Vanessa Baugh admitted on Thursday that she “wanted to make sure certain people were on the list” for vaccinations after emails revealed that she instructed county officials to create a list to allow her and others to skip the line. In response to criticism that county officials only allowed residents of the county’s two wealthiest zip codes to be vaccinated at the event, Baugh admitted that she herself chose zip codes.
At a public meeting with the county commissioner on Thursday, Baugh apologized for criticism of the pop-up vaccination site, but said that if I had the opportunity again, “I will do exactly what I did this time.” Baugh further explained that she “did exactly what (DeSantis) wanted” when organizing the vaccination campaign.
On Tuesday, at another public meeting with the county commissioner, Baugh said the vaccination campaign was started by DeSantis, a Republican, and involved real estate developer Rex Jensen. A press release on the Manatee County website said the goal was to vaccinate 3,000 people in three days.
“Commissioner Baugh asked us to pull a list of the people in the vaccine waiting pool who listed 34202 and 34211 as their residence,” wrote Manatee County Public Safety Director Jacob Saur on February 12.
Manatee County Commissioners voted on Jan. 6 to create a system that would distribute vaccines through a system that a source in the Manatee County government said was designed to be fairer. Rather than people struggling to register for the first available vaccine nominations when they became available, vaccine nominations are distributed across Manatee County through a random draw for eligible people who have registered to participate in the lottery.
Although Baugh instructed county officials to deviate from the protocol, she and the rest of the commissioners voted unanimously in favor on January 6.
In a public meeting with the county commissioner on Tuesday, county administrator Cheri Coryea confirmed that in planning the governor’s pop-up campaign, she told Baugh that they should use the random pool and not choose and choose people by postal codes. One of the emails obtained by CNN through a request for public records indicates that the county continues to use the random pool.
A separate email, also obtained by CNN through a request for public records, shows that Baugh did not stop there. Shows on February 15 that she also directed that she, Jensen and three others could cut the line.
A source informed about how the planning process was carried out called it a “VIP list”. In addition, two of the individuals on this VIP list lived outside the two zip codes required by Baugh. All five individuals on the list were eligible to receive the vaccine, but by adding them to the VIP list, Baugh guaranteed that they would skip the line by checking them.
Census records show that these two postal codes in Manatee County have the highest average household income and are predominantly white. Florida Department of Health records show that these two postal codes also have some of the lowest Covid-19 infection rates in the county.
Although DeSantis said the choice of postal codes “was a choice about where there is a high concentration of elderly people,” Baugh made it clear that she was behind the decision.
“It was my idea,” Baugh said at Wednesday’s meeting, but offered no explanation for his justification.
“I think that instead of everyone looking to have a problem, we need to realize that there are 3,000 people now being removed from our registry, which will hopefully open it sooner for everyone left,” she said.
Although Baugh used county staff and resources for the campaign, other county commissioners said at Tuesday’s public meeting that they were not consulted or notified of the pop-up. They only discovered this in the local newspaper.
CNN sought out Baugh for comment, but received no response.
Lisa Barnott, a spokeswoman for Jensen and Lakewood Ranch, told CNN in a statement that her involvement in the clinic was only “to help identify a location that could accommodate 1,000 people a day”.
“(Baugh) coordinated the use of the site as well as the use of the Manatee County registry of people who applied for vaccination,” said Barnott in the statement.
Barnott did not answer questions about Jensen being included in the so-called VIP list.
Manatee County had previously been praised by DeSantis for its effectiveness in vaccinating people and for being one of the first drive-thru vaccination programs in the United States. Now, the governor has threatened to withhold additional doses from the county after the person he has appointed to administer it – Baugh – has been criticized. DeSantis did not criticize Baugh or his methodology in organizing his vaccine campaign.
“If Manatee County doesn’t like us to do that, then we are totally fine with putting it in the counties that want it,” said DeSantis.
CNN contacted DeSantis’ press office for comment and received no response.