Former Mayor Milissa Holland cleared of six Ethics Commission allegations, accused of

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The Florida Ethics Commission cleared former Palm Coast mayor Milissa Holland of six of the seven charges against her in a complaint filed by a former city staff member.

The commission, at a hearing into the Holland case, found probable cause for the allegation that Holland had “abused his public position and / or his public resources” by sending emails promoting from his employer, Coastal Cloud, from his official city email account to the city of Orlando, the commission said in a press release.

Holland had said the emails were inadvertently sent from his town’s email account.

“As I left the ethics committee meeting, I was extremely grateful for the outcome,” said Holland. “Beyond what I have already acknowledged and addressed to the public, to the media and to the Commission several months ago regarding the two emails sent, I am grateful that the Commission has unanimously seen and confirmed what I have stated from the very beginning: That it has been shown that the allegations in the complaint were unfounded. “

She said she looked forward to resolving the only allegation outstanding with the Commission and called the allegations a “political coup”.

“We have to go beyond that as a community,” she said. “We must rise above this because our future depends on it. It has been an honor for me to have served this community for many years and I will continue to advocate for the best of Palm Coast in the future.”

The commission, in breach of commission counsel who had pursued the case, found no probable reason to believe that Holland “had a conflicting employment or contractual relationship which created an ongoing or recurring conflict between his private interests. and the exercise of his public functions, or which would prevent him from fulfilling his public functions fully and faithfully ”, according to the press release of the Ethics Commission.

Holland, elected in November 2016, had been hired as Coastal Cloud’s business development manager in the summer of 2017. Later that year, the city signed a contract with Coastal Cloud to build the platform. city ​​citizen engagement, Palm Coast Connect.

The contract did not involve any payment from the city to Coastal Cloud; the only cost to the city came in the form of an annual license fee for the city to use the Salesforce software platform required to run Palm Coast Connect.

In October 2017, a sample letter was sent from the City of Holland email account to elected officials in the state – including Palm Coast City Councilors Nick Klufas and then-Palm Coast City Councilor Bob Cuff. – in which Holland said Coastal Cloud has been invaluable. in the city’s response to Hurricane Irma.

Holland, in the email, described how Coastal Cloud provided a 311 service for logging and tracking citizen service requests, then invited elected officials to participate in a webinar “to discuss this solution.” She signed the email “Milissa Holland, Mayor of Palm Coast and Director of National and Local Solutions for Coastal Cloud”.

Holland told the Palm Coast Observer in a July 2, 2020 interview that she didn’t actually write the email – Coastal Cloud’s marketing department had done so based on interviews with her, a- she said – and had not authorized it to be sent by her manager. city ​​email account.

She said she was not aware of its existence until the Palm Coast Observer received the email pursuant to a November 2019 registration request.

Two other emails, sent to City of Orlando staff members, were inadvertently sent from her official account, she told the commission.

The other allegations for which the commission found no probable cause were that Holland had badly mixed up town business with his private employment interests through the town’s contract with Coastal Cloud; that she abused her position and / or public resources for the benefit of herself and Coastal Cloud by sending the marketing email to members of Palm Coast City Council; that she abused her position to influence the actions of the city regarding a technological study; that Coastal Cloud’s sponsorship of the city’s Hackathon event was inappropriate; and that she had abused her public position to write letters of recommendation for her employer’s daughter.

– Brian McMillan contributed to this story.

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