Laurel Park resident maintains that Brown orchestrated smear campaign against her
Over the past couple of years, Laurel Park resident Kelly Franklin has maintained that then-Sarasota City Manager Marlon Brown was the force behind a Jan. 16, 2024 presentation that City Commissioner Kyle Battie made to his colleagues during which Battie indicated that Franklin had created a racist Facebook post.
Having failed to prevail in civil complaints related to that incident — including an effort this year to try to win a judicial mandate for the amending of the minutes of that board meeting — Franklin early this week filed a formal complaint against Brown with the Florida Commission on Ethics.
The notarized document alleges that Brown violated Section 112.313(6) of the Florida Statutes “by using his official position and City
resources to: (1) facilitate the display of a fabricated racist image targeting [Franklin], a journalist whose reporting had documented his misconduct; (2) suppress written remediation requests seeking correction of a false minutes attribution and revocation of an improperly issued permit; and (3) direct permitting decisions that conferred a benefit on Corona Cigar Company after explicit written notice of its ineligibility.”
The statute lays out “[s]tandards of conduct for public officers, employees of agencies and local government attorneys.”
Tanya Borysiewicz, a co-owner of the Corona Cigar Co., which stands on Lemon Avenue in downtown Sarasota, joined Battie for part of his Jan. 16, 2024 presentation during the City Commission meeting that day. She told the board members and all of those in Chambers or watching online that her assistant had opened a letter that had arrived at the business addressed to her, which contained a printout of the alleged Facebook page that Borysiewicz and Battie showed everyone.
Battie explained that Borysiewicz is half African American.
In her complaint, Franklin wrote that the acts she had described “support an inference that Brown acted ‘corruptly,’ as defined in [Florida Statute Section] 112.312(9), by using public authority to benefit favored downtown alcohol interests and to harm a journalist whose reporting threatened those interests.”
Franklin added, “That inference is reinforced by Brown’s documented practice of channeling legal objections away from public scrutiny and by post-employment records showing that, after leaving office, he continued to exercise de facto influence over City agenda-setting and downtown event and alcohol policy through privileged access to City officials in his [Greater Sarasota County] Chamber [of Commerce] role.”
On Jan. 17, 2025, Brown became director of governmental affairs for the Chamber after he left his position as city manager on Oct. 21, 2024, as The Sarasota News Leader reported.
In a statement to the News Leader via email on Aug. 17, Franklin wrote, “A city that will not correct a record it has admitted is false is not protecting anyone — it is choosing silence over the First Amendment it is sworn to uphold. Local journalism is the bulwark of democracy precisely because it refuses to let that silence stand.”
She also sent the News Leader a link to a YouTube video in which she explains her background. This is the link to that video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jlQp4rWiIs
After the News Leader asked Brown on Aug. 17 whether he wished to provide any statement regarding Franklin’s filing of the complaint Brown responded via email the same day: “My comment is my preference to let the process play itself out.”
Count by count
In her complaint, Franklin laid out her factual allegations as follows, by count:
In regard to Count I, she explained that she was the publisher of the City Hall Monitor, “a civic journalism publication whose late-2023 reporting documented legal and ethical concerns involving downtown bar policy and Corona Cigar’s sidewalk café permit …” Franklin wrote that Brown was aware of her reporting, including her Oct. 25, 2023 email to City Attorney Robert Fournier, which she copied to Brown, “raising conflict-of-interest concerns regarding Corona Cigar and related bar policy matters.”
On Jan. 10, 2024, she continued, “Brown exchanged text messages with Commissioner Battie, “requesting phone calls.” Then, the same day, Franklin pointed out, “two late items were added to the
January 16 Commission agenda under ‘Marlon Brown — Department Head,’ including ‘Discussion Re: Civility, Respect and Rhetoric,’ with Battie listed as presenter,’ ” but with no backup materials, even though inclusion of the latter is standard city practice.
Further, she explained, “The agenda description gave no notice that a named resident would be accused of authoring a racist image, or that the agenda would be reordered so that the ‘civility’ item appeared immediately before zoning text amendment votes affecting downtown alcohol establishments.”
Franklin also noted that city records showed that on Jan. 15, 2024, Corona Cigar co-owner Borysiewicz “met with Battie to rehearse the presentation and had already transmitted to him photographs from [Franklin’s] Facebook page. At the January 16 meeting, Brown introduced the item by stating that Battie had shared with him the reasoning for it; Battie responded that he had discussed it with Brown previously, confirming coordination. Battie then used City equipment to display a fabricated racist composite image implicitly attributed to [Franklin].”
Watching the meeting live, the complaint continues, Franklin emailed the City Commission, “disputing authorship in real time, and the Mayor publicly apologized the same day. The City later acknowledged in court that the image displayed was ‘a hoax not authored by Petitioner.’ ”
Franklin then pointed out that the “public display of the fabricated image,” plus the city’s publication of minutes of that meeting that included her name — even though no one, including Battie, said her name that day in the context of the presentation or the aftermath — plus the refusal of the city to correct the minutes, “and the later public treatment of Complainant and her husband when they sought correction caused [her] substantial emotional distress.”
She added, “These events made it increasingly difficult and emotionally intolerable for [her] to watch City Commission meetings and to continue the sustained reporting required to publish the City Hall Monitor. Although [she] continued publishing for approximately nine months after the January 16 attack, the ongoing smear, refusal of remediation, and repeated public hostility ultimately led her to cease publication in November 2024, eliminating a civic watchdog that had reported on City conduct.”
Count II focuses on the official minutes describing Battie’s Jan. 16, 2024 presentation. Franklin wrote, “Brown’s affirmative misuse of his official position is most directly shown by his February 28, 2024 email to the full City Commission forwarding [Franklin’s] six-item remediation proposal before Commissioners had independently reviewed it. Using his official City Manager account, Brown conceded that the hoax-related items were ‘pertinent/relevant’ but characterized [them], including citation of Corona Cigar’s invalid permit, as ‘nonrelevant issues’ and a bad-faith effort to ‘throw everything and the kitchen sink at the City,’ adding, ‘This is so wrong, so so wrong, that I felt compelled to bring it to your attention.’
“By framing the permit issue as illegitimate, Brown helped ensure that the Commission would reject corrective action that would also expose his own prior permitting interventions,” Franklin pointed out in the complaint. “Brown knew or should have known that the minutes attribution was false from [Franklin’s] live email denial, the Mayor’s same-day apology, contemporaneous reporting identifying the image as fabricated, later forensic proof that the composite never existed on [Franklin’s] Facebook page, and the City’s eventual judicial admission that the image was a hoax. Yet Brown did not use the agenda process he controlled in practice to place a corrective item before the Commission,” Franklin asserted.
Count III deals with the Corona Cigar Co. sidewalk permit.
Franklin explained that the city’s “sidewalk café ordinance authorized permits only for establishments serving food and beverages and required submission of a restaurant menu. City Attorney Fournier later confirmed that the zoning code required a sidewalk café applicant to be a restaurant generating at least 50 percent of its revenue from food sales. Corona Cigar, however, was classified by City planning documents as a bar/tavern/nightclub and retail sales establishment, held a retail beverage license rather than a food-service license, operated no kitchen, and submitted a snack-only menu.”
In June 2023, Franklin continued, then-Assistant City Engineer Daniel Ohrenstein “identified multiple deficiencies in Corona’s application, including ‘Food menu,’ and directed removal of the outdoor tables pending compliance. On August 7, 2023, Brown issued a written directive ordering a cross-departmental meeting with Corona’s
owners and [then-Commissioner Erik Arroyo], stating that ‘The City is being blamed as holding up their permits and this is being said to Commissioners.’ That directive reframed a regulatory ineligibility determination as a political problem requiring Brown’s intervention.”
Moreover, Franklin pointed out, “On September 15, 2023, with Risk Management and Finance approvals still outstanding, Brown emailed staff that he did not want to see any more emails about ‘road blocks or hold ups’ and demanded that someone take the lead on whether the permit was ‘completed or not and why.’ Within minutes the remaining approval process accelerated, and the permit was issued that same day. Brown later received City Attorney Fournier’s October 28–29, 2023 written legal analysis acknowledging defects in the ordinance framework and the permit’s legal footing, but he took no corrective action.”
‘Wrongful intent pattern’
In another portion of her complaint, Franklin wrote that Florida Statute 112.312(9) “defines ‘corruptly’ as acting with wrongful intent for the purpose of obtaining a benefit inconsistent with proper public duty. The record supports that inference through a continuous pattern,” she added, referencing the above actions.
Then, she noted, “The strongest new evidence shows that Brown’s pattern did not end when he left office. At a February 13, 2026 Chamber Government Issues Committee meeting, Brown urged business interests to be ‘visible and vocal’ at Commission meetings, stated that ‘The Chamber has been left out,’ and remarked, in a discussion of frequently cited downtown establishments, that he was ‘ok with Cask [&] Ale and Art Ovation [hotel].’ ”
Then, Franklin continued, on April 20, during the City Commission public hearing on a revised special events ordinance, “Brown texted [City Auditor and Clerk] Shayla Griggs and Kyle Battie asking how emergency events would be handled and then replied, ‘The Chamber appreciates’ the clarification because it represented organizations affected by the ordinance.
On May 18, 2026, she wrote, Brown texted the same officials” to criticize the City Commission’s decision in March to allow paid parking on Sundays. He “later complained that ‘staff is driving the bus’ and must ‘get out of the way,’ a message Griggs affirmatively ‘liked.’ ”
‘Relief Requested’
Formally, Franklin requested that the Commission on Ethics take the following actions:
- “Find legal sufficiency to investigate whether Brown violated [Florida Statute 112.313(6)].
- “Conduct an investigation including review of communications among Brown, Battie, Corona owners, Griggs, and City staff concerning the January 16, 2024 agenda item, the hoax image, the false minutes attribution, Brown’s February 28, 2024 suppression email, Corona’s sidewalk café permit, the August 28 meeting, the September 15 pressure email, City Attorney communications regarding permit eligibility, and Brown’s postemployment communications with City officials on the same policy subjects.
- “Determine whether Brown corruptly used his official position or resources to secure a special privilege, benefit, or exemption for Corona Cigar and related interests, and to subject [Franklin] to harm inconsistent with the proper performance of his public duties.
- “If probable cause is found and a violation is proven, take any action authorized by law, including recommending appropriate penalties.
- “Recommend that the Florida Legislature extend [Florida Statute 112.313(14)’s] post-employment lobbying restrictions to appointed municipal chief executives.”