“Will you categorically deny that you and/or Mr. Farkas accepted free transportation on a private jet provided by a vendor to your agency?”
This is the question we posed via email on August 9th to Hillsborough County Public Schools (HCPS) superintendent Van Ayres.
We posed the question after a reliable source alleged that Ayres and HCPS Deputy Superintendent (and purchasing director) Christopher Farkas each accepted a round-trip private jet trip to Augusta, GA earlier this year around the time of the Masters Golf Tournament.
The Masters is one of the four men’s major golf championships in professional golf and is played at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, GA.
The alleged flights were provided by Horus Construction Services, Inc., a Tampa company that was awarded this “Standard Construction Management Contract” with the school district in January.
Less than a month after the alleged flights, Horus also became the beneficiary of an unusual no-bid agreement involving the swap of certain school district land valued at $1.8 million dollars for construction by Horus of 20,000 square feet of warehouse space. Ayres recommended the agreement for approval, and it was approved by the school board on May 7th in a 6-1 vote (meeting video)
In introducing the agenda item, Ayres said that the land was 0.96 acres in size. Farkas later in the meeting said it was 0.98 acres. However, the Hillsborough County Property appraiser’s records show that the property 1.05 acres large (45,730 sq. ft.).
The property also has a building on it – a warehouse. In fact, the agenda packet before the board had this document which shows the warehouse on the property.
Ayres did not respond to our emailed question (given above) asking him to “categorically deny” any such private jet travel from any agency vendor. We therefore posed more specific and pointed questions this week — more on that later in this article.
Horus has failed to respond to our public records request for records pertaining to the alleged flights. Under Florida law, they are required to acknowledge receipt of such requests, and required to respond to them.
Additionally, Horus’ failure to respond is a violation of their contract with HCPS (see §34.1) in which Horus “agrees to comply, at its own expense, with all federal, state and local laws.” The Florida Public Records Law is one such law Horus agreed to comply with.
HCPS took two full weeks to provide us with records in response to a public records request we made. They then only provided us with half the records we had requested.
After we informed HCPS that we would “proceed with civil action against HCPS” in order to enforce the Florida Public Records Law, HCPS provided the remaining records.
Notably, Ayres was copied on all emails involving our public records request. It is not standard operating procedure for the district to copy the superintendent on communications involving public records requests.
In 2018, Hillsborough voters approved an additional sales tax of 0.5% to provide additional funding for HCPS. This year, the elected school board that supposedly provides oversight over HCPS staff (including Ayres) has put an additional tax to fund itself, an ad valorem tax, on the ballot.
According to WFLA, some voters said they’ve already made their decision.
“The answer to that would be no for me,” one voter told WFLA. Even more people might decide to vote no if the school district is seen as a poor steward of public funds.
Because Ayres and the district’s general counsel did not respond with what should have been an easy categorical denial, we sent these very specific questions to the school district and its general counsel (its top lawyer):
1. Did Christopher Farkas travel on private plane to the Masters Golf Tournament on April 11th, 2024? If so, who provided this private aviation travel provided and was said travel free?
2. If said travel was provided for free, did Mr. Farkas reimburse the provider of the travel for the travel? If so, how much and on what date?
3. Did Van Ayres travel on private plane to the Masters Golf Tournament on April 13th, 2024 ? If so, who provided this private aviation travel provided and was said travel free?
4. If said travel was provided for free, did Mr. Ayres reimburse the provider of the travel for the travel? If so, how much and on what date?
5. Was Mr. Ayres provided free golf play on Saturday April 13th, 2024 at Sage Valley Golf Club in South Carolina? If so, who provided it, what was the value of the free golf play provided, and who was the Sage Valley member who arranged for the free play? Sage Valley GC only has 200 members.
6. Were Ayres and Farkas provided anything else of value during the aforementioned trips, such as admission tickets to the Masters, meals, or other such things of value?
Despite being given two business days to respond, we received no response from the school district to the above questions.
The elected school board has an unusually chummy relationship with superintendent Ayres, whose work they are supposed to oversee on behalf of their constituents.
On the school board’s webpage, Ayres is shown front and center (see below picture), as if he is an elected official, just like the elected school board members shown in the picture. Ayres is not elected and thus not directly accountable to voters. Ayres is only accountable to the school board.
Since Ayres is not a member of the school board, it is unclear why he appears on the school board page at all.
As always….the Guardian reports and the readers decide.
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