Prior to Wednesday’s Riviera Beach city council meeting, council held a closed executive session regarding a lawsuit by WPTV against the city over the release of public records.
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WPTV had asked for text messages from council members Dawn Pardo, Lynne Hubbard, and Terence Davis.
The majority of those were from Councilman Davis who has not handed over a single one of the more than 80 messages we requested.
The city said those messages, which are public record, have disappeared.
The destruction of public record is a criminal offense.
The attorney for the city said he’s trying to get to the bottom of what happened to those text messages.
Wednesday’s executive session was to update council on the lawsuit.
Although Davis is at the heart of the lawsuit, he did not attend the meeting. Instead, he attended the meeting for the Palm Beach County School superintended, taking pictures with the newly elected superintendent.
The last Riviera Beach city council meeting before Tuesday’s election was emotionally charged.
On Tuesday, two council chairs are up for grabs.
Council had decided that election and campaign matters are not to be brought up before the council during city council meetings.
During the meeting, one citizen went up to the microphone to talk about a flyer sent to residents in the city.
Councilwoman Lynne Hubbard called point of order.
“I would like to finish this,” the citizen said.
As she continued to speak, Hubbard continued to interrupt her.
“Point of order Madam chair. Point of order Madam chair,” Hubbard said.
Right after, another citizen, supporting the opposing candidate, went up to speak about the campaign but was interrupted by the mayor.
With the election issue out of the way, another citizen approached the microphone, speaking directly to Councilwoman Lynne Hubbard.
“You called me a racist and that I did not want to live in a city with African Americans,” Charlotte Darville said. “You know nothing about me.”
Hubbard responded.
“You apologize out of one side of your mouth and lie out of the other side of your mouth,” Hubbard said. “And I mean that. And I’m not taking that back.”
Hubbard later also said that it’s unfair for members of the public to attack her.
Darville said she is just shocked by Hubbard’s behavior.
“It has no place for them to act like that in here,” Darville said.
Chairwoman KaShamba Miller-Anderson said she’s asking for new rules.
“We can’t have issues like that on the council and then expect the public to behave properly,” Miller-Anderson said.
