Case Name: MONROE COUNTY, Florida, a political subdivision of The State of Florida, and Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. PIGEON KEY HISTORICAL PARK, INC., a Florida corporation, Appellee
Court: Florida District Court of Appeal
Jurisdiction: Florida
Decision Date: 1994-07-12
Citations: 647 So. 2d 857
Docket Number: Nos. 93-2308, 93-2298
Parties: MONROE COUNTY, Florida, a political subdivision of The State of Florida, and Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. PIGEON KEY HISTORICAL PARK, INC., a Florida corporation, Appellee.
Judges: Before NESBITT, COPE and GERSTEN, JJ.
Reporter: Southern Reporter, Second Series
Volume: 647
Pages: 857–869

Head Matter:
MONROE COUNTY, Florida, a political subdivision of The State of Florida, and Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation, Inc., a Florida corporation, Appellants, v. PIGEON KEY HISTORICAL PARK, INC., a Florida corporation, Appellee.
Nos. 93-2308, 93-2298.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
July 12, 1994.
Opinion Denying Rehearing and Certification Jan. 11, 1995.
Morgan & Hendrick, and James T. Hen-drick, Key West, for appellant, Monroe County.
Michael Halpem, Key West, for appellant, Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation, Inc.
Sharon I. Hamilton, Marathon, for appel-lee.
Before NESBITT, COPE and GERSTEN, JJ.

Opinion:
GERSTEN, Judge.
Appellants appeal the trial court's invalidation of the Monroe County Board of County Commissioner's 30-year lease with the Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation. This appeal is based upon alleged violations of section 286.011, Florida Statutes (1993), commonly known as the Sunshine Law. We reverse.
The issue is, under the Florida Constitution and Florida Supreme Court precedent, did governmental meetings held without public notice invalidate a final governmental action taken in the sunshine or did the subsequent corrective actions cure the Sunshine Law violations?
The Monroe County Board of County Commissioners (the Commission) issued a "Request for Proposals" to restore and preserve Pigeon Key, an offshore island located near Marathon, Florida. The Commission selected the proposal of the Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation (the. Foundation), who seek to establish a marine environmental education and research center on Pigeon Key. The Commission then directed its Pigeon Key Advisory Committee (the Advisory Committee) to negotiate a lease agreement for the use of Pigeon Key with the Foundation.
Upon a request by the Advisory Committee for community input, three Marathon business organizations issued a joint resolution urging a number of recommendations. These recommendations included that the lessee "work with local tourist-related businesses to make [Pigeon Key] an on-going tourism attraction that will encourage visitors to stay at local hotels and make use of local restaurants, shops and businesses."
The Advisory Committee held its first two meetings without proper public notice. Minutes of these meetings detail the Advisory Committee's recommendations for the lease and for the Master Plan, the Foundation's overall development plan for Pigeon Key. Following these meetings, the Advisory Committee held a third and final meeting which had proper public notice.
Thereafter, the Commission held a public hearing regarding the lease on June 15,1993, at which over 30 members of the community spoke. At the hearing, the County Attorney stated that tourism could not become a primary use of Pigeon Key because the Key was purchased by a bond issue through ad valo-rem taxes and its uses must remain public. The Commission tabled the vote on the lease and urged the Foundation and community members promoting a tourist use to meet and negotiate a joint plan.
Following these meetings, the County Attorney and the attorney for the Foundation agreed to numerous changes in the lease. The tourist use provision had been incorporated verbatim from the joint resolution and was the Advisory Committee's primary addition to the lease. Because tourist use of Pigeon Key violated the law, that provision was eliminated.
On July 29, 1993, the Commission reconvened for its second public hearing on the Pigeon Key lease. Minutes of the unnoticed Advisory Committee meetings were read into the record. After approximately 20 members of the public spoke, the Commission recommended and approved additional changes to the lease. The Commission then defeated a motion to reject all proposals for Pigeon Key and readvertise the "Request for Proposals." At the end of the hearing, the Commission approved the amended lease with the Foundation by a 3-2 vote.
Appellee, Pigeon Key Historical Park, filed an emergency petition for a temporary injunction seeking: 1) to enjoin the Commission from acting on the Advisory Committee's recommendations at its July 29, 1993 meeting, or 2) to set aside any action taken at that meeting which was based upon a Sunshine Law violation. The trial court declined to consider the emergency request and a hearing was set after the Commission's meeting. Following the hearing, the trial court invalidated the lease, finding that the reading of the minutes into the record and the subsequent public hearings did not cure the Sunshine Law violations.
Appellants rely on Tolar v. School Bd., 398 So.2d 427 (Fla.1981), asserting that the Advisory Committee's failure to notice its first two meetings was cured by its own subsequent public meeting, publication of the minutes of the unnoticed meetings, two subsequent public hearings held by the Commission, and the Commission's deletion of the Advisory Committee's principal addition to the lease of a tourist-oriented use. Appellee relies on Town of Palm Beach v. Gradison, 296 So.2d 473 (Fla.1974), contending that the Sunshine Law violations have not been cured because the unnoticed Advisory Committee meetings were initial steps in the decision-making process of an issue that deserves full and complete public input.
Originally codified by statute, the Sunshine Law recently became part of the Florida Constitution. Article 1, section 24(b) of the Florida Constitution, adopted in 1992, provides:
All meetings of any collegial public body of the executive branch of state government or of any collegial public body of a county, municipality, school district, or special district, at which official acts are to be taken or at which public business of such body is to be transacted or discussed, shall be open and noticed to the public....
Section 286.011(1), Florida Statutes (1993), states that:
All meetings of any board or commission of any state agency or authority or of any agency or authority of any county, municipal corporation, or political subdivision, except as otherwise provided in the Constitution, at which official acts are to be taken are declared to be public meetings open to the public at all times, and no resolution, rule, or formal action shall be considered binding except as taken or made at such meeting.
The Sunshine Law penalizes members of governmental bodies who meet in secret. § 286.011(3), Fla.Stat. (1993). Minutes of meetings of such boards or commissions are to be promptly recorded and open to public inspection. § 286.011(2), Fla.Stat. (1993).
Town of Palm Beach v. Gradison, 296 So.2d 473 (Fla.1974), articulates the purpose of the Sunshine Law: "to prevent at non-public meetings the crystallization of secret decisions to a point just short of ceremonial acceptance.... The statute should be construed so as to frustrate all evasive devices." Id. at 477. Under Gradison, a "[m]ere showing" of a Sunshine Law violation renders final governmental action void ab initio. Id.
Tolar v. School Bd., 398 So.2d 427 (Fla.1981), however, provides that Sunshine Law violations can be cured by independent, final action in the sunshine that is "not merely a ceremonial acceptance . and . a perfunctory ratification of secret decisions." Id. at 429. Tolar recedes from Gradison and distinguishes it as a case in which a town council summarily approved planning committee recommendations in a purely ceremonial meeting. Id. Under Tolar, a full, open public hearing can cure a prior violation. Spillis Candela & Partners, Inc. v. Centrust Sav. Bank, 535 So.2d 694, 695 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988).
Here, the Commission did not ceremonially accept or perfunctorily ratify the Advisory Committee recommendations. First, open public hearings followed the unnoticed meetings. The Advisory Committee held one public meeting after the Sunshine Law violations, and the Commission held two public hearings at which over 50 people testified. Rather than voting at the end of the first public hearing, the Commission tabled its vote until a subsequent public meeting and urged the Foundation and the supporters of a primary tourist use of Pigeon Key to meet and seek a joint plan. Even before voting on the lease at the conclusion of the second public hearing, the Commission voted on whether to readvertise for new proposals for the use of Pigeon Key.
Second, an effort was made to make available to the public the minutes of the unnoticed meetings. The minutes from these meetings, which specified the Advisory Committee's recommendations to the lease, were read into the record at the second public hearing.
Third, the lease the Commission approved was markedly different from that recommended by the Advisory Committee. The Advisory Committee's most substantial recommendation was its addition of tourist promotion as a use of Pigeon Key, which the Commission excised from the final lease it approved.
Finally, most of the lease negotiations were conducted after the Advisory Committee concluded its work. They were conducted between the County Attorney and the Foundation attorney, neither of whom were members of the Advisory Committee.
This court is concerned that unnoticed governmental meetings were held here. We are reminded of the importance of open meetings to democratic government from Gradison:
Every meeting of any board, commission, agency or authority of a municipality should be a marketplace of ideas, so that the governmental agency may have sufficient input from the citizens who are going to be affected by the subsequent action of the municipality_ [0]pen meetings instill confidence in government.
296 So.2d at 475.
Our new constitutional amendment, now article 1, section 24(b) of the Florida Constitution, expresses a recent public mandate reaffirming the Sunshine Law and extending its reach into every meeting at which public business is to be transacted or discussed. Yet, the amendment neither provides for its own enforcement nor counters Tolar ⅛ standard of remediation.
Tolar effectively sounded the death knell of an unadulterated Sunshine Law. See Tolar, 398 So.2d at 432 (Adkins, J., dissenting). Governmental actions will not be voided whenever governmental bodies have met in secret where sufficiently corrective final action has been taken. Id. at 428-29.
Because we are bound by Tolar, and because subsequent governmental actions cured the Sunshine Law violations here, we reverse the determination of the trial court and validate the lease between the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners and the Pigeon Key Preservation Foundation.
Reversed.
NESBITT, J., concurs.
. Although I support an unadulterated Sunshine Law, my viewpoint is irrelevant when it conflicts with the Florida Supreme Court. A judge's role in an intermediate appellate court is to follow the law, not impose one's personal opinions to change it. Following the law brings stability to our legal system and security to the public who rely on the law for certainty. In that light, imperfect law is .better than inconstant law.