Aungst makes amends for condo deal
By LESTER R. DAILEY
Article published on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006  |
CLEARWATER – The City Council agreed last week to accept $5,000 in settlement of a matter in which Brian Aungst committed what he called a “technical violation” of the City Code when he bought and quickly resold a Clearwater Beach condo at a huge profit while he was the city’s mayor.
After signing the agreement to buy the unit, he had voted to grant final approval to the project in which it was located.
The $5,000 that Aungst offered was exactly the maximum amount the city could have received if it filed an ethics lawsuit against Aungst and won. But the legal fees to get that $5,000 would have been enormous.
Not only would the city have had to hire an outside attorney to present its case, because City Attorney Pam Akin would have been called as a witness, but it would also have had to pay Aungst’s attorney fees because Aungst was a city employee at the time of the infraction. So win or lose, the city would have ended up thousands of dollars in the red. Some citizens, however, said that, regardless of the cost, the city should have sued Aungst to make an example of him.
In June 2002, the $130 million Belle Harbor condo project was a hot property on Clearwater Beach. People stood in line hoping to get a chance to plunk down hundreds of thousands of dollars for one of the 200 units.
But when Aungst expressed an interest in buying a unit, he was put on developer David Mack’s “VIP list” of prospective buyers who would be offered a unit before they were offered to the general public.
At the Aug. 22, 2002 City Council meeting, final approval of the Belle Harbor project was on the consent agenda – non-controversial items that are bundled together for approval by a single vote. Aungst joined his colleagues in unanimously approving the consent agenda, but he later said that he did not notice that the Belle Harbor project was on it.
Two years later, Aungst closed on the unit for $347,000. Two days later, saying it was too small for his family, Aungst resold the unit for $580,000, a profit of $233,000, or 67 percent.
On Nov. 27, 2005, 10 months after the two-term mayor left office to make an unsuccessful run for Pinellas Clerk of the Circuit Court, the St. Petersburg Times ran an article about the deal. The article prompted Pinellas-Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe to launch an investigation that determined that Aungst broke no laws, but he had violated Clearwater’s ethics code. The city was left with the decision whether to sue, settle or do nothing.
“I have learned that what would be considered a ‘technical violation’ of city code occurred after I placed my reservation for a unit,” Aungst e-mailed the city last Wednesday. He offered $5,000 to settle the matter, and it was that offer that the City Council debated last Wednesday. Councilman Hoyt Hamilton considered the whole matter a case of the press making a mountain out of a molehill.
“I apologize to the St. Pete Times for putting a lot of time into a story that wasn’t a story,” he said, unsuccessfully trying to conceal his anger.
He added that Akin knew that Aungst had reserved a unit and should have advised Aungst to recuse himself from the Belle Harbor vote.
“Here’s a news flash,” Hamilton said. “The city attorney is human. The (former) mayor is human.”
Councilwoman Carlen Petersen said that Aungst’s offense was “tantamount to something like jaywalking,” and suing him after he had already agreed to pay the maximum fine would be like “trying a defendant who had entered a guilty plea.”
The important thing, she said, was that he admitted his mistake. Councilman John Doran agreed.
“We’re not dealing with the fact that he might have made (a) profit on this,” Vice Mayor Bill Jonson added. “That’s outside of any regulations that we have control over.”
In the end, the council unanimously voted to accept Aungst’s $5,000 and donate it to Clearwater for Youth.
“I think it’s time to move on,” Mayor Frank Hibbard said. “I think it’s time for the Aungst family to move on as well.”
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Article published on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2006
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