Mayor and City Commissioners:
I am writing to formally place the entire City Commission and Administration on notice regarding a series of institutional breakdowns, oversight failures, and administrative irregularities. While certain communications have attempted to shift liability onto the HOA, previous sellers, and my own signature on the closing documents, the established paper trail clearly proves municipal liability.
Deflections of Liability
Communications with Commissioners have vaguely attempted to reference the flooding of Lake Bonney within the HOA community to minimize the city’s liability. To be absolutely clear, the flooding occurred on an entirely separate, lower elevation section closer to the water. My specific unit was not affected. Regardless, the City of Lakeland’s Housing and Economic Development department served as the administrator of the city-backed housing program. It was the absolute responsibility of the city to fully vet the property’s structural and environmental records before even authorizing an inspection. If the city is now claiming the property has a known history of severe flooding, the city is openly admitting to an extreme failure of administrative due diligence by approving public funds for a compromised parcel. Any administrative deflection based on previous community flooding is entirely moot. Furthermore, a homebuyer’s signature on closing documents is an act of total, legally protected reliance on the integrity of the city’s certified Housing and Rehabilitation Specialist, Philip Large, who officially signed off and cleared the home safe, sanitary, and structurally sound. Internal communications from within the Commission have already admitted that the city-backed program lacks sufficient oversight and requires “policy changes to ensure that anyone who is using the Hands program has more protections.” Proposing future remedies to protect future participants is an explicit on-the-record admission that the current program completely failed to protect my property. The city can’t acknowledge a systemic lack of protection, while using that same broken system to evade liability for a resident who already relied upon it’s certifications.
Severe Administrative Irregularities
The structural shifting and subsequent damage caused by the HOA’s roof replacement is a direct act by multiple city departments. This pattern of severe administrative irregularities and public record manipulation began the moment I signed on June 26, 2025:
-Recording of an Unexecuted Instrument:
On July 11, 2025, the city allowed a Ten-Year Affordable Housing Lien to be recorded in the Polk County Public Records. This official document was incomplete. The mandatory signature lines for the City Administration were left entirely blank, and the notary acknowledgement section was unexecuted. The city actively placed a facially defective, legally void document into the public index.
-Code Enforcement Non-Action:
Before the start of the destructive roof work, I proactively filed a complaint with code enforcement. The responding officer, Joie Brownlow, completely failed to enforce a verbal stop-work order, actively allowing unpermitted, non-compliant construction to proceed. Following this unpermitted work, the city’s building department inspected, signed off, and officially passed a shared roof structure that has been classified as a construction defect by a licensed Professional Engineer.
-Targeted Database Modifications:
City permit logs reveal that the building department manually linked my specific parcel to a permit with a mismatched address. No other units carry this discrepancy. Furthermore, public records also show discrepancies between the dates permits were pulled for other units within my building, as well as contract prices. My specific unit was isolated for manual adjustments within the database.
This administration has routinely bypassed legal protocols to manipulate the public narrative by recording unsigned lien documents, ignoring code violations during active construction, and manually linking my parcel to mask a mismatched address.
Systemic Dismissal
I sent multiple emails to numerous city officials and administrative staff detailing the unpermitted, unlicensed construction, and structural hazards requesting an emergency inspection. These requests were systemically dismissed:
-Administrative Directive to Close File:
Code enforcement closed my complaint as ‘unfounded.’ Internal city email communications reveal that administrative staff agreed to “close the loop” on my complaints to administratively close the record, despite multiple safety requests.
-Chronology of Law Enforcement Closure:
Most indicting of all, a matching police investigation into these irregularities was abruptly halted. The official ‘case closed’ email I received from the detective was issued exactly 12 hours and 29 minutes after my formal submission of comprehensive documentation establishing municipal liability.
Lack of Administrative Oversight
The lack of compliance oversight within the city’s affordable housing initiatives is thoroughly documented by internal records and immediate personnel departures:
-Federal Documentation Non-Compliance:
Internal records from Housing Finance Officer, Adena Kniss on August 11, 2025 reveal that the city’s file was completely non-compliant with federal guidelines, missing the mandatory federal HOME Agreement and Truth in Lending disclosures corresponding to my June 26 closing. I was asked to retroactively execute newly generated documents to mirror the documents that were previously recorded. I operated in perfect good faith to patch the city’s files; the administration did not.
-Written Record of Program Suspension:
In a written communication from a Senior Loan Officer on August 12, 2025, she states, “They are suspending the program for 30 days to get caught up!” An emergency 30 day freeze of a municipal housing program is an admission of an operational and compliance meltdown.
-Personnel Flight:
Operating completely unsupervised was Leisha Thompson, the primary loan underwriter for HANDS of Central Florida. Leisha Thompson was legally required to verify code and structural compliance before clearing the grant funds for this transaction. Instead, she cleared a structurally compromised unit. Shortly after closing, the city’s relationship with HANDS fractured and Leisha Thompson exited the organization to move to an internal county government desk position.
-Separation of Building Official:
This pattern of unmonitored failure is perfectly mirrored in the Building and Inspection Division. I have been informed by three separate city officials that Dale Marquardt, the Building Official who was in charge of these oversight failures is no longer employed by the city. The timeline of his departure raises profound administrative concerns. The Building Official’s sudden separation occurred in a matter of days after the police investigation was abruptly closed, following my submission of evidence against the city.
A change in municipal personnel does not erase or dissolve the city’s liability for actions taken under that official’s leadership. It points to a severe, ongoing lack of administrative oversight. Given the critical public safety and regulatory nature of the Building Official position, I am formally requesting the name of the independent contractor or firm currently holding this position on a temporary basis, along with a full disclosure of any active or recent ties this contractor holds with private developers currently operating within the City of Lakeland. Full public transparency is required to restore administrative integrity to this division. Your oversight was so entirely non-existent that your grant program partner and lead underwriter resigned. Your Building Official resigned the moment law enforcement was handed the evidence. You lacked the oversight to ensure the home you cleared was safe, sanitary, and structurally sound, yet you claim oversight authority to deploy code enforcement threats against the resident who exposed the rot.
Conclusion & Demands for Remedy:
In conclusion, the City of Lakeland cannot hide behind the actions of an HOA, geographical history of flooding, its justifiable reliance on the passed inspection, or use acknowledged program defects to absolve itself of its own failures. The manual linking of mismatched permits, acceptance of fraudulent, recorded documents, and the certified passing of a defective roof are entirely the actions of the city.
To date, I have been forced to pay over $5k for hotels just to keep my son safe, all while continuously paying my mortgage and HOA fees because I honor my legal obligations- even when the city fails to honor theirs. I brought this to Commissioner Coney’s attention. He was surprised that I was still paying my mortgage. His reaction exposes a deeply disturbing lack of understanding of the realities regular citizens face, economically.
All this administration had to do was listen. You traded a routine code enforcement correction for a systemic administrative scandal.
I look forward to your prompt, written response detailing how the city intends to structurally and financially rectify these administrative failures prior to the next public Commission meeting.
Respectfully,
Brittany Singletary
Letter: City Hall Cover-Up (Part 1)