Verbal altercation consumes City Commission meeting discussion
By 
What was expected to be a brief Safety Harbor City Commission meeting Monday night ended up clocking in at more than two and a half hours, as Commission wrestled for more than an hour and a half over how to handle a verbal altercation that took place at Third Friday between a mayoral candidate and the chairman of the city’s Planning & Zoning Board.
According to accounts shared by various residents during the meeting’s Audience to be Heard section, when residents are given up to three minutes to discuss any issues not on the meeting’s agenda, mayoral candidate Tanja Vidovic approached Planning & Zoning Board chairman Victor Curti on Main Street during this past Friday’s Third Friday event, and the two had what turned into a heated discussion over a public records request Vidovic made this summer for all communications Curti has had while a member of the Planning & Zoning Board. A resident captured a portion of the disagreement on video before a Pinellas County Sheriff’s deputy was brought over to end the discussion. Curti later emailed Commission an apology for his role in the disagreement.
Immediately after Audience to be Heard ended, Commissioner Andy Zodrow made a motion to remove Curti from the board. It was seconded by Commissioner Nancy Besore, but was voted down 3-2 with Mayor Joe Ayoub, Vice Mayor Cliff Merz and Commissioner Carlos Diaz voting no.
Discussion over the event continued, as Commissioners debated the merits of resolving the situation in some manner Monday versus waiting to review the video, as well as additional information that was provided Monday by the city’s volunteer Economic Development Liaison Jonathan Brewer, and what they expect will be extended discussion by residents on social media that they say will almost certainly re-ignite previous political disputes that have played out on social media.
“This is the stuff that is destroying our city,” Merz said.
Merz made a motion to remove Curti as chairman but not from the board itself, saying he saw it as a way to keep the issue from dragging on. Diaz seconded the motion, but it failed 3-2, with Ayoub, Zodrow and Besore voting no. All three said in some form that if the Commission wasn’t ready to make a decision on Curti’s future with the board until it reviews the additional information, then it shouldn’t make a decision on his chairmanship until it does as well.
So, where that left Commission was deciding when and how to pick up the discussion, and potentially a discussion on another Planning & Zoning Board member Frances Hill, who Ayoub said had social media posts that he believed was cause for immediate removal from the board. Commission said it didn’t want to deal with Hill on Monday night, and Ayoub said he’d provide those social media posts to them for review.
Ayoub favored a special meeting to continue discussion, as the next Commission meeting on Dec. 2 will have what City Manager Matthew Spoor told Commission was a “jam-packed” agenda, including a rehearing on a site plan for a proposed medical office complex that is expected to include a lot of discussion. Ultimately, Commission decided to add the Planning & Zoning discussions to the Dec. 2 meeting.
Since Monday, Ayoub has called for a special meeting to consider the Planning & Zoning board member issues, rather than include it on the Dec. 2 agenda. No date or time has been announced yet for that meeting, as Spoor is surveying Commissioners for their availability.
OTHER ACTION TAKEN
Budget amendments: Commission voted 5-0 in favor of two resolutions involving transfers of money in the 2019 and 2020 budgets.
Board of Trustees for Firefighters Pension Trust Fund appointment: Commission voted 5-0 to reappoint Edmund Ziegler.
Public Art Committee appointment: Commission voted 5-0 to appoint Jody Grutza as an alternate member.
Mayor’s Award of Excellence presentation: Bay to Bay Properties was honored for its new mixed-use buildings on Main Street.
RCS Pinellas presentation: RCS Pinellas, which works to combat hunger and help the homeless achieve self-sufficiency, made a presentation.
Sea level presentation: Maya Burke, science policy coordinator for the Tampa Bay Estuary Program, shared with Commission updated projections for sea level rise in the Tampa Bay area.
MISSED THE MEETING?
Watch the video of it on the city’s website here: http://safetyharbor.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=2173
NEXT MEETING
7 p.m., Monday, Dec. 2. It will be preceded by a Commission workshop at 6 p.m. A special meeting to consider Planning & Zoning Board members is expected to be scheduled to be held prior to the Dec. 2 regular meeting.
**UPDATE** the Mayor has scheduled a special meeting to continue the board member behavior scandal at 6:30pm on Monday, November 25, 2019.
http://WWW.INFORMEDSAFETYHARBOR.COM
Honestly, I do not see what all the hubbub is about. I just watched the video and it seems innocuous. I see a face-to-face conversation between people seeking to reach an understanding about a difference. Don’t we need more of this type of exchange? I think everyone can agree that Facebook attacks lead to no good end and only serve to divide the community. The city should convene workshops to facilitate constructive dialogue about issues residents care deeply about and to find common ground. We all know that Commission meetings aren’t cutting it. It’s way past time for this to change. So much energy is being lost that could be directed to more productive things. The city commission needs to step up and stop the downward spiral of this community.
I like the idea to have workshops to facilitate construction dialogue. This may lead to citizens attending a workshop to find the facts and learn both sides to a subject/issue. Everyone will have a voice and be able to ask questions and share information. It would be a beautiful day in the neighborhood if this would eliminate a FB page inciting division.
For those residents who seek to be informed by first-hand information, below is the link to the audio of the November 25 special city commission meeting and the edited video submitted as evidence for the proceedings. The meeting audio includes: 1) a synopsis of the charges submitted by a mayoral candidate against a city volunteer, 2) public testimony, and 3) the commission’s deliberation and ultimate dismissal of the charges as unfounded. http://safetyharbor.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=2177
Thanks Fact Finder. Just one of many incidents of Tanya Vidovic’s bad pattern of behavior. Multiple situations: getting removed by a Pinellas Sheriff for inappropriate behavior towards county workers just doing their jobs in a county park, harassing volunteers at a voter polling site, indicating in her Facebook posts that her fellow Tampa men firefighters try to run over and hit dogs with City of Tampa fire trucks, rallying on her Facebook Page to start protests in Safety Harbor based upon her own lies and a small group of other’s lies, throwing rocks at city workers for doing their jobs, ambushing a city worker with verbal abuse for doing his job, getting fired from jobs in two separate cities, having confrontations in Miami, writing terrible reviews for a small company she didn’t even do business with to try to shut them down for no viable reason and multiple confrontations with neighbors.. And the list goes on and on. Does this sound like someone who is a happy go lucky
person, someone who tells the truth and you can believe? NO, NO and NO! Step out of her way or she may trample over you and then claim she is the victim. Always a victim, that’s Tanya Rose Vidovic. A victim with thorns.
See comment below from Florida Politics article dated October 11, 2019 about Tanya running for Safety Harbor Mayor. This is just one of many negative comments about her character. She is always the victim????
Tonya actually made up an entire list of False claims and lies about her supposed Harassment at Tampa Fire Rescue and didn’t win a discrimination lawsuit, only to get her job back and the award was for lost wages. The Department had been building a case against her for years and the day before they finally pulled the trigger she filed a bogus lawsuit to try and stop them. She was not fired for filling the lawsuit, she was fired for lying, stealing government and public documents without approval to cover up her transgressions among other charges.
She effectively tarnished the reputation of a God Fearing Christian Captain that has been married for over 40 years with her false claims he was somehow interested in her pachouli and unshaven armpits when she was the one following him around from Station to Station asking him to come to her house and help build decks and fix things. She then ruined his final years before retirement by making him have to defend himself by having to deny these false accusations.
She thought she would have the support of all the Woman on the Department when in the end not one Woman supported her lies and false accusations. Nobody fears her, they fear being put into her little black book with her version of lies after it.
She makes claims like a Captain forced her to clean a dumpster with bleach while she was pregnant, when she had purposefully not revealed she was pregnant yet. She claims another Captain scheduled an impromptu training session to purposefully make her do while she needed to pump when it was a Hose testing that was scheduled for a year for the entire crew. She fought for her right to NOT go on light duty while she was pregnant (which is a right that every other woman is happy to use for the safety of their health and child while pregnant and she wanted to fight to get rid of that process which would have endangered every other pregnant firefighter after her).Just because she didn’t want to go on a 9-5 week she wanted to put the life of her unborn fetus in danger and stay on the streets to continue to work Full Duty at a high risk job full of cancer causing fumes and toxic gases and blood borne pathogens. One misstep and falling at a water and smoke filled fire scene while trying to deliver air bottles and her baby would not have been born which would have been a terrible tragedy yet she didn’t care.
She also claimed sexual harassment at a flower Shop she worked at in Miami. She was chasing a payday. She is toxic. It was the most absurd time in the history of Tampa Fire Rescue. She complained when her Crew members took their dessert into their bunk saying they were trying to exclude her, like the universe revolves around her. She claimed to fight for privacy when in turn she impeded on everyone else’s privacy. She does not belong in politics making any decisions for anyone because She doesn’t even care about the life of her unborn child, the only one she thinks of is herself,
Read below to see that the real Tanja Vidovic is not the victim. This was one of many negative comments on Florida Politics article about her mayoral candidacy.
Tonya actually made up an entire list of False claims and lies about her supposed Harassment at Tampa Fire Rescue and didn’t win a discrimination lawsuit, only to get her job back and the award was for lost wages. The Department had been building a case against her for years and the day before they finally pulled the trigger she filed a bogus lawsuit to try and stop them. She was not fired for filling the lawsuit, she was fired for lying, stealing government and public documents without approval to cover up her transgressions among other charges.
She effectively tarnished the reputation of a God Fearing Christian Captain that has been married for over 40 years with her false claims he was somehow interested in her pachouli and unshaven armpits when she was the one following him around from Station to Station asking him to come to her house and help build decks and fix things. She then ruined his final years before retirement by making him have to defend himself by having to deny these false accusations.
She thought she would have the support of all the Woman on the Department when in the end not one Woman supported her lies and false accusations. Nobody fears her, they fear being put into her little black book with her version of lies after it.
She makes claims like a Captain forced her to clean a dumpster with bleach while she was pregnant, when she had purposefully not revealed she was pregnant yet. She claims another Captain scheduled an impromptu training session to purposefully make her do while she needed to pump when it was a Hose testing that was scheduled for a year for the entire crew. She fought for her right to NOT go on light duty while she was pregnant (which is a right that every other woman is happy to use for the safety of their health and child while pregnant and she wanted to fight to get rid of that process which would have endangered every other pregnant firefighter after her).Just because she didn’t want to go on a 9-5 week she wanted to put the life of her unborn fetus in danger and stay on the streets to continue to work Full Duty at a high risk job full of cancer causing fumes and toxic gases and blood borne pathogens. One misstep and falling at a water and smoke filled fire scene while trying to deliver air bottles and her baby would not have been born which would have been a terrible tragedy yet she didn’t care.
She also claimed sexual harassment at a flower Shop she worked at in Miami. She was chasing a payday. She is toxic. It was the most absurd time in the history of Tampa Fire Rescue. She complained when her Crew members took their dessert into their bunk saying they were trying to exclude her, like the universe revolves around her. She claimed to fight for privacy when in turn she impeded on everyone else’s privacy. She does not belong in politics making any decisions for anyone because She doesn’t even care about the life of her unborn child, the only one she thinks of is herself,
Honestly, the best part about Tanja Vidovic getting fired from her job with the city of Safety Harbor a few weeks back is that the good men and women of the Safety Harbor fires department will NEVER have to deal with her.
She’s got a giant strike on her HR record with the city and she will not be re-hirable after how she treated a fellow employee.
How CONVENIENT. First of all, the video, VIDEO, shows one person being rude, intimidating and disrespectful. Nobody that spoke at the meeting that supported Curti was there. Eye witness accounts were uniform in the description of the disreputable behavior of the city employee. He ADMITTED that what did was wrong. He did not SPECIFY what he did as it was alleged he was intoxicated-possibly can’t recall? So the mayor moves the approved meeting to discuss this bullying behavior to the next scheduled meeting. But now, for some shady reason, chooses to change the date indiscriminately during vacation break for many employees, residents and possible witnesses. Why? Because those that follow meetings online may not be on social media and follow the vicissitudes and whim of the mayor that chooses to arbitrarily feed his supporters from smart growth. What happened to zero tolerance? Transparency? March 17th can’t get here soon enough.
The video was edited. You saw only what she/they wanted you to see. Manufactured self serving moment.
Please. Check out http://www.informedsafetyharbor.com you will see lots of rude behavior,
http://safetyharbor.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=6&clip_id=2153&meta_id=139966&fbclid=IwAR3acO2_mbCAFaaUwo3UlzrbMe9P2-X0gFn_L2rP4PJLpHlRR75zInqlSuM
This video is public record of a commission meeting held in Safety Harbor, on August 19, 2019. Forty one minutes into the meeting you can begin to hear from actual Safety Harbor residents. First, the mayor addresses a city employee’s concerns about feeling “threatened and ambushed” by Vidovic and two others. Noting a “pattern of behavior” by Vidovic. Next, you will hear from other Safety Harbor residents voicing their concerns, one of which was a neighbor who speaks to the harassment she and her family endured. **FACTS**