A City in Disarray

Dear City Councilors: 

It was very disturbing to observe and listen to the discussion regarding the audit and our auditor during the October 20th council meeting. When City Manager McNees, assistant City Manager Lucius, Finance Director Polanco, AND Councilor Champagne were all made aware of ongoing problems for the auditor to obtain correct information from the ENTIRE Finance Department, that should have raised red flags and set off alarm bells among all of those involved individuals. Nobody among them acted properly and now we are a city in chaos. Even Councilor Palumbo openly asked WHO is in charge of the City and none of you nor any city staff responded. 

The time has come for each of you Councilors to accept your responsibility as fiduciaries of all our citizen tax dollars to do what is right and definitely needed under the now openly proven circumstances. It is time for any and all excuses to be ended. The City Manager is now shown to be in dereliction of his duties to uphold the CHARTER OF THE CITY OF MARCO ISLAND. He willfully wrote an unauthorized check for a change order to the city hall annex, he ignored the need for an annual Level of Service study for the years he was responsible to do it, and finally he completely failed to notify all of you of an audit that included charges of a Material Weakness and a Significant Weakness. Any ONE of those violations are enough to require termination of this City Manager. 

In addition you can listen to Councilor Champagne’s warning that it will be a very long time before Florida DOGE possibly arrives on the Island. Instead, take action to restore the trust of we the citizens in our City Government and our City Council by ordering a thorough forensic audit. The money is there thanks to Councilor Palumbo who ordered boardwalk funds to be put into escrow. 

Now all of you step forward to fulfill your obligations to those of us who duly elected you. 

Originally sent to City Council October 22, 2025.