Recently we were asked on X (formally Twitter) about Jack Porter’s spending with taxpayer money. One of our neighbors specifically wanted to know about her trip to a Local Progress Conference. However, we felt it would only be fair reporting to look into all the elected official spending.
We would like to provide a disclaimer that we only searched for the transactions with the Official’s names attached to the transactions. We include transactions through the year 2019 at the request of our neighbor.
Jack Porter: The Least Spent
We began our search with Commissioner Jack Porter due to our neighbor’s interest in her specifically. Upon searching her name we found 9 transactions since 2019. There is one transaction for Porter to attend a Local Progress conference for an amount of $225 and on the same day a Strong Towns convention for $143.
We looked into these organizations to learn a little more about them. Local Progress is an organization for local officials (much like Florida League of Cities). However, unlike FLC, Local progress has a focus on every person making livable wages, a stress on public safety and addressing the root causes, as well as affordable housing.
Strong Towns is of particular interest to us due to their approach to redesigning outdated cities into safer streets for pedestrians, bicyclists, and cars. Strong Towns also focuses on city budgets and spending in the most responsible ways, among other issues. Over the past year CapitalTea has learned how other cities are approaching redesign and watching as the safety for all increases.
Porter has the least amount of taxpayer money spent on her out of all the elected officials. Her cost totals $1,493.50 and all payments were in the form of “vouchers.” She also only has one voucher charge in the form of “printing services” the rest are travel/training.
John Dailey: The Most Spent
John Dailey has the most amount of taxpayer money spent on him. His charges range from a Peace Lily for his father in-law, to cell phone accessories, safety boots, memberships, and travel.
Dailey has spent a total of $127.80 through amazon for cell phone accessories. Since 2019 he bought two pairs of safety boots at $170 each ($340 total). Prior to 2019 there is one other safety boot charge for $340. The safety boots is of particular interest since our firefighters only get vouchers for $120. This raises a few questions, what does the Mayor need that many safety boots for and what is he doing to have to replace them so frequently?
There is $1,118.87 in office supplies that we included due to the remarks indicating it is for Dailey diaries. However, we wonder if it actually is meant to say “daily.” The total charges from Dailey are $4,894.52 from 2019 to present.
The Other Commissioners
Dianne Williams-Cox spends the second most of the commissioners at $4,750.90 since 2019. All her charges are also Travel/training related mostly for the Florida League of Cities and the Chamber of Commerce.
Curtis Richardson has spent $2,008.91 since 2019. His charges are also all on travel/training and also mostly for the Chamber of commerce and Florida League of cities.
Jeremy Matlow is the second least amount spent at $1,953.17 since 2019. Charges under his name are all in the year 2019 and most are “Travel/Training.”
Our Taxpayer Money Expenditures Need More Investigation
We did investigate looking into the charges under each “office” or “City Commission-Seat (number).” Unfortunately what we found under those tags is a large amount of varying transactions for us to untangle. For example the office of the Mayor has a $98,000 charge labeled “habitat for humanity.” We can assume that this charge was mostly likely a City government charge and not solely the Mayor’s.
The lack of organization and detailed description of these items makes us wonder if it is intentional to muddy the waters of financial transparency. If it is intentional then this is just another area that is being kept from the sunshine. If it isn’t intentional, the impact remains that finances are not in the sunshine.
We also noted that the Mayor’s Verizon Bill is around $300 while everyone else’s average about $140 (we did not include the City manager but found it interesting that his is only about 77$). Recalling the other search we performed, only the Mayor has charges for cell phone accessories.
Under “seat 2,” Richardson has bought memberships to NEBA with taxpayer money. If you recall, this year NEBA endorsed Richardson over his other opponents. This calls into question the validity of the City not being involved in politics if taxpayer money goes to organizations which endorse candidates.
We believe that our elected officials should be allowed travel to conventions and have cell phones to maintain constant communication. However, it appears the Mayor is buying food on a regular basis as well as plants for family and cell phone accessories. Looking through these charges it feels like the Taxpayers are the Mayor’s personal checking account.
