The sex scandal that rocked the Lakeland police department last summer sent shock waves through the city.
“This was from our prospective this was a 100 year storm. I mean we never saw this coming,” said City Commissioner Keith Merritt.
That’s why city leaders said they voted to hire a public relations firm to help them handle the case. The only problem is, many said they didn’t know the price tag would cost more than a $100,000.
“Shocked is probably too mild of a word,” Mayor Howard Wiggs said.
Wiggs said he was kept in the dark about how much money was being spent with the PR firm.
“When you look at the whole process the city commission was essentially excluded from that conversation,” he said. “I think the whole thing was badly handled.”
But not everyone agrees with the mayor. Some leaders said the $130,000 spent with the Tampa Based-Tucker-Hall PR firm may not have been a total waste.
“If you want quality advice, it’s expensive and by all accounts the firm hired is highly thought of by people in the business so I have no questions about the judgment of hiring that particular firm,” said City Commissioner Don Selvage.
Leaders said the firm gave the city manager advice on how to publicly handle the lawsuit filed against them by Sue Eberle. She’s the woman at the center of the sex scandal.
But it’s advice the mayor said they could have gone without.
“We’re done with that company as far as them advising us on how to spend things. We ought to just rely on just being transparent and telling the public what’s going on,” Wiggs said.
City leaders said they still don’t know whether or not that six figure price tag was worth it. They said they’ll have to wait months, possibly even longer to figure it out.