Commish Took Davenport Charter in Vain

Below is a speech I gave to the City of Davenport, Florida, Board of Commissioners on Monday, 4/28/25, at shortly after 7 PM. May they never forget what I said. May they never violate our Charter again.

---

Before I start, I want each of you to know that I get no pleasure being here today because I’m not going to do any happy talk. I’d much rather praise the great work of our city personnel. I apologize to all of you but I feel strongly that what I have to say is important for everyone to hear.

Today I’m going to talk about the phrase to take something in vain.

To take something in vain means to treat something with disrespect or irreverence, such as using the name of a sacred thing thoughtlessly. I believe that the people’s Charter of Davenport is one of those things, a sacred document. I also believe that the Charter was taken in vain during this year’s election.

This was done in reference to Charter Article 2, Term Limits, a rule that has apparently never been used as intended.

I believe that all of you are familiar with that section.

When I saw what Davenport’s lawyer wrote in January of this year, when I saw how this person used the word “liberal” in the interpretation of this specific rule in our Charter, I was astonished. The city’s attorney said that “Florida courts have consistently ruled that candidacy qualifications must be LIBERALLY construed in favor of qualification.” It is not language found anywhere in our Charter.

I may not be a lawyer, but I’ve worked in government long enough in Virginia to understand that the lawyer offered a ludicrous interpretation of this section of the Charter. You must know that Tom Fellow’s qualification, according to this section, was technically very clear against him, even when reviewed liberally.

I will tell you why.

Tom Fellows was to take one year off from this Board of Commissioners. That’s what the Charter states. The Charter states “one year,” not one term, not one period, not one spell, not one run, or any of a number of other word options that could have been used. It said ONE YEAR.

Tom Fellows had only taken 10 months off when the city clerk, Rachel Castillo-Young qualified him to run again. Now, we all know that 10 months is not the same as 12 months. Right? I mean, we are talking about MONTHS here, not WEEKS, nor DAYS, nor even HOURS. We’re talking about MONTHS.

Again, we’re talking about MONTHS. What the lawyer did was not a liberal interpretation. It was an outrageous interpretation.

What I discovered after doing some research was that Tom Fellows, the candidate in question, served in his seat as a commission member until Monday, April 15 of last year, the date he formally resigned. This event was documented by the Board’s minutes of that meeting. That means that Tom was serving as a commissioner on this board until he was formally excused or was expired at about 7:05 PM on Monday, April 15.

He was made qualified to run in this year’s election by the city clerk, Rachel Castillo-Young, on Wednesday, February 12, 2025, not two months but MORE THAN two full months before he was actually eligible to run again. Tom Fellows was not eligible to run in the Davenport election again until April 16, 2025. He was sworn in on April 21, 2025, mere days after he was actually qualified.

Based on all of this information, what I concluded was Tom Fellows was not eligible to run in this year’s election … at all. Again, the Charter says very clearly “one year.”

I wrote to the city attorney twice by email about this matter. In the second, I asked for nothing more than an example of how this section of our Charter would apply based on the lawyer’s interpretation. That person, Tom Cloud, did not respond.

Now, while the lawyer is not obligated to respond to me personally, it led me to wonder if the reason for this non-response was that he had no example. I now believe that this Charter section clearly applied to Tom Fellows and that the lawyer did not respond to me because he had no example.

Tom Cloud, in his interpretation of this section of the Charter, brought up a precedent called Wright versus City of Miami Gardens, wherein a candidate’s check was returned due to a banking error. That candidate was disqualified by the city’s clerk but was knocked down by the court because there was no “applicable valid law [that] expressly declared him to be ineligible.”

However, Wright versus Miami Gardens did not apply in the case of Tom Fellows. You see our Charter DOES expressly declare Tom Fellows ineligible in Charter Article Two, Section 2.01. Our clerk qualified Tom Fellows in spite of that section of the Charter existing.

It’s called contempt for Davenport’s Charter by that commissioner/politician. Contempt.

---

Now, I understand why the clerk, the lawyer, and Tom Fellows decided to read this section of our Charter LIBERALLY. I understand why the city allowed Tom Fellows to run in spite of the obvious violation of our Charter.

The history of Davenport includes a period of time when two mayors in a row proved to be considerably less than law-abiding. I believe that these two experiences back-to-back spooked this Board and, thus, the outrageous interpretation by Tom Cloud.

On a side note: I’ve been in Davenport for 13 years and not once in any of those years has Tom Fellows said anything more to me than the word Hello. It makes me wonder how many other voters he has been done this to. It makes me understand why there is widespread voter apathy in Davenport.

What I’m saying to you today is that Tom Fellows took the people’s Charter in vain, and this is unacceptable to the people who meant what they wrote in our Charter. There are any number of ways to remedy this situation, but at the very least, I am hopeful this Board will find a way to ensure that violations to our Charter never happen again.

Thank you for your time and good night.