Fred Grimm/Commentary May 19, 2005
It was a blood feud. A public hearing that recalled old barroom brawl metaphors. Eye-gouging. Ear-biting. Head-thumping.
Not a good forum, as it turned out, to explore the issue that has so rankled Deerfield Beach and other seaside communities along Florida's 1,197-mile coast. The debate over beach development may have been sloshing around in that bucket of rancor, but the hearing that slogged from Tuesday evening into Wednesday morning was mostly just a public display of personal acrimony.
Deerfield Beach Vice Mayor Steve Gonot was out to oust City Manager Larry Deetjen. But Deetjen refused to go without a tussle.
On April 19, Gonot had managed to convince three of his fellow commissioners to vote to suspend Deetjen, the city manager for more than a decade. The hearing Tuesday night was to be the coup de grace.
Deetjen was seen, in this divided town, as the architect of overzealous plans to redevelop city-owned property to cure City Hall's high-rise fever.
VENIAL SINS
Gonot went through his list of Deetjen's sins, including a claim that the city manager had been feeding inside information to plaintiffs who were challenging Deerfield's growth-control amendments in court. But beach development was no more at the heart of Tuesday hearings than weapons of mass destruction. It was just an excuse for a fight.
Gonot's told of his personal clashes with the city manager. Stacks of beachfront condos were far less crucial in this hearing than stacks of a local weekly newspaper. Gonot claimed Deetjen had tried to have him arrested on a trumped-up charge of pilfering copies of The Observer from racks just before the March municipal elections.
It was petty stuff. The Observer is free. But it made for great theater. Jon Rosenthal, Deetjen's lawyer, brought in the newspaper's editor - she had endorsed Gonot's opponent - to talk about a slew of suspicious newspaper thefts just before the election. He dredged up an original police report indicating that Gonot was seen making off with "stacks" of the newspaper. Rosenthal piled up newspapers to illustrate the exact dimensions of a stack.
"This is better than television," said Mayor Al Capellini.
The unrestrained hearing gave a skilled lawyer like Rosenthal more leeway than any courtroom. In a courtroom, a judge would have silenced Observer editor Judy Wilson before she voiced unproved suspicions about political motivations behind the newspaper thefts. But the presiding officer here was Mayor Capellini, a Deetjen ally.
"Don't change the channel," Mayor Capellini said.
RAUCOUS SESSION
The scene at City Hall was reminiscent of the 1970s when Broward city commission meetings regularly offered raucous theater. The crowd filled the commission meeting hall and corridors. They clustered under the breezeway, listened to outdoor loudspeakers and offered running commentary. They filled a second building with the overflow and watched on closed-circuit television. Sheriff's deputies kept order. No one could accuse Deerfield Beach of political apathy.
As Rosenthal transformed charges against Deetjen into a case against Gonot, making him out to be a hot-head and bully, the pro-Deetjen crowd, led by retirees from Century Village, murmured their approval. They cheered or laughed on cue. They hardly noticed as Rosenthal skated around the more troublesome allegations.
Somehow, amid all that rancor, the beach issue "just got lost" said a weary Commissioner Pam Militello, an anti-development activist elected in March.
The vote was 3-2 to reinstate Deetjen. Or maybe it was 3-2 to hang Gonot. After six hours, who could remember?
Mid-Trial Offer of Probation for Client
