When confronted, Behrens told alternate and self-conflicting versions of explanations as to why he had allowed this. Information was difficult, if not impossible, to extract from the city early on -- it took almost four months of serious questioning before I felt comfortable enough to publish my discoveries. Much of the difficulty in researching the story can be blamed on Behrens' direct supervisor: Nancy Woodley.

On several occasions during the research phase, Woodley refused to answer any questions regarding what she knew of the situation. Woodley, when questioned by me on March 19 of this year, the same day that I observed her in a conference room meeting with Vellucci, Behrens, and Fire Inspector Jack Stevenson, denied being at the meeting. When I stated that I had observed her in the meeting through the conference room windows while passing through the hallway, she ended the conversation with no further explanation.

Meanwhile, a closed-door meeting between city officials and bar owner Michael Vellucci took place on March 19. Vellucci met with Building Director Hans Behrens, City Engineer Nancy Woodley, and Fire Inspector Jack Stevenson. City officials are remaining tightlipped about the meeting, refusing to even acknowledge that the meeting took place.
-- Tavern on the Island finally cited for code violations, Venice Florida! dot com, 03/25/08

Later questions posted to City Manager Marty Black resulted in identical tight-lipped behavior:

In fact, trying to get any information about the current status of the city's internal investigation from official sources has become an exercise in futility. When asked for any updates or corrections to this web site's coverage so far, City Manager Marty Black responded by email with a half-sentence: "It is my policy to not take on the task of ensuring that everything that you or others write" [sic]. Black left the sentence and idea unfinished.
-- ibid.

Other documents in my possession show that Woodley was well aware of the permit situation that was unfolding at Vellucci's property, which include Behrens' own minutes of staff meetings that included Woodley in attendance. Those meetings in which Vellucci was discussed and in which Woodley was in attendance go as far back as September 20 of last year, yet Woodley did nothing to correct the situation or to bring it to the attention of the city manager. Just as Behrens looked the other way on what was going on at Vellucci's Tavern on the Island, so did Nancy Woodley look the other way at Behrens' total failure to do his job. Her only possible defense is utter and total stupidity in failing to understand either the written or spoken language by stating that she didn't know what was going on.

Woodley should have been investigated as well as Behrens; instead, she will be overseeing the investigation
After being presented with overwhelming evidence of malfeasance on Behrens' part by this web site, Black could not bring himself to take any action. Instead, Behrens is currently being investigated by the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulations, a long drawn-out affair instigated by Black that has all the hallmarks of a dragged-out whitewash. Why Woodley was not included in the investigation remains a mystery that only Black understands.

As interim city manager, Woodley will have the benefit of overseeing the tattered remains of the investigation. She will also have the ability to downplay any complicity she may have had. It's a tenuous situation, as clear a case of conflict-of-interest as one can have.

Whether Woodley actually has complicity issues in the ongoing malfeasance investigation is irrelevant. Whether innocent or guilty of looking the other way, she should not be put in a position where it could be later said that she had the ability to influence the investigation's outcome. As a participant in the events that led up to the investigation, she should not allow herself, or be allowed by others, to be placed in a position where she could possibly compromise the investigation.

Woodley should be un-nominated for the position of interim city manager for the above reason alone, but that's not the only problem with Woodley's nomination -- not by a long shot.

Silence is not golden
Over the years, Woodley has been a wealth of information withheld, consistently refusing to answer even basic and simple questions posed by me to her, not the least of which included trying to determine if, how, and why the wrong (and very pricey) sewer pipes were installed along Ridgewood Avenue a few years ago. Subsequent repeated pipe explosions over the last four years or so along the Ridgewood line has made it abundantly apparent that something was seriously wrong, and the unconfirmed information given to me was that a Boyle Engineering employee by the name of Chris Sharek was responsible for the pipe run's initial blueprint planning. Sharek would later work directly under Woodley before ending up as the city's Utilities Department director. It was when Sharek became Utilities Director that the Ridgewood pipe run initially started it's repeating exploding behavior.

When asked, Woodley steadfastly refused to answer any questions about the sewer pipe run and was likely responsible for the wall of silence that I met in trying to get to the truth. In fact, Woodley displayed a great amount of glee in frustrating me in my attempt to retrieve a simple bit of information: who was the engineer on the Ridgeway Road pipe job? Woodley consistently refused to answer even basic questions about who would have the original blueprints, instead referring all questions to the city's ultimate informational black hole, Pam Johnson. Complaints about Woodley's lack of help to Marty Black, who also had a known protective stance towards Sharek, were met with an indifferent shrug.

Thanks to Woodley's successful stonewall, I still haven't figured out that expensive mess to this day, yet Woodley, with one phone call, could have cleared up the mystery.

That's not exactly stellar behavior for a city manager candidate, temporary or not, and it's just one example of several ugly run ins with Woodley that I've had over the years.

Other residents have told me similar stories, including one from last year when Woodley arbitrarily gave private property right-of-way easements to Verizon for installation of their FIOS lines without informing or asking the actual property owners. One of the property owners involved, who asked that his name be withheld, accused Woodley of lying to him about the easement agreement. That argument almost caused all of Golden Beach to go without fiber-optic internet and TV service from Verizon, as Verizon discovered midway through the process of laying the cable that they did not have the legal right to do so in some of the places that they had been laying it, this despite Woodley's assurances to Verizon to the contrary.

Despite still-unresolved contractual liability issues, the property owners involved finally consented to giving Verizon the underground access, but only out of peer pressure from neighbors who would benefit from the service. Serious bad feelings still exist between some property owners and Woodley for the deceptive way that the property owners state that they were treated.

City admits Woodley engaged in discriminatory labor practices
But even that is not the worst of it. Mayor Martin wrote that Woodley is respected by city staff. He apparently hasn't talked with the unions, specifically the membership of AFSCME. In a grievance filed by the union some two years back, AFSCME local president Ralph Hamann accused Woodley of knowingly violating federal labor laws by engaging in discriminatory practices towards union members. The city's legal eagles agreed:

In another grievance (again, this is being reported here for the first time), City Engineer Nancy Woodley and Public Works Supervisor Al King were accused of discriminatory practices in screening applicants that were hoping to laterally transfer into available vacancies within the city. According to a grievance filed by city employee Dan Tucci, Woodley and King involved themselves in a number of illegal discriminatory practices, including asking applicants if they belonged to one of the city's unions. Woodley and King were also accused of asking if the applicants had ever filed any union grievances, this as a condition of receiving the sought-after transfers: "...any employee who had filed a grievance was a troublemaker and would not be considered for the job."

The union grievance against Woodley and King was settled when the city backed down immediately after seeing which way the wind was blowing in the unpaid overtime arbitration.

According to AFSCME union local president Ralph Hamann, merely asking about union membership as a condition of employment or transfer is not only a violation of the city's contract with the union but a violation of federal labor laws. Ditto for the illegal discriminatory practice of asking about possible prior grievances that might have been filed by the employee.
-- City's personnel director is sacked, Venice Florida! dot com, 12/16/07

That's no minor slight, that's a biggie, an inexcusable ethical and legal failure to adhere to basic concepts of fairness in the workplace. Woodley has no valid defense in this incident. As a long time member of the city's management team, she can hardly claim ignorance of basic labor laws and procedures without admitting that she doesn't know how to do her job as a department manager. Woodley did this deliberately because she thought she could get away with it, and in doing so she displayed a contemptuous and dangerous attitude towards the city's workers, the process of collective bargaining, and basic concepts of fairness in the workplace. This was arrogance and meanness, an act done for no other reason than the fact that Woodley enjoyed doing it.

Despite Black's PRIDE initiative that requires, on paper anyway, strict adherence to ethical guidelines, Woodley was never disciplined for the admitted breach of contractual and federal law. In any other government agency, she would probably have been fired. Woodley's behavior in this incident caused a lot of unseen damage in the city's workforce that still exists to this day in ever-widening ripples. This, in turn, has led to the attitude within the city's rank and file that the PRIDE program is merely another bogus program based on favoritism and deceptive PR.

I agree with the city's work force on this issue: Black's PRIDE program has become a colossally cruel bad joke and Woodley is a poster child for how and why, both for the union grievance incident and for her wayward charge, Hans Behrens.

The unions versus Godzilla
From the union's point of view, the grievance against Woodley was arguably the key legal battle between the city and the unions over the twenty or so grievances left over from Brenda Digges' run as personell director. After city hall watched the union win handily in arbitration over a long-term unpaid overtime grievance that affected all of the city's utilities and public works employees, the city caved on supporting Woodley in the grievance that named her. Woodley, in turn, was the tipping domino that arguably led to near immediate settlement in nearly a dozen other union grievances that were being held up.

This incident may have been forgotten by the mayor, but it is long in the memory of the city's work force, who no doubt view Woodley's nomination as a major slap in the face and as a major threat to the city's unions. During the course of these grievances, Woodley became Godzilla to the city's workers, an idiotic but highly destructive and powerful enemy. The thought of Woodley overseeing the entire city, even for a very short time, will be one insult too many to the city's workers, who are inexplicably and fictionally described by the mayor as having universal respect for Woodley.

Many of the arbitrations and grievances are winding down, this being credited almost solely to the fairness and wisdom of the city's current Human Resources Director, Alan Bulluck. A fact that both Bullock and Hamann have been quick to point out is that there hasn't been a new grievance filed since Bullock took over the reins as personnel director. There hasn't been any need -- both men have studiously agreed to adhere to the letter of union contracts and they each agree that the other has kept his word so far.

This makes no sense - why go with Woodley when there are three other good choices?
In fact, Bullock wouldn't make a bad nomination at all as an interim city manager. Neither, for that matter, would Jeff Snyder, the city's Finance Director, who did put his name in for the temporary job. Or Mary Holcombe, the current Assistant City Manager, who for some reason is reported to have bowed herself out of the running.

All three of those possibilities have one thing in common that Nancy Woodley lacks, and it's a key component of leadership, temporary or permanent: they all give straight answers to tough questions.

I know -- I've given all three of them hard questions on various occasions, and never once has any of the three of them flinched. In fact, all three of them have been crucial in giving me information that has changed my mind about the direction that various stories were heading in.

That's what we want, demand, and expect from a leader, even a temporary one: straight answers, not silence and derision.

Between the union grievance that was settled and the conflict of interest situation over Hans Behrens, Mayor Martin should pull Woodley's nomination and go with someone else. Council, in turn, should not be afraid of insulting the mayor by turning him down if he sticks with his bad choice: this city does not need a new battlefront, and Woodley's nomination will assuredly cause that.

We need someone who will give all of us straight answers, whether they like us or not. That person is clearly not Nancy Woodley.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.