The 6th District Court of Appeals has agreed to expedite Karen Woodson’s recall appeal. Woodson has until the end of the day today to file a brief with the court. Then, recall committee co-chair Ray Murphy has until December 5th to respond.
Following Murphy’s response, the court has given Woodson until the 10th to respond to Murphy’s filing.
Woodson was recalled earlier this month. Circuit Court Judge Kyle Cohen ruled the recall petition was valid for Woodson. Over 60% of those who voted chose to recall Woodson. While the allegations on the recall petition were for Sunshine Violations and accepting gifts from developers, recallers have repeatedly said in public the recall was all about development, specifically Woodson’s vote on Seagate.
Woodson has also filed a defamation lawsuit against Murphy. She has denied all the allegations in the recall petition. Judge Cohen did not have the authority to rule on whether the allegations were true or false. His only role was to determine whether the allegations fit into what the state recall statute requires, which they did. Woodson is asking the appeals court to take a closer look at what she says are false allegations.
Woodson’s appeal in this case is being covered by Fort Myers Beach taxpayers because the recall took place while she was a sitting council person. She has to pay her own legal fees in the defamation lawsuit.
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This is INSANE !!!!
Woodson appealing ???
Wow — you seriously have NO SHAME!
You are making this SOOO crystal clear of what this is really about —
At this point- you should be utterly ashamed of yourself.
You’ve made it quite obvious , you have NO respect for the Tax paying Voting Residents of this Island.
Woodson and King have become an embarrassment to this Town…
GO AWAY !!
She’s trying to regain her integrity from allegations made with no proof. She should fight for decades if need be.
I’m just going to leave this here — On May May 30, 2023, an election was held in Crescent City Florida, where people voted if they wanted to recall or keep Cynthia Burton in office. While just 30% of the registered voters turned out for the election, 180 voted to recall Burton and 126 voted to keep her in office. Crescent City Commissioner Cynthia Burton will remain in office despite election results that may have bumped her from the seat, after a Fifth District Court of Appeal opinion issued on June 12, 2023.
As for your innuendo, it doesn’t deserve a response.
Oates v. Burton dealt with a petition that was procedurally defective in who it was turned in to, and had insufficient grounds because it alleged conduct that wasn’t actually a Sunshine violation, regardless of truth.
The Woodson recall alleged conduct that is a Sunshine violation if true, and the petition met procedural requirements, so the cases are distinguishable.
Recall petitions may not exceed 200 words, they aren’t required to spell out every element like a lawyer would in a lawsuit. Courts are supposed to read them with common sense, not technical nitpicking.
Rebuilding within the town after a hurricane is inherently town business. A conversation about any town business that a vote could reasonably be foreseen is considered a meeting.
I wonder what the outcome will be if Karen wins; will she be reinstated on the Council?
Furthermore, if she wins her defamation lawsuit, who or what entity will pay the judgement? My concern is whether the town of FMB will be on the hook for this money.
She sued Murphy for defamation; should she prevail and get a judgment against him, Murphy would pay — not the town.
As far as the recall, she can’t win. There’s absolutely no precedent. Lawyer is happy to take the towns money though.
As far as the defamation suit, that could get interesting. King has said they are paying out of pocket for that suit, but they are using the same lawyer/ law firm handling the recall, and the defamation case is directly based on the recall.
Florida law doesn’t allow public funds to directly or indirectly support personal tort litigation initiated by a public official.
It seems like it could create a conflict of interest, because it’s likely impossible to be sure there’s no billing overlap since the cases have shared facts, legal research, institutional knowledge, etc. which could certainly lower costs for Woodson/ Kings defamation suit, essentially piggy backing off of the work done on behalf of the town paying for the recall defense.
I’m not sure how the Town could ensure there is complete segregation of recall and defamation work and billing.
I’m just going to leave this here — On May May 30, 2023, an election was held in Crescent City Florida, where people voted if they wanted to recall or keep Cynthia Burton in office. While just 30% of the registered voters turned out for the election, 180 voted to recall Burton and 126 voted to keep her in office. Crescent City Commissioner Cynthia Burton will remain in office despite election results that may have bumped her from the seat, after a Fifth District Court of Appeal opinion issued on June 12, 2023.
As for your innuendo, it doesn’t deserve a response.