{"id":32134,"date":"2023-05-11T13:12:19","date_gmt":"2023-05-11T17:12:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/?p=32134"},"modified":"2023-05-11T13:12:23","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T17:12:23","slug":"desantis-reinstates-kris-fitzgerald-to-lake-wales-city-commission","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/2023\/05\/11\/desantis-reinstates-kris-fitzgerald-to-lake-wales-city-commission\/","title":{"rendered":"DeSantis reinstates Kris Fitzgerald to Lake Wales City Commission"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Nearly two years after her suspension from the Lake Wales City Commission, Kris Fitzgerald has been returned to office.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"331\" height=\"284\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 331px) 100vw, 331px\" src=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/kf.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32135\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/kf.png 331w, https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/kf-300x257.png 300w\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an order Wednesday reinstating Fitzgerald, whom he had suspended in July 2021, a month after she was arrested and charged with a felony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">She was later removed from the City Commission, and Daniel Krueger gained election last year to replace her on Seat 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A jury last October acquitted Fitzgerald on two charges,&nbsp;interference with custody and aggravated assault, ending a two-day trial overseen by Circuit Court Judge Lori Winstead in Bartow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fitzgerald, 43, is immediately reinstated, replacing Krueger on the commission, Lake Wales spokesman Eric Marshall said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In Wednesday&#8217;s executive order, DeSantis wrote that Krueger remained in a temporary appointment to fill Fitzgerald&#8217;s seat even after his election last year and that Fitzgerald&#8217;s position had never been vacant in a legal or permanent sense. He revoked the order he had issued in 2021.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cCommissioner Fitzgerald will receive full back pay and other allowances to which she would have been entitled during the suspension,\u201d City Manager James Slaton said in a news release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">City officials have tried to contact Fitzgerald but had not heard back from her as of Wednesday afternoon, Marshall said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nearly two years after her suspension from the Lake Wales City Commission, Kris Fitzgerald has been returned to office. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis issued an order Wednesday reinstating Fitzgerald, whom&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32135,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","default_image_id":71799,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[5016],"class_list":["post-32134","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-desantis-reinstates-kris-fitzgerald-to-lake-wales-city-commission"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32134","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}