Franklin still hoping for apology regarding fake Facebook post

On Monday, Jan. 27, Sarasota attorney Brian Goodrich, of the firm Bentley Goodrich Kison, filed a formal notice with the 12th Judicial Circuit Court that he was cancelling a 30-minute hearing that had been scheduled before Circuit Judge Stephen Walker on Feb. 25, in regard to a request for attorneys’ fees and costs in a 2024 defamation case involving Sarasota City Commissioner Kyle Battie.
In response to a Sarasota News Leader request for comment on the action, Goodrich wrote in a Jan. 28 email, “After consultation with Commissioner Battie, we cancelled this hearing to officially put this lawsuit in the past to ensure that Commissioner Battie can continue to focus on serving the City of Sarasota.”
The city has paid Battie’s legal fees, with the commissioners — other than Battie — having voted twice in 2024 to do so. Responding to a News Leader inquiry, City Attorney Robert Fournier reported via email on Jan. 29 that the total billed the city through the month of December was $40,152.86. He added, “There could be a final statement for January, but I do not believe it will significantly increase the amount billed to date.”
In early December 2024, Fournier reminded the News Leader that the city had to pay a $25,000 deductible, and then its insurance carrier had covered the rest of the payments through late November.
Last year, Judge Walker ruled on two occasions for Battie in the litigation that Sarasota resident Kelly Franklin filed against Battie after he showed his colleagues and members of the public an image of an alleged Facebook post that was racist; he indicated that Franklin had created it, though he never cited her name.
Franklin has denied any involvement with the post, calling it a hoax. She has maintained that it was a “mash-up” of a December 2022 Facebook post on her personal page, showing a series of photos she had taken during a trip to Rwanda, along with a photo taken in September 2023 of the ribbon cutting for the Corona Cigar Co. on Lemon Avenue in downtown Sarasota, while Battie was mayor.

Battie presented a printout of the alleged post during the Jan. 16, 2024 City Commission meeting. The agenda item was listed as a discussion on “Civility, Respect and Rhetoric.” A notation said, “(THIS ITEM WAS ADDED UNDER CHANGES TO THE ORDER OF THE DAY) (THIS ITEM WAS MOVED TO UNFINISHED BUSINESS BY THE COMMISSION AT THE TABLE UNDER CHANGES TO THE ORDER OF THE DAY).” The City Manager’s Office was listed as the “Originating Department” for the item.
Battie’s presentation took place while Marlon Brown was still serving as city manager.
The fake post included the heading, “Gorillas in the midst of gorillas are on my mind,” as well as a photo taken during the September 2023 ribbon-cutting ceremony marking the opening of the Corona Cigar Co. in downtown Sarasota, when Battie was serving as mayor.
The event photo showed both Battie and one of the business co-owners, Tanya Borysiewicz, whom Battie has described as half African American and half Scottish.
Battie also is African American.
The top of the printed document depicting the fake Facebook post showed Franklin’s photo as it appears on her personal Facebook page.

Judge Walker explained in his rulings for Battie that he was relying on judicial precedents going back to a 1970 Florida Supreme Court decision in Hauser v. Urchisin.
“The law is clear,” Walker explained in his Nov. 7, 2024 decision, citing, with emphasis, part of a 1977 Florida Third District Court of Appeal decision in Johnsen v. Carhart: “Absolute immunity of an official operates to relieve him from the necessity of being subjected to trial of an action based on his privileged conduct, notwithstanding that a complaint for libel which is filed against him may allege, as a conclusion, that he is without such immunity or was acting beyond the scope of his duty or office, where the complaint and its exhibits disclose the action of the official was taken in the interest of the public good and thereby within the scope of his duties and responsibilities, notwithstanding the allegations in the complaint to the contrary [italics added].”
Moreover, in his first ruling for Battie — in June 2024 — Walker wrote, “The City Code is clear; discriminatory practices are contrary to the public policy of the city and are a menace to the public peace and welfare of our citizens. It is the responsibility of the Commission to direct its efforts and resources toward eliminating discriminatory practices.”
Franklin has underscored the fact that no state law provides for such absolution of local government officials, in spite of the judicial precedents.
Franklin’s assertions about damage to her reputation
Since the Jan. 16, 2024 City Commission presentation, Franklin has contended that the fake Facebook post was contrived to defame her because of her activism on numerous city issues, including several related to the Corona Cigar Co.
Using responses to City of Sarasota public records requests, Franklin has documented copies of texts and emails to indicate that Battie and Borysiewicz worked together to include the fake Facebook post in Battie’s January 2024 presentation, which, she stresses, has damaged her reputation in the community.
In a Jan. 28 email to the News Leader, Franklin pointed out, “In March, 2024, I provided [Mayor] Liz Alpert, [Commissioner] Debbie Trice, and [then-Vice Mayor] Jen Ahearn Koch with the full ‘smoking gun’ timeline/affidavit I prepared for my attorney demonstrating the faked offensive image never existed,” along with documentation of attempts by representatives of the Corona Cigar Co. “to impact the then-pending outdoor bar ordinance.” That ordinance ended up winning final approval, but both Ahearn-Koch and Trice had expressed concerns about the staff-proposed definitions of indoor and outdoor bars. They contended that the location of the greatest intensity of people — and noise — should be the principal factor in determining the type of business, contrary to staff’s proposal.

Image courtesy Tampa attorney Richard A. Harrison
Pleas for an apology
After the Feb. 25 hearing was scheduled in the Franklin case, she explained that what she really wanted was an apology from Battie.
“Now that Kyle Battie has gotten away with it,” Franklin wrote in a Dec. 18, 2024 post on the Citizens for Sarasota public Facebook page, “there is literally nothing protecting anyone in this city from being lied about and attacked by their government in the same way I was.
“Yet it seems the city of Sarasota government is populated by people without the courage or conscience or judgment or decency to fulfill their basic responsibilities toward the public,” Franklin continued.
She further emphasized, “NO ONE at city hall has expressed any remorse.
“Nor have they changed their practices to prevent this from happening to anyone else.”
She added, “All I want for Christmas is the apology I’m owed in the same chambers where this baseless attack on my good name occurred — and for [Mayor] Liz Alpert to enforce the code of conduct the next time her colleague uses the bully pulpit to bully a constituent.”
Franklin this week also shared with the News Leader a copy of an email that she sent to Battie on Jan. 28, after she learned of the cancellation of the Feb. 25 hearing. She copied the other members of the City Commission, as well as interim City Manager Doug Jeffcoat, City Attorney Robert Fournier , Deputy City Manager Patrick Robinson and City Auditor and Clerk Shayla Griggs.
The email read as follows:
“Facebook memes often attribute the quotation ‘The time is always right to do the right thing’ to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“My grandmother sold World Book door to door, and repeated World Book’s tagline ‘We never guess, we look it up’ like a mantra.
“I took my grandmother’s advice, and traced the King quote to a speech he gave at Stanford a year before he was assassinated.
“There is a lot of wisdom in his words that day about the state of our nation then, and now. It is worth a listen.

“https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYK9xGALPrU
“I hope you will consider quoting from it if you choose to apologize for how this situation was handled … And [I] hope for everyone’s sake, you do apologize.
“My great-something ancestor Benjamin Franklin named his autobiography ‘errata’ — which is a term of art for printer’s errors. Yours was an error of printing (that is publishing) the hateful image.
“I don’t think you created it, and never did. I am very sorry that ANYONE would ever craft such a sick and inflammatory image —particularly from my post about diversity rocks I wanted for my garden.
“It is time for all of us to heal from this attack on our community, and build bridges, not walls, between us.”