Destin officials past and present on the witness list in Sansom case (LIST)

What did dozens of public officials know about state Rep. Ray Sansom’s relationship to Northwest Florida State College?

The potential witness list for Sansom’s upcoming House conduct hearing released this week includes more than five dozen names — most of them state, college or Okaloosa County officials.

The list includes the college’s board of trustees, as well as former college president James “Bob” Richburg and Destin developer Jay Odom. Other college and county officials also are potential witnesses.

Among prominent state officials on the list is former state House Speaker Marco Rubio, who is running for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate against Gov. Charlie Crist. On the Destin side, the list includes City Manager Greg Kisela and former city fire chief Tuffy Dixon

Sansom’s relationship with the college is at the heart of an investigation by the House Select Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

The committee’s independent counsel, Melanie Ann Hines, lists 68 potential witnesses for Sansom’s hearing, which is scheduled to begin in the week of Jan. 25, 2010. The committee could clear Sansom of any wrongdoing, or it could recommend actions against Sansom to the full House, including expulsion from office.

Sansom attorney Richard Coates of Tallahassee lists 14 potential witnesses, all of whom also are on the committee’s list.

Hines said Wednesday the list is preliminary and subject to revision.

“This is a listing of people who may have information that is relevant, but that does not mecessarily mean that they will be called to testify at the hearing,” Hines said.

Coates could not be reached for comment.

Sansom became speaker of the House in late November 2008. On the same day he became speaker, the college announced that Sansom had been hired into a part-time, unadvertised job paying $100,000 a year.

That led to significant media scrutiny that revealed that in the 18 months before the college hired him, Sansom had inserted more than $30 million in funding for the college into the state budget.

E-mails also showed Sansom and Richburg worked together to arrange a March 2008 meeting between Sansom and college officials in Tallahassee. Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum later called the meeting “highly questionable.”

Sansom quit the college job just weeks after taking it and then was forced out of the speaker’s position.

Sansom, Richburg and Odom eventually were indicted by a Leon County grand jury for felony official misconduct in relation to $6 million Sansom secured for the college for a college training facility at Destin Airport. The grand jury contended the training facility would in reality be used by Odom as an aircraft hangar. Sansom and Richburg also were indicted for perjury.

All three denied those allegations, and a state judge recently dismissed the majority of the charges. That dismissal is under appeal.

Meanwhile, though, a state investigator for the House last summer found probable cause to consider sanctions against Sansom for his activities related to the college, including:

• The Tallahassee meeting Sansom held with the college board and Richburg in March 2008. In e-mails prior to the meeting, both Richburg and Sansom expressed a desire that the meeting be kept private. It was advertised in The News Herald’s sister paper, the Northwest Florida Daily News, as a “legislative briefing,” but Sansom was the only legislator who was invited to the meeting. At the meeting, Sansom and the officials discussed increasing four-year degree programs at the college.

• The $6 million college project at Destin Airport, for which Sansom secured funding in 2007. The project’s plans were identical to plans Odom had presented to the Destin City Council in 2004 when requesting help in funding an aircraft hangar.

• Sansom’s securing of $8 million in 2008 to construct a “Leadership Institute” facility at the college. According to House investigator Stephan Kahn, part of Sansom’s job at the college was to provide direction to the institute.

In interviews and through his attorney, Sansom has contended that he is innocent of all criminal or ethics charges against him. Richburg and Odom also have denied any wrongdoing.

Sansom was the chief budget writer for the House in 2008, and in that role worked closely with Senate counterpart Lisa Carlton to hammer out details of the budget that the Legislature eventually approved and Crist signed. The 2008 funding for the college was inserted during that process, without any public hearings or discussion.

Carlton, who has since left the Senate due to term limits, is among the most prominent potential witnesses.

Rubio has said that he delegated budget-writing responsibility to Sansom.