Joel EngelhardtWest Palm follows the letter of the law, putting the cost to see proposals from three restaurant teams at more than $300.
Residents who want to see the proposals for a waterfront restaurant in West Palm Beach’s revamped Currie Park before a selection committee reviews and ranks them on June 10 will have to pay.
The city’s estimated cost to see the submissions from three restaurant groups is $337. They include a proposal from the city’s newest nemesis, Nick Coniglio, who owns E.R. Bradley’s, which has been embroiled in a dispute with the city over a waterfront park.
The city received the proposals in March. Stet News asked for them through a public records request on May 12. City Procurement Supervisor Sharon Sepulveda produced the cost estimate three days later.
While the city insists that it is complying with laws meant to give the public the chance to weigh in on decisions before they are made, public records experts say the city’s strict adherence to a bureaucratic mindset in this case places an undue burden on the public to cough up hundreds of dollars for records that in many cities are provided for free.
West Palm Beach’s charge is based on the estimated cost of an employee reading all the proposals to redact any exempt information, as allowed under state law, and then for a city attorney to review the work, Sepulveda said. Responses typically tally hundreds of pages.
She estimated that would take seven hours and 15 minutes even though the task should be easier because the city told bidders to mark all exempt information in advance. The city doesn’t charge for the first 15 minutes.
The city also plans to make the unredacted documents available to the five-member selection committee, even though, as one public records expert asserted, that action would waive any exemptions within the documents, rendering the city’s contention that it must redact the documents moot.
Is Florida still the Sunshine state?
Florida law gives cities the right to charge a “reasonable” fee for providing records “based on the cost incurred for such extensive use of information technology resources or the labor cost of the personnel providing the service.”
But many cities are taking advantage of the statute to reverse Florida’s reputation as one of the most open states in the union, said David Cuillier, director of the University of Florida’s Brechner Freedom of Information Project.
“This really amplifies a huge problem going on in Florida. Basically, Florida is becoming one of the most secretive states in the nation,” said Cuillier, a former University of Arizona School of Journalism instructor who wrote “The Art of Access: Strategies for Acquiring Public Records,” and “Transparency 2.0: Digital Data and Privacy in a Wired World.”
“We build into our government agencies funds so the public can be informed,” Cuillier said. “Frankly, the government should not be charging anything for public records. This is about our right to know, and that should be free. It shouldn’t come with a cost.”
He conceded that’s a tough sell since the Legislature has allowed cities to determine and assess “reasonable” costs.
“At a minimum, they’re violating the spirit of the law,” Cuillier said of West Palm Beach’s insistence that it needs to collect a fee to provide the restaurant proposals. “It breeds suspicion in the public about what they’re hiding. … I would think the government would double down and do what they can to make all this information out there for everyone to see.”
Who wants to run the restaurant
The city closed Currie Park in 2024 and embarked last year on a $35 million renovation. The park, a busy boat launch site also popular with homeless people, is on the Intracoastal Waterway 1.5 miles north of Clematis Street. It is bordered by vacant land where high-rise condos can be built.
The city is seeking “qualified, responsible, professional, experienced and innovative restaurant operators” to build and operate an 8,000-square-foot, indoor-outdoor restaurant in the 13-acre park.
The city said it isn’t looking for a “white tablecloth” restaurant, but one that would welcome “the broad spectrum of park users, many of them families with young children.”
The city provided the names of the proposers and the selection committee members without charge. The three proposers are:
- NDT Development, featuring Ned Grace, the developer of the Nora neighborhood north of downtown, and Coniglio, the owner of E.R. Bradley’s, one of the city’s most successful waterfront restaurants.
- SMG Drones of Lantana, whose founder, Hadley Doyle-Gonzalez, was part of the family that owned Panama Hatties Rum Bar in Palm Beach Gardens, which closed in 2014.
- Breakwater Hospitality Group of Miami, which operates several venues in Miami, including Pier 5 in Bayside Marketplace.
Selection committee members are:
- Daniah Missmar, vice president of development at Related Ross.
- Michael Whiteman, president of Baum+Whiteman restaurant consultants.
- John Carpenter, a member of the advisory board of the city’s Northwood Community Redevelopment Agency.
- Jade Greene, deputy director of the city CRA.
- Leah Rockwell, the city’s director of parks and recreation.
The selection committee meets at 12:30 pm June 10 in Room 519 at City Hall. The ultimate decision will be made by the City Commission.
Bidders must spotlight exempt information
Sepulveda did not respond to a question about rules set out in the city’s Request for Proposals that told bidders they must mark materials that may be exempt from public review.
“Such information must be identified accordingly on each and every page of the proposal package where applicable,” the RFP states. “No claim of confidentiality or proprietary information in all or any portion of a proposal package will be honored unless a specific exemption from the public records law exists and it is cited in the proposal package. … Otherwise, the city will treat all material received as public records.”
Michael Barfield, executive director of the Florida Center for Government Accountability in Sarasota, called the fee determination “ridiculous” especially since “the public is being billed to do the work the agency has already shifted to the vendors.”
He said handing unredacted records to a selection committee for their deliberations waives the exemption for proprietary information, making the entire record publicly available without redaction.
When asked why it would still take the city seven hours to redact the material that vendors were required to spotlight, Sepulveda wrote on May 21, “The city is in the process of conducting its due diligence of the requested records. The seven hours of labor activity is an estimate of the time to produce the records and will be adjusted accordingly once completed based upon actual time spent.”
Stet News refused to provide a 50% down payment to get the job started so the records won’t be released — unless someone else foots the bill. Once that happens, under state law, the city can’t charge members of the public to redact the records again.
Similar records at no charge in other cities
Stet News did not have to pay anything to get responses to RFPs in at least two other nearby cities.
Palm Beach Gardens, which often charges for public records, charged nothing in 2023 when it provided Stet News with responses to solicitations for projects at Plant Drive Park and the Gardens North County District Park.
Riviera Beach charged nothing when it provided the extensive backup submitted by developers seeking to build on city land along Blue Heron Boulevard and again when developers lined up to invest hundreds of millions of dollars into the Marina Village. It also posted the proposals on a webpage.
When Palm Beach County searched for an administrator last year, it posted every applicants’ resume on a website.
West Palm Beach also refuses to provide the backup material on upcoming meeting agendas — such as contracts, proposals and site plans — through a free link online. In West Palm Beach, a resident who wants to know the full details behind a proposal going before the City Commission must make a public records request to see it.
Riviera Beach, Palm Beach Gardens and Palm Beach County are among the many local government agencies that link backup material to the agenda.
The West Palm Beach system, to meet changing rules regarding online access for residents with disabilities, means that residents who look at the agenda on the day of the meeting won’t have access to the detailed backup information available to city commissioners.
The city made that change a year ago and told Stet in November that it did so to meet changes to the Americans with Disabilities Act requirements. But those rules did not go into effect in April as planned, with the deadline pushed back to May 2027.
