This past Thursday night, we sat in the audience of the Palm Bay City Council meeting because we wanted to be present when the Morrell discussion came up. (Much more on that to follow.)
During public comments, there were phone calls and emails about Thomas Rebman.
This is not surprising as Rebman had made a post asking for people to help him astroturf the issue of homelessness and himself.
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The City Council voted to end the employment of City Manager Lisa Morrell.
Councilman Anderson refused to give any specifics as to why Morrell should by terminated.
Councilman Bailey asked for reasons and Mayor tried to cut him off and then broke the Council rules to call the motion while Bailey was still speaking.
One of the things that Bailey brought up was that Anderson had given Morrell a positive review.
Here is that review:
Late last night we mentioned that Palm Bay City Manager was rumored to have resigned her position.
We stated that there was nothing on the agenda for the July 2, 2020 meeting that would bring up the resignation.
There is now an addition to the agenda that discusses Morrell’s employment.
It is ironic that Councilman Anderson would bring this up.
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A report is circulating that Palm Bay City Manager Lisa Morrell has resigned her position.
The acceptance of that resignation is not on the agenda for the July 2, 2020 meeting, but it seems it would need to be voted upon by the Council.
Morrell walked into a very difficult situation at City Hall, replacing former City Manager Gregg Lynk after he was terminated by the City Council.
If the reports are true, we can only say that we wish her well in her future endeavors.
UPDATE: Councilman Bailey is saying the report is false. In a post on his Facebook account, he writes:
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On Tuesday, June 16, 2020, we received an email from Thomas Rebman, who amongst other things, alleges to be an advocate for the homeless. Rebman was preparing to make comments to the Palm Bay City Council on Thursday, June 18 and was looking for support.
His email read, in part:
My voice cannot be the only one heard. It takes a community to change things. To all of you who want to help the homeless, here is your chance. Please attend the Palm Bay City Council meeting at 7 pm this Thursday.
I am requesting the Council hold a round table style workshop or initiate a citizens advisory board to develop a plan to reduce homelessness.
We find that Rebman still communicates with us amusing and indicative of the type of person he is. In 2019, he initiated a email chain with us which in which we addressed his concerns. Yet he didn’t like the fact that our addressing included facts which were contrary to the narrative he was putting forth. Because of that, he accused us of “cyber stalking,” which he believed the Florida Statutes applied to our conversation (they do not) and said that we would be hearing from him in order to “let a judge decide.” We’re still waiting for that empty threat to be realized.
Still, for someone who claims they don’t want to hear from us, he has no problems including us on his email blasts. Hypocrisy anyone?
On Thursday, Rebman made his comments calling for another workshop on the homeless in Palm Bay. Councilman Brian Anderson asked if the Council wanted to address Rebman’s comments.
Mayor Capote decided this would be a good time to lay the smack down on that idea.
That’s going to leave a mark.
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Political sign wars have begun.
Here we see a candidate whose signs have bracketed another candidate’s signs in order for the latter not to be seen.
If you have to resort to blocking other people’s signs and messages, then you obviously lack class.
If your message and your candidacy is so weak and lacking substance that you have to try to block others from seeing other candidates, that says a great deal as well.
If you have to resort to blocking and covering up the speech of a candidate running for the same position, what will you do with citizen’s speech? Will you try to block and stop ideas that you don’t like from being said?
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Normally we put up notices of governmental meetings the day of the meeting so the meeting can stay fresh in the minds of people. We can’t do that this time because the City of Palm Bay City Council is not allowing the public into Council meetings at this time. They are allowing Boards to have people in the audience, but not the Council. Other cities have opened up their Council / Commission meetings, but not the Palm Bay City Council.
This means that people cannot comment in person at the day of the meeting.
According to the agenda for this meeting:
Public comments may be submitted via email at publiccomments@palmbayflorida.org. Members of the public may also call (321) 726-2740 to provide comments via a dedicated City of Palm Bay public comment voicemail. All comments submitted will be included as part of the public record for this virtual meeting and will be considered by the City Council prior to any action taken. Comments must be received at least twenty-four (24) hours prior to the meeting and shall have a time limit of three (3) minutes.
Obviously the City doesn’t want real time feed back or people actually responded and agreeing or disagreeing with other commenters.
What started out as legitimate health concerns appears to have morphed into another way the Palm Bay City Council can shut out the voice of the people.
Bottom line is if you want to make a comment on the phone line, it must be done by 6:00 PM today (How stupid is that?) and a video submitted by 2 PM tomorrow.
On Thursday night at 6:00 PM the City of Palm Bay is having a workshop dealing with parking in Palm Bay. (Full agenda and documentation below.) Specifically:
A textual amendment to the Code of Ordinances, Title VII, Traffic and Vehicles, Chapter 70: General Provisions, Section 70.04; Title IX, General Regulations, Chapter 93: Real Property Nuisances, Section 93.044; Title XVII, Land Development Code, Chapter 185: Zoning Code, Section 185.006 and Section 185.123. The purpose of this amendment is to update provisions for the parking of vehicles in residential areas and to revise definitions within the applicable sections of the referenced codes.
There are several areas of this that concern us. Some are on the books already, and another is another case of the City telling people what they can and cannot do with their own property.
Section 93.044 is being moved and one significant addition is being added. This section is being added:
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The above Facebook post was made a few days ago regarding the letter below sent by Waste Management as to why the company failed to respond to the City of Palm Bay’s RFP for trash removal services.
Here’s the letter:
We’ve seen other posts supporting Waste Management’s position on this and calling for the RFP to be re-issued allowing more companies to bid because of the limited number of companies responding.
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