the Department of Transportation and Vertol Systems Company, Inc.
The center claimed that the department and the contractor violated the state’s open-records legislation by failing to provide all requested documentation regarding the September flights of approximately 50 illegal migrants from San Antonio, Texas, to Martha’s Vineyard. The flights, which were planned by Governor Ron DeSantis‘ administration, have gained global attention.
Dempsey decided that the center failed to demonstrate that the department and Vertol concealed documents.
“The burden is on the plaintiff to prove they made a specific request for public records, that Vertol received the request, the requested public records exist and Vertol refused to provide them in a timely manner,” Dempsey wrote in one of the rulings.
The decisions were different from what Leon County Circuit Judge J. Lee Marsh said in October about a separate lawsuit that the center had filed against DeSantis’ office. Marsh came to the conclusion that the office had broken the law about public records. The administration has asked the First District Court of Appeal to review the decision.
VISIT OUR YOUTUBE CHANNELThe disagreements derive from the September 14 flights, which began in San Antonio and finished in Martha’s Vineyard after stopping at an airport in the Northwest Florida hamlet of Crestview. The DeSantis administration used $12 million in state funds to transfer illegal immigrants from Florida.
After submitting public-records requests on September 21 and 22, the center filed the case against the Department of Transportation and Vertol. Despite the fact that the department and Vertol produced records, the center claims that they did not fully comply with the requirements.
In a Nov. 14 court document, for example, the center stated that information about Vertol’s arrangement with a subcontractor, Ultimate Jetcharters, LLC, had not been disclosed. While the state spent $615,000 on the September flights, three additional Vertol purchase orders for “relocation services” at $950,000 apiece are shown on a state contracting website.
“Although it is undisputed that Vertol used subcontractors for the services it performed, including a transport company known as Ultimate Jetcharters, LLC, not a single document in the production from FDOT or Vertol has any documentation of FDOT’s project manager approving this subcontract, nor is there any record of the costs Vertol paid to Ultimate Jetcharters,” the court document said on November 14.
However, Dempsey determined this week that “there was no unlawful refusal to provide public records by the FDOT.”
In addition to clearing Vertol, Dempsey attacked assertions that text conversations relevant to the deal are public data.
“(Under) Florida caselaw, there are classes of documents that may be in the possession and control of Vertol that do not fall within the category of a ‘public record,’” she wrote. “The mere fact that a document, such as an email or test message, is part of Vertol’s files does not make it a ‘public record.’ Even if the text or email is downloaded to the agency’s computer, it does not convert it to a ‘public record.’”
Some Florida Democrats and critics of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ decision to fly illegal immigrants to Massachusetts went so far as to accuse DeSantis of kidnapping illegal migrants who crossed the US-Mexico border unlawfully.
A sheriff in Texas, where the flights to Massachusetts originated, also revealed that his organization was looking into the DeSantis administration’s handling of the 48 illegal aliens who were flown from the border region to the Northeast United States. Good luck with that. You would think the sheriff would be thankful that someone is doing something to send a message to the lawless Biden administration.
