- May 2, 2024
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Former Palm Coast Mayor Milissa Holland has agreed to pay a recommended $1,000 fine for a Florida Commission on Ethics decision that found that she'd misused her public position by using her official city email account to send two emails soliciting business for her employer, Coastal Cloud.
The $1,000 fine was recommended by the attorney who represents the commission. The Commission on Ethics itself must approve the fine in a Sept. 10 meeting before it's finalized.
Holland's agreement amounts to an admission to the Commission on Ethics’s finding that she had violated the law.
Holland has said that she'd sent the two emails from her city account inadvertently, and that her use of the city email account was an innocent mistake.
The emails went to city staff for the city of Orlando, and received no response.
The Commission on Ethics made no determination on whether Holland had used the city email account intentionally: One commission member, saying he'd made similar mistakes with technology, had recommended that Holland not be found at fault; other commission members said that public officials must be scrupulous about upholding the law, and the possibility that the emails were sent erroneously would not absolve Holland of fault.
The allegation about the improper emails was the only allegation against Holland that was upheld by the Commission on Ethics out of a set of seven accusations levied by a former city staff member.
"Other than the couple of emails that I had acknowledged months ago publicly, the commission saw fit to deny the other politically motivated claims," Holland wrote in a message to the Palm Coast Observer. "It's sad that such baseless allegations have become the norm in today's politics. It is distracting to the true mission of government, and our community deserves better. I am happy that this is behind me and that I have been vindicated."
