Liar Liar Pants on Fire?

Very little surprises me anymore with local government officials, but yesterday it happened when Commissioner Kinnard mis-stated the truth about not having ex-parte communication regarding the application.

During the 5:01pm hearing for the VA Clinic application to build a new VA clinic in Lecanto, County Attorney Denise Lyn asked each commissioner if they needed to disclose any ex-parte communication to the public?

This is important because ex-parte communication is communication that a board member has with anyone outside of the hearing. This can be emails, text messages, conversations, etc. Lyn asks them if they had any conversations to disclose as that helps them avoid a potential lawsuit by someone suggesting bias.

Here is the county's definition:

"Ex-parte communication shall mean any oral, written, electronic or graphic communication with a decision maker which may directly or indirectly relate to or which could influence the disposition of the matter, other than those made on the record during a quasi-judicial hearing."

As we have discussed at length before, these hearings are Quasi-Judicial. That means that the board members act as the judge/jury and decide the cases based on the evidence/testimony that is given during the hearing. They are only supposed to consider what is presented as "evidence" at the hearing. This can be reports, diagrams, expert testimony, citizen comments, staff reports, answers to their questions and so on.

The idea here is that, as the judge/jury, they need to be impartial. They are not supposed to have conversations outside the meetings and begin to form an opinion before coming into the hearing and listening to what is presented.

Think of a court case. Would you want the judges or jury to be speaking with the prosecutor or defense... or members of the public about the case prior to it happening? Most people would agree that is not a good idea. Jurors are told they are not to discuss the case with anyone until the case is over. Doing so can potentially result in a mistrial.

Same thing here. Developers or those seeking to get approval for something do not want commissioners talking to members of the public, or anyone for that matter, about how bad their project is before they had a chance to present it... same as the defense team would not want the judge to talk to the prosecution.

Makes sense right?

Well, a court case from 1991 touched on that. That is Jennings v Dade County. Basically the court ruled that any communication outside of the hearing can be prejudicial to the hearing itself and can result in a new hearing. The state then passed a law that addressed Jennings and allows counties/cities to make their own ordinances/rules regarding ex-parte communication to help overcome the potential bias... However, this has yet to be challenged.

In part due to my suggestions, Citrus County did that in 2024. Now, if commissioners have conversations outside of the hearing, they are supposed to fill out a paper that addresses those conversations. They are supposed to disclose who they spoke with, when they spoke, what the topic was and so on. They are then to submit it prior to the vote on the matter, so that everyone is aware of the communication.

This allows all parties to be aware of the communications and to challenge them if necessary.

For instance, a developer wanting to build 500 homes will absolutely want to know if a commissioner talked to a citizen group who was opposed to the project and want to know what was discussed. This will allow the developer to refute what that citizen group told the commissioner.

Makes sense right? If commissioners are having these conversations, everyone needs to know about them, including the public.

That is why Lyn asks before every quasi-judicial meeting if they have had ex-parte communication. If they haven't they say "No". If they have, they say yes and are supposed to turn in the paper disclosure before the final action (vote) on the application.

Yesterday, when asked by Lyn if he had ex-parte communication, Kinnard said "No".

Most people would take that at face value, however, I had done a records request over a month ago for something unrelated (Data Center). I had gotten emails that covered the week of January 27th.

In those emails, I found several emails regarding the VA Clinic. I thought that was interesting because I knew it would be going to the PDC, so I put them into a folder to see if they would be mentioned when it went to the BOCC.

Here is the first one.

Notice the title. "VA Lecanto Clinic - Introduction".

That means it was a discussion about the VA Clinic. This email was a teams call invitation send by Steven Vanderhye to Kinnard and two others, John Braswell and Chris Darling.

Vanderhye works for Guardian Real Estate and Development.

The application was presented by Guardian to the BOCC.

Braswell and Darling work for HC Government Realty Trust, Inc. Darling is the one that signed the application for this project.

So these individuals are clearly the applicants for the VA Clinic.

Due to the title, the subject is clearly about the VA clinic. This email was sent on January 27th, 2026. Kinnard was invited to have a conversation with the applicants regarding their project pending before the BOCC.

Here is proof that he attended the meeting.

That is Vanderhye thanking Kinnard for meeting with them via teams on January 28th.

53 seconds later, Kinnard sends an email to Steve Howard asking him and Eric (Landon) to call him regarding the VA Clinic.

Almost 20 mins later, Kinnard forwards the "Thank You" email Vanderhye sent to him to Howard and Landon.

Howard then has an email thread the next day with Vanderhye and several staff members stating that he will try to get to the "Yes".

Then Kinnard is brought back in by Howard updating him on what happened earlier in the day.

That conversation on the Teams Call and all of these emails ARE EX-PARTE COMMUNICATION.

It does not matter if he is speaking with the applicant. He is still bound to disclose that conversation... when it took place, what was talked about.. etc.

He is also not supposed to be speaking with Eric Landon regarding these types of cases. The County is a party to the hearing. That means county staff is a party to the application. As such, Commissioners are not supposed to have discussions with staff regarding these cases. If they do, that is ex-parte communication and subject to disclosure.

Had this gone the other way and the VA Clinic was denied, the applicant had grounds to appeal the decision due to his communication with Landon.

Regardless, all of this is considered ex-parte communication, yet, he said "No" when asked by the county Attorney.

He literally did not tell the truth right there on the dais. Perhaps there is a small chance that he forgot he had these conversations a little over a month ago. However, you do not simply forget that you talked with the applicant about a major project. He made the choice to not disclose the conversation.

Does anyone not see the problem with that?

If this happened for a project like the VA Clinic which was likely getting approved anyway, despite staff's objections to it, what is going on that we do not know about in regards to contentious projects.

Pine Ridge... All of 491/486... Tuscany...

Did he have conversations about all of those projects and not disclose them? No clue... but this makes one question it.

What about future projects like Betz Farm, the Deltona Industrial property (Data Center), Asphalt Plant, The Crossings... and so on.. Zero conversations with those developers or others? Who knows.

Can we trust him going forward on these projects and that he is not going into them already having decided how he will vote?

The point is that commissioners SHOULD NOT be having ANY conversations with ANYONE regarding any pending applications. If they decide to do so, they need to disclose those conversations.

But here we are.

In case you were wondering, these are county ordinances, not just policy. Not being truthful about ex-parte communication is a violation of county ordinances. Seems like a pretty big deal to me.

Guys... this is really not that difficult. Just follow the rules.