County attorney: rentals of senior center were unauthorized; community urges reinstatement of director

An interim county attorney presented a completed investigation on Dec. 2 that found the county id not lawfully authorize third parties to rent the county-owned senior center and that rental fees collected since May 2024 were deposited into a private account at Centennial Bank controlled by the Gadsden County Senior Citizens Foundation rather than the county clerk—or deposit.

The findings, read into the record by Interim County Attorney Louis J. Baptiste, outlined multiple alleged compliance failures: unauthorized rentals of the county facility at 79 LaSalle/LaFalle Drive in Quincy; $6,095 in third-party rental fees documented in 2024 and 2025 that were routed to a private foundation account; no evidence that sales tax on rentals was remitted; and apparent commingling of county staff time and foundation activity, including the use of a foundation credit card. Baptiste said staff told investigators they were sometimes directed by a former employee, Charles Hayes, to deposit funds into the foundation account but that verbal directions do not override Florida law.

"At no point did this county commission authorize any third party to rent out that facility," Baptiste said, adding that county…