Florida Public Records Law is a Great Thing!

 This is Edwin Fry's employment application to the City of Port St. Lucie.  Click on the images to make them larger. If they are still difficult to read, click here and you will be directed to copies that you can zoom in to your liking.  Thank you to one of our intrepid roving reporters for snagging this document from the City of Port St. Lucie.  They would not fax or e-mail the document and required the intrepid reporter to physically go there and pick up a copy, including the payment of a small fee.

 Ed Fry was the City's Office of Management and Budget Manager and reported directly to Susan Stanton.  The week after former City Manager Stanton's dismissal, Mr. Fry announced his resignation and that he had accepted a job at the City of Port St. Lucie.  Supporters of Ms. Stanton immediately pointed to this as an example of the "brain drain" the city would suffer with the departure of Ms. Stanton.  To my knowledge, Mr. Fry did nothing to discourage that way of thinking, although I am willing to stand corrected if that is not the case.  Mr Fry is memorable to me for his work related to the Wildan Police Department feasibility study and his parroting the party line of the City Manager in how we can't afford PBSO, but that somehow we can afford our own Lake Worth Police Department - having it in place beginning January of 2012.

Two things immediately jump out at me.  Mr. Fry lives in Ft. Pierce, which is much closer to Port St. Lucie than Lake Worth is.  This alone could have been a consideration in accepting the job as the commuting distance would be significantly less.  The most important fact revealed by this document is that the application was made July 17th of 2011.  This shows that the hiring of professional personnel is a time-consuming process.  The decision to apply and then for the organization to hire that person takes time and contemplation on both sides.  The date of the application more closely aligns with the special election held last summer that brought us Mayor Waterman.  Could that be the reason that he submitted his application?  I suppose that only Mr. Fry and perhaps some of his close friends would know.

So, I am going out on a limb - not really - and saying that the dismissal of Susan Stanton and the announcement by Mr. Fry is more coincidental than reactionary.  Your thoughts.