For more than a week, Mayor Moss delayed turning over to the City Clerk’s Office official communication received on her personal email account

 

MARK SCHUMANN

Documents requested May 2 but not released until May 10 reveal that Vero Beach Mayor Laura Moss has used her personal email account to conduct official City business.  The use of her private email address for City business would not necessarily raise questions, except that Moss has also delayed providing those documents to the City Clerk’s office. Below are just two of a number of emails Moss received on her personal email account from attorney’s with the law firm of Carlton Fields.

At the May 2 City Council meeting, Moss claimed City staff has been conducting “a thorough financial review” of the proposed sale of Vero Electric. None of the documents release by the City late last week suggest any such review has taken place. Clearly, there are only two possibilities. Either Moss is misleading the public about what review, if any, has taken place, or she and/or City Staff are withholding documents that are the subject of several public records requests.

Last summer, in her capacity as Chair of the Utilities Commission Moss wrote the Chair of the Florida Public Service Commission, but never provided the City Clerk’s Office with a copy of the correspondence. Moss’s letter to the PSC only came to light when it was made public by PSC staff.