McPherson says he'll use arrest to fire Avael
Key West Assistant City Manager John Jones was charged Friday with two misdemeanor counts of falsely impersonating a certificate holder.
Jones turned himself in and was booked at the Monroe County Detention Center and was released later in the day.
Jones is accused of illegally signing a temporary 90-day certificate of occupancy for Pat Croce's Rum Barrel bar and restaurant on Feb. 3, 2006.
But the unfolding investigation revealed a new charge stemming from an incident Jan. 17, 2006, when Jones signed a separate certificate granting the state Department of Children and Family Services trailers to serve as offices. The agency's previous offices were flooded by Hurricane Wilma, State Attorney's Office spokesman Matthew Helmerich said.
According to the arrest affidavit, Jones was not authorized to sign either certificate. A certified building official is the only proper signer for such a certificate.
A written statement from Robyn Barineau, executive director for building code administrators in the state Department of Business and Professional Regulation, appears in the arrest affidavit:
“A thorough search of the board's official records pertaining to John Hugh Jones showed that he has not and does not hold a license issued by the Building Code Administrators and Inspectors Board,” it reads.
“There's a lot of hype about it,” Jones said in a phone interview Thursday. “If they don't accept my data, then they do what they have to do, but I don't really care. I didn't do anything wrong.”
Jones filed his report to BPR in February, describing in his words what happened. He was waiting to hear from the State Attorney's Office before publicly disclosing his reasons for signing.
Jones disclosed his reasons to the Keynoter Friday, revealing letters he sent to BPR Regional Program Administrator Guillermo Tejeda.
Referring to the Rum Barrel in the letter, Jones stated he went over a checklist with inspectors and the fire marshal and “it was determined that the building could be opened with a temporary certificate of occupancy without any safety problems if marshals were hired to be there when the building was opened....”
Jones also wrote he “received a call from Marc Cerceo of Pirate Soul on Feb. 2 complaining that he had not gotten his temporary certificate of occupancy and he had to have one by Feb. 1....” Pirate Soul is a museum and part of the Rum Barrel business.
Jones wrote he signed the certificate so the restaurant could have its opening Feb. 8. Joe April, the building official at the time, was out of town when he signed the certificate.
April was also under investigation due to complaints that he was obligated to inform the state licensing authority of Jones' action. The City Commission authorized the funding for April's legal representation during its April 3 meeting.
Jones' arrest affidavit notes that investigators questioned April, who refused to sign the certificate. He said, according to the affidavit, the “restaurant's construction was not completed and that several inspections (including electrical, FEMA, flood panels, elevators, etc.) were yet to be performed as final.”
April also confirmed that the temporary certificate for the Rum Barrel expired, leaving the facility without a license for “several months.”
April is now director of engineering.
In the wake of Jones' arrest, Mayor Morgan McPherson hopes he might have a little ammo in his quest to fire Avael because of allegations that he coerced Jones to sign the certificate. Avael is slated for retirement in November.
“If he told his subordinates to do something and they did it, and they're arrested, then I think he should be held accountable for it,” McPherson said.
McPherson plans to write a resolution for the May 1 City Commission meeting calling for termination of Avael's contract with cause.
Helmerich said “we have no evidence Julio Avael has committed a crime.”
BPR's findings would suffice in justifying disciplinary action against Avael, said McPherson, who will move for immediate termination.
Under McPherson's desired circumstances, the city would keep the $71,423 of Avael's severance pay plus a year's worth of his health insurance benefits, $7,872.
Juicy!
This was always going to be interesting, but an arrest? Wow. Almost unheard of, for a city employee anyway. What could this mean. Accountability for our elected officials and those they hire? Yeah right. We shall see.
In other news, local philanthropist and all round good guy humanitarian, etc etc, Pritam Singh, has trundled, in his charming and seductive way, all over almost every piece of legislation covering, housing density, transient licences, the planning dept and the city commission.
In one fail swoop. And if that was not evidence enough of the mans' mad skills, he uses convicted tamperer Jim Hendrick as his "land use consultant".
I said MAD SKILLS, did I not?
The whole story here, from a fishy perspective :
The FishWrapper.
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