Brian Goguen

Paul Roney

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NAPLES — For almost two years, two representatives from Ave Maria Development have served on both Ave Maria town’s public and private decision-making bodies, sparking concerns about their compliance with state law.

Once a month, high-level officials from Ave Maria Development, made up of representatives from local developer Barron Collier Cos. and associates of Ave Maria University founder Tom Monaghan, make the development’s private decisions in “executive committee” meetings.

Once a month, the five members of the Ave Maria Stewardship Community District also sit down to make decisions about the town.

The district is a government and public agency, unlike Ave Maria Development’s private executive committee.

Governments in Florida are regulated by what’s known as the Government-in-the-Sunshine Law, which requires officials to discuss business and make decisions at public meetings.

Brian Goguen is a vice president for finance at Barron Collier Cos. Paul Roney is the chief financial officer at Ave Maria University. Both serve on the executive committee and also on the district board.

“And they don’t think that’s a problem?” asked Adria Harper, a director at the First Amendment Foundation, a Sunshine Law watchdog group financially supported by the media, including the Daily News.

“They shouldn’t be talking about issues that would foreseeably come before the public board in private,” Harper continued. “It doesn’t matter if they’re holding private meetings in Arby’s. They can’t talk about those things.”

Bob Jarvis, a law ethics professor at Nova Southeastern University, agreed.

“It should trouble your readers that this board was set up this way,” Jarvis said. “Whoever thought this was a good idea should be fired or removed from office.”

Goguen and Roney’s response?

The executive committee’s decisions rarely overlap with the district’s, both said.

When they do, either Goguen or Roney leaves the room where the executive committee meeting is held, each said in interviews conducted separately by the Daily News.

This arrangement began in November 2006 when executive committee member and Roney’s predecessor on the district — former Ave Maria University Project Manager Don Schrotenboer — joined the government.

“We know the rules,” Goguen said. “We don’t want to get anywhere close to having issues with the Sunshine Law.”

“I think we’ve been very much aware of it and complied with the law at all times,” Roney said.

For Sunshine Law matters, there’s no difference between a special district, or a government with a specific purpose, and any city or county in the state. Ave Maria’s district, formed by a special act of the state Legislature in 2004, provides infrastructure such as roads to the town.

At this point, Ave Maria Development chooses all the district’s board members, who now determine an annual assessment that town residents must pay.

Because the university is integral to the town, it wanted a representative on the district board, said Tom Sansbury, another vice president at Barron Collier Cos.

Sansbury, who serves as Ave Maria Development’s liaison to the district, warned Goguen and Schrotenboer about the Sunshine Law.

They agreed that one of them would leave the room when district matters arose in private meetings.

Sansbury said he repeated the warning when Roney joined the district.

“This thing is run more conservative than any project I’ve been a part of,” Sansbury said. “We realize we’re the big guys in Collier County and this project is in the limelight. We are cognizant that we need to follow the law to the letter.”

Told Ave Maria Development’s response, both Jarvis and Harper remained concerned.

Private meetings with private results do not enable the scrutiny of board members’ conduct that the Sunshine Law requires, Jarvis said.

“If that’s the best they came up with, that’s sad,” he said. “It’s the dog-ate-my-homework excuse.”

Harper said the Ave Maria Development was “making a great effort” to meet Sunshine Law requirements, but town residents could express legitimate concern about the district’s decision-making process.

“It’s just going to be problematic,” she said.

Jarvis and Harper added that Ave Maria Development easily could have avoided this situation. It could have chosen a university representative for the district board that didn’t also serve on the private executive committee.

Sansbury acknowledged as much.

“We could have,” Sansbury said. “We didn’t. We felt that the guys’ words are their words. We have honorable people working on this project.”

Violators of the Sunshine Law could face penalties, including a maximum 60-day jail term, $500 fine and removal from office.