Thank you Tom for laying this out succinctly with legal references. You stated the Council's case pretty clearly. Allow me to play devil's advocate here for a moment. I'm not a lawyer, but I like to look at precedent to try to understand these cases. Ironically our new City Manager is intimately familiar with a similar case during his previous job in Palm Coast.. Their Council tried to can the Mayor using some of the same arguments that the Palm Bay City Council is using against Langevin. Presuming no crime has been committed (again, acting like a jack-wagon on social media is not a crime as far as I know), and the Governor doesn't intervene, Councilman Langevin may be with us for a while if he wants to be. For purposes of discussion, I look at this as election nullification (Mr Langevin was duly elected, if his holding office is such a threat to civics, where was the oppo-research during the campaign?) Either his opposition and the voters were lazy (it should be easy to look at someone's social media history) or he pulled a Dr Jeckyll. Can the council (and the citizens) simply turn on a dime and decide they made a poor choice and overturn the last election result? Is there a mechanism for a recall election? To me that's the legal test. In the parallel analogy in Palm Coast, as far as I know the Mayor is still seated. A link to the article about the Palm Coast circumstance is below. In the event you can't access it and you would like me to post the article text, let me know. https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/flagler/2025/07/25/palm-coast-council-formally-requests-mayors-removal/85379556007/
Wow, you are making a good case to read the Palm Bayer here (Sorry to say I missed your post before the election). In any event, this is a good case study on why a voter should do more than just read the Florida Today profiles on local office candidates when making a voting selection. Back to my devil's advocacy for a moment. The last councilman they removed had (most people would agree) committed a crime.(and btw he was a much more personable guy than the current litigant) We went through a period with only 4 Councilman for various reasons. Regardless of personalities, IMO it's not optimal not having a full slate of Councilmen seated. (thus my argument for a higher threshold to remove or de-frock a sitting duly elected Councilman) . I've read in recent years that employers can require access to a prospective employee's social media accounts. Interesting that it seems to not be a requirement for public office. (the legality of that is a whole other subject). Tomorrow's meeting and disposition of this matter will be interesting.
Thanks Thomas you tried to tell them
Thank you Tom for laying this out succinctly with legal references. You stated the Council's case pretty clearly. Allow me to play devil's advocate here for a moment. I'm not a lawyer, but I like to look at precedent to try to understand these cases. Ironically our new City Manager is intimately familiar with a similar case during his previous job in Palm Coast.. Their Council tried to can the Mayor using some of the same arguments that the Palm Bay City Council is using against Langevin. Presuming no crime has been committed (again, acting like a jack-wagon on social media is not a crime as far as I know), and the Governor doesn't intervene, Councilman Langevin may be with us for a while if he wants to be. For purposes of discussion, I look at this as election nullification (Mr Langevin was duly elected, if his holding office is such a threat to civics, where was the oppo-research during the campaign?) Either his opposition and the voters were lazy (it should be easy to look at someone's social media history) or he pulled a Dr Jeckyll. Can the council (and the citizens) simply turn on a dime and decide they made a poor choice and overturn the last election result? Is there a mechanism for a recall election? To me that's the legal test. In the parallel analogy in Palm Coast, as far as I know the Mayor is still seated. A link to the article about the Palm Coast circumstance is below. In the event you can't access it and you would like me to post the article text, let me know. https://www.news-journalonline.com/story/news/local/flagler/2025/07/25/palm-coast-council-formally-requests-mayors-removal/85379556007/
This was a very public post I made prior to the election.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vQaO67VeRYNnUjp-tHuqHEoV4NBNaGBhJRv4sTe3hvz-gPNdHzqjdg_G8_HC3d_UQ_E4zhkdMbh08_c/pub
The city attorney could proclaim no-contact do to his litigious threats and at that point he wouldn't be able to attend the meetings.
Wow, you are making a good case to read the Palm Bayer here (Sorry to say I missed your post before the election). In any event, this is a good case study on why a voter should do more than just read the Florida Today profiles on local office candidates when making a voting selection. Back to my devil's advocacy for a moment. The last councilman they removed had (most people would agree) committed a crime.(and btw he was a much more personable guy than the current litigant) We went through a period with only 4 Councilman for various reasons. Regardless of personalities, IMO it's not optimal not having a full slate of Councilmen seated. (thus my argument for a higher threshold to remove or de-frock a sitting duly elected Councilman) . I've read in recent years that employers can require access to a prospective employee's social media accounts. Interesting that it seems to not be a requirement for public office. (the legality of that is a whole other subject). Tomorrow's meeting and disposition of this matter will be interesting.