With Coryea News Today

The subpoenas request all forms of communication between each of the four commissioners and the remainder of the commission from Nov. 4 and Nov. 20.

“We have a leaker,” Van Ostenbridge wrote. “Good thing no one reads this rag.”  Beruff replied a few hours later: “Who cares liberal rag.”  Four days later, on Nov. 19 – the day Van Ostenbridge would tell Coryea in her office that she needed to resign or be fired – Beruff sent a text to Van Ostenbridge at 6:51 a.m.  “Good morning you all set?”  Van Ostenbridge sent two replies: “all set,” and “Meeting with Cheri at 7:30.”  Background  The subject of Coryea’s ...

BRADENTON – Manatee County Commissioner Kevin Van Ostenbridge had been on the job for only 50 hours when he walked into County Administrator Cheri Coryea’s office on Nov. 19 and told her she needed to resign or be fired. Coryea, who has more than three decades of experience negotiating what is sometimes a minefield that is Manatee County politics, took scrupulous notes of her conversation with Van Ostenbridge, who told the administrator he had the votes to fire her. Van Ostenbridge was on...