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Longtime Tarpon Springs city attorney resigns, citing ‘baseless’ attacks

Tom Trask says he will leave his post Oct. 9 after new commissioners critiqued his billing practices and performance.
 
At a July Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners meeting, City Attorney Tom Trask answers questions from commissioners about his law firm's billing statements. Trask later said he would resign.
At a July Tarpon Springs Board of Commissioners meeting, City Attorney Tom Trask answers questions from commissioners about his law firm's billing statements. Trask later said he would resign. [ YouTube ]
Published Sept. 12, 2022|Updated Sept. 12, 2022

After representing Tarpon Springs for 26 years, City Attorney Tom Trask said “baseless public attacks” over the last several months have left him no choice but to sever his firm’s ties with the city.

Trask informed the Board of Commissioners on Friday that he and Trask Daigneault LLP will resign effective Oct. 9.

In an email to the board, Trask said he and his firm have been subjected to false accusations of unlawful or unethical conduct in Tarpon Springs and other communities he represents. He said commissioners “have been strongly influenced by these false, defamatory and tortious accusations,” although he did not provide examples.

“I will not subject myself or the firm to several more months of false allegations and baseless public attacks and allow the firm to suffer the reputational and financial harm that would result,” Trask wrote.

His resignation comes six months after a city election brought a new board of commissioners majority into office that opposed their predecessors’ approval of an apartment project and drew allegations of corruption by residents.

The eight-lawyer Trask Daigneault firm represents 15 cities and Pinellas County in capacities from city attorney to special magistrate or attorney for boards like code enforcement.

Commissioner Panagiotis Koulias said that in his August evaluation of Trask, he proposed putting the city attorney contract out to bid “to weigh our options.”

“As of recently there are some issues that have been brought to our attention, and I was hoping and expecting (Trask) would have addressed them, but he abruptly resigned,” Koulias said in an interview. “It’s concerning, and Tarponites are going to want answers.”

Before the board approved Trask Daigneault’s June invoices during its July 26 meeting, Commissioner Michael Eisner questioned why Trask bills the city for travel when his contract doesn’t provide for it.

Trask’s contract outlines a $72,000 annual retainer that covers general duties like attending meetings, drafting ordinances, handling inquiries from city officials and preparing development agreements. The firm can charge $175 an hour for non-retainer work, such as litigation, code enforcement advice and real estate services, according to the contract.

Trask’s invoices note in-county travel, like on June 6 when he charged two hours for “Preparation for, travel to and attendance at (code enforcement board) meeting.”

“There’s no breakdown of how much travel time there was versus how much prep time there was, and I don’t even know why there’s travel time in there,” Eisner said.

Trask said he has been billing this way since 1996 and that travel accounts for one or two hours a month. He said the travel is negligible compared to all the after-hours and weekend calls from city officials that he takes and does not charge for.

Residents have publicly alluded to Trask’s work in other Pinellas County cities, like Madeira Beach, where a judge found the city violated the law in 2017 when it approved a development agreement without the required site plan. A judge ruled the city violated the state Sunshine Law that year when Madeira city commissioners appointed a developer to a commission seat using a secret ballot process.

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In Dunedin, another lawsuit alleges that Trask’s firm reached a legal settlement without a public meeting. Trask resigned as Dunedin’s city attorney in 2020 after the City Commission put the contract to bid.

In a memo to Tarpon Springs city officials last month, Mayor Costa Vatikiotis also raised concerns about emails he discovered that showed a developer, Morgan Group, was coordinating with city staff on changes to the city code years before submitting an application for a controversial apartment complex on the Anclote River.

The previous commissioners approved the project in November with a 3-1 vote. Vatikiotis, then a commissioner, voted no.

A resident-led nonprofit sued the city and Morgan Group. The issue prompted a groundswell of criticism from residents and was a lighting rod in the March election. Three residents who opposed the approval were elected, flipping the board’s outlook on the project.

Vatikiotis said in an interview he didn’t blame staff but that Trask or City Manager Mark LeCouris should have been “minding the store” to bring the issue to the public’s attention sooner.