Documents Show Deerfield Mayor Tried to Distance Self From Disciplinary Action

A series of internal memos recently made public by the Deerfield Beach City Clerk's office show that Mayor Peggy Noland denied being offended by the lack of a greeting from a city parks worker last week. But those denials are at odds with the memo by Deerfield Beach's parks director,...

By Thomas Francis

August 10, 2009

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A series of internal memos recently made public by the Deerfield Beach City Clerk's office show that Mayor Peggy Noland denied being offended by the lack of a greeting from a city parks worker last week. But those denials are at odds with the memo by Deerfield Beach's parks director, George Edmunds, who in an August 3 memo to the worker, Cassandra Moye, references a conversation with Noland about the incident.

"The mayor indicated this was not the first time that you had not acknowledged her when you came into contact with her," wrote Edmunds.

In a memo the following day, as the South Florida Times was preparing this article about Moye's two-day suspension, Noland wrote a hasty batch of memos. In the first of those she denies noticing what Edmunds mentioned in his memo and says "I do not want to be the basis for any disciplinary action."

That and other memo drafts were obtained by Acts of Sedition blogger Chaz Stevens, who has shared them with South Florida media. In the next draft of the memo, Noland denies making any comment about the incident. The memo went through another few drafts before on August 5 Noland apparently settled on a final version, which was backed by a new memo by Edmonds in which he tried to absolve Noland in having a role in the suspension. But by then, the story had already made news around the world.

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