Marco Island City Council continued attempts to fill its vacant seat but remained deadlocked again with repeated 3-3 ties, with the same councilors pitted against each other.

The Feb. 18 meeting was the third special meeting held solely to select a seventh councilor. The deadlock has continued since November during additional twice monthly meetings that resulted in ties with the same two factions: Acting Chair Erik Brechnitz and councilors Stephen Gray and Tamara Goehler versus councilors Darrin Palumbo, Deb Henry and Bonita Schwan.

After nearly 90 minutes, City Manager Mike McNees likened the vacant seat to a “treasure” blocked by six “laser beams” with alarms that go off each time a candidate doesn’t meet a councilor’s strict qualifications.

“The laser beams are so densely overlapped that no human being could ever fit through that maze,” McNees said. “… There will never be anyone who won’t trigger some of those laser beams. … How many of those beams have you set that you could reconsider and say maybe that one’s not so critical?”

“… If we can turn off half those laser beams, we might find somebody who’s limbo savvy enough to get through there and find their way to that chair,” he continued. “But without that, we might as well just wait until 20 months and let the electors pick.”

The stalemate has continued since shortly after the November elections, when the seat was vacated mid-term by Councilor Greg Folley, who was required to resign Nov. 5 after a failed bid for the State House District 81 seat. The elections brought in four new councilors, including two who ousted incumbents — leaving Brechnitz and Palumbo as the only senior members.

But despite hopes newcomers would lessen divisiveness, it’s prompted never-ending 3-3 ties by the two factions on votes to select a chair and vice chair and a seventh councilor. However, the one issue they could agree on during the meeting was to reopen the application process, which received a unanimous vote. The deadline is 5 p.m. Feb. 28.

Over the past three months, Council reopened the application process to attract more than the 16 candidates, then whittled 24 applicants to four and repeatedly tied despite lengthy public interviews. Brechnitz’s suggestion to list seven candidates to determine who would receive four votes failed. When one garnered five, he wasn’t immediately selected, and instead they voted and tied. Then they tied on one who received four votes and six who received three.

In the past, a suggestion to flip a coin, a state-approved tie-breaking method, resulted in a tie. They urged others to apply, interviewed them and tied. There were accusations of passing notes and texting, which prompted Brechnitz this week to ask councilors to place their cellphones on the dais so the public could see, and two aligned councilors moved to different seats so the split wouldn’t look obvious.

Many had requirements, such as past history on a Marco advisory board, or a high school and college degree, and business experience. Several refused to go against City Attorney Alan Gabriel’s advice not to put it up for a special election because the city charter says Council should make the selection.

When Brechnitz suggested asking the state attorney general for an opinion on what to do, Gabriel noted his job is to write opinions on state issues, but if they voted 4-2 to do that, he’d seek an opinion. However, McNees pointed out the city sought an opinion on another matter before and were turned down.

State records show a similar request by the city of Parker in Bay County resulted in an October 2011 opinion telling city council to follow its city charter.

This week, when a top candidate heard on TV that Brechnitz said he “did a pretty good job in his business career for someone who doesn’t have a high school education,” the man drove to the meeting to tell Brechnitz he didn’t think it was important to put high school and college information from 50 years ago on his resume.

“I grew up in business, I started a business. We were doing $39 million a year in sales on wastewater, water and stormwater equipment, one of the largest firms in the country,” David Crane told Brechnitz, listing his other business achievements.

He blamed Nextdoor comments for the rumors and called Brechnitz’s assumption incorrect: He has a high school degree and went to college, but didn’t finish.

When Schwan suggested appointing former Planning Board member Nanette Rivera, that prompted a tie. And when Brechnitz suggested holding a special election, they deadlocked again, prompting laughter from the audience.

“Clearly that didn’t work,” Brechnitz said. “I don’t know why anyone would be afraid to have an election.”

Brechnitz noted three councilors were willing to vote for someone who wasn’t one of their top two picks, yet there’s still inflexibility on both sides. Palumbo, who refused to appoint someone who didn’t apply or get interviewed, said he didn’t trust the process and noted that 17 of 18 votes during the last meeting involved the same split.

Henry suggested Planning Board Chair Jason Bailey, while Schwan recommended Allyson Richards, who has advisory board experience and served on numerous nonprofit boards. She was named Marco Island Civic Association’s 2019 Humanitarian of the Year. Both were urged to apply for the next round.

After the meeting, Brechnitz said the stalemate comes down to following the city’s comprehensive plan, which he supports, versus the desires of the business community.

“Three of us believe that tourism needs to be balanced carefully with the businesses, and if you read our comprehensive plan, it says that we should have enough people on the island to take care of our current businesses,” Brechnitz explained. “But we seem to be growing businesses rapidly and there is a huge growth of people taking place down (State Road) 951.”

“All those developments are growing like crazy … so there should be as much as a half a million people living in that corridor,” he added. “We live on a barrier island that has a fairly sensitive ecosystem and we have to be mindful of that. There’s only so much that we can take in terms of traffic.”

He believes the city should hold a special election to let residents decide because the city charter says council shall select a new councilor within 60 days and that hasn’t been done. The charter is silent on what to do if that fails, he said, so an opinion from the attorney general would guide them — and Council is split on that.