Ethics Complaint Targets Politician Behind Elite Vaccine Clinic

MANATEE COUNTY, FL — A complaint filed with the Florida Commission on Ethics targets Manatee County Commissioner Vanessa Baugh for her role in a pop-up vaccine clinic held Feb. 17-19 in Lakewood Ranch for residents of two of the county’s wealthiest ZIP codes.

Baugh, the representative of District 5, which includes Lakewood Ranch, selected the ZIP codes for the state-run event, and also created a VIP list of five people to receive the vaccine at the event and told the county's Public Safety Director, Jacob Sauer, to add their names to the list of those being vaccinated at the pop-up clinic. The list included Baugh and Lakewood Ranch president and CEO Rex Jensen, though Baugh didn't receive the vaccine.

Typically, at vaccine clinics in Manatee County, names are randomly chosen through the county's vaccine lottery.

Her actions are under investigation by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office after a criminal complaint was filed against her by Sarasota paralegal Michael Barfield.

Attorney Jennifer Hamey, who lives in Parrish and has an office in Ellenton, filed the ethics complaint Feb. 21. She provided a copy of the complaint to Patch. In the complaint, Hamey identified one Florida statute that she says Baugh violated twice.

According to the complaint, she asked the Florida Commission on Ethics to consider whether Baugh violated Florida statute 112.313(6), Misuse of Public Position, “by ignoring the county’s lottery system for the Covid-19 vaccine distribution and instead unilaterally picking two zip codes in her district to receive 3,000 additional vaccines issued by the State, to the detriment of all other Manatee County residents 65 and over who had signed up for the lottery system.”

The complaint also asked the FCE to consider whether the commissioner violated the same statute “by putting herself and four friends on a ‘VIP’ list provided to the county to insure she received a vaccine from the extra doses provided by the state.”

Hamey said she’s involved in her community on various committees, including the Parrish Civic Association, so she’s “very much aware of what’s happening in the county.”

When she heard Baugh had selected two wealthy ZIP codes for a pop-up event, she “thought that was bad enough,” she said. “Then, the VIP list came out with her name and several of her friends’ names on there and I thought, ‘This is enough.’ Elected officials voted in by our county shouldn’t be acting this way.”

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The attorney acknowledged the Manatee County Board of County Commissioners has had its share of public controversies. Recently, Baugh and three new commissioners forced former County Administrator Cheri Coryea to step down, and first-time Commissioner George Kruse admitted to having an affair during a BOCC meeting and accused Commissioner Carol Whitmore of trying to blackmail him.

“This rose way above anything very Jerry Springer-ish (at their meetings.) This is a violation of the law,” Hamey said.

As an attorney, she works with older clients on estate planning. Many have been frustrated with the county’s lottery system.

“At least they thought it was a fair system until this (Lakewood Ranch clinic) came up,” Hamey said. “It was just a blatant action (by Baugh) of ‘I don’t care what other people think or what other people say. I’m going to do what I want.’”

Kerrie Stillman, public information officer for the Florida Commission on Ethics, said there are no public complaint records against Baugh, “so I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any complaint filed against her.”

According to the commission’s complaint procedures, “a complaint received in the commission office, as well as all proceedings and records relating to it, are confidential and exempt from the public records law until the alleged violator (Respondent) makes a written request to the commission that such records be made public or until the complaint reaches a stage in the commission’s proceedings where it becomes public. As long as a complaint remains in a confidential stage, neither commission members nor staff are free to comment on it to members of the public or the press.”

Once the commission’s investigation is completed, it will make a recommendation for a reprimand.

“In the case of a public officer, violations of the Code of Ethics or the Sunshine Amendment may be punished by impeachment, removal or suspension from office, public censure and reprimand, and/or a civil penalty not to exceed $10,000 per allegation,” the commission’s procedures document said.

The commission doesn’t have the power to enforce penalties, its recommendations are forwarded to the appropriate governing body. In the case of a county commissioner, the recommendations for penalties would be submitted to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Patch has reached out to Vanessa Baugh and her attorney, George Levesque, for comment.

Read the entire ethics complaint against Vanessa Baugh below:

Florida Ethics Complaint by Tiffany Razzano on Scribd