What Part I already established

A sitting Village of Indiantown council member has confirmed that Stephen G. Leighton, senior staff to U.S. Rep. Brian J. Mast (FL-21), filed a Florida public-records request seeking communications between named residents and elected officials. The described scope runs to the newly elected Village members and, separately, to communications of Christopher “Doc” Collins.

Part I set the open-record frame around that confirmation: the August 18 election, the September 1 personnel vote, the Tesoro Groves PUD, and the Village Manager’s July 2026 tally of $133.4 million in state utility appropriations. This file does not repeat that chronology. It asks the narrower question the first file left standing.

Rep. Mast is not known, from any document retrieved for this compilation, to have signed the letter, directed the search terms, or reviewed the production. Absence of a signature is not a finding that the Member is uninvolved. It is also not a finding that he is involved. It is a gap. What the public can see is the office, the senior staff name, and the described target list.

What the two named citizens have in common on the open record

The request as described does not say why these two names. The public record supplies the overlap without needing a theory of motive.

The overlap is not mysterious. Both names sat on the public side of the data-center fight. Both were visible in the same two-week window after the vote. Both are citizens. Citizens may discuss anything they want with anyone who will listen. That right does not shrink because the listener just won an election, and it does not enlarge because the requestor works in a congressional office.

What Chapter 119 actually reaches

Florida’s public-records law reaches records made or received in connection with the official business of an agency. It does not confiscate a private citizen’s entire correspondence. A request written as “all communications between the newly elected and Miller / Collins” is a sentence that sounds complete and is not. Village email is generally in. A text on a Village-issued device used for Village business is generally in. A conversation between two private people that never touched an agency account is not a Village record because a congressional office asked for it.

That limit matters for the reader as much as for the custodian. No office — local, state, or federal — is entitled to “all” of a citizen’s communications. Privilege, in the ordinary civic sense used here, is the remainder: family mail, legal counsel, medical and financial paper, and every private exchange that is not official business. The custodian’s job is to produce the agency’s records. The citizen’s job is not to donate the rest of his life.

The dais, split by the request as described

The two members left outside the described circle sat on the council that approved Tesoro Groves 5–0 on April 30, 2026. They are also the two votes against terminating the manager on September 1. A request that reads the new majority and not the holdovers is not a request for “how the Village talks.” It is a request for how the people who just changed the Village talk — and with which two citizens.

That may have an innocent explanation. New officials generate new mail. A constituent-services shop may start with the names in the newspaper. Those explanations are available to the office. They are not yet on file. Until they are, the cut itself is the fact the public is entitled to notice.

The chess-board problem

Chapter 119 is cheap for the requestor and expensive for the small agency and for the named private person. The agency must search, estimate, redact, and log. The named person must assume that anything he sent to a public account is about to be read by people he did not choose. Used once, that is sunshine. Used as a recurring move against the same two citizens after they have already published their positions in public hearings, on television, and on a website, it starts to look like a cost. Cost is not a crime. Cost is still a design choice.

Both the congressional office and some of the local figures around this land-use fight have a public reputation for using the legal toolbox — records demands, demand letters, counsel — as a way to move a board. Reputation is not evidence. Pattern is visible enough that a reader may ask whether this request is casework or a piece on the same board. The office can close that question by producing the letter, the search terms, and a one-sentence purpose. Until then the question stands.

9-to-5 is not how senior House staff work

Stephen G. Leighton is a longtime Martin County figure: former deputy sheriff, later district staff to then-Rep. Tom Rooney, and for years the senior local aide in Rep. Mast’s operation. Local reporting and commercial directories have called him chief of staff. House payroll filings for early 2025 list him as Deputy Chief of Staff, with AnnMarie Graham-Barnes listed as Chief of Staff. Either title is senior enough that a records demand from that desk is not junior casework.

Senior House staff do not become private persons at 5:01 p.m. Official resources — the title, the letterhead, the @mail.house.gov address, the district operation — travel with the work. House ethics rules restrict the use of official resources for unofficial and campaign purposes. This file does not claim a violation of those rules. It notes that the public cannot test the line until it can see the incoming letter: which address, which signature block, which purpose sentence, which search terms.

Granted, a person in that chair is still a citizen. Citizens may file Chapter 119 requests. The statute does not require a statement of purpose. A deputy sheriff who later works for a Member is not barred from asking a clerk for paper. The interesting fact is not the right. It is the combination: senior federal staff, a request described as reaching only the new majority plus two citizen names, filed in the weeks after those names helped change the local board that sits on industrial land inside the Member’s district.

The counsel web that is on paper — and the strand that is not

The name that belongs on the Leighton file is not Nathan. It is Ethan J. Loeb of Bartlett Loeb Hinds Thompson & Angelos, PLLC (Tampa and Stuart). Martin County Circuit Court records list Loeb among counsel of record for the plaintiff in Leighton, Stephen G. v. Merker, Sarah, filed February 21, 2023. Other plaintiff counsel on that caption include Elliot Parker Haney, Nicholas M. Gieseler, Steven Geoffrey Gieseler, Alexzander Gonano, and Cynthia G. Angelos. Defendant Sarah Merker appears with counsel of record in later filings. The docket was still taking paper in 2026.

Contemporaneous local reporting described the suit as a defamation / libel action over the “Martin County Watchdog” Facebook page, with demand letters from Leighton’s attorneys also sent to Martin County and to Merker’s former employer. This file does not retry that case and does not find that anyone defamed anyone. It records the caption, the counsel, and the date. A lawsuit is a lawful tool. It is also the most expensive square on the same chessboard already described: paper that costs the named private person time, counsel, and silence.

That is the sourced strand. Loeb is, on the open docket, Leighton’s man in the Merker case.

Alternate custodians on the open record

Nothing in this table accuses the people named of misconduct. It lists the desks a land-use researcher would actually search if the question were “how did Indiantown get from agricultural fringe to a 5,722-acre light-industrial conversion and a 6.0 MGD plant.” Several of these names already appear in Talk About Martin compilations, Village minutes, and Chapter 112 / Chapter 119 correspondence posted in 2026.

A request that named those desks plus the developer file, the RO plant correspondence, and the incoming lobbyists would look like ordinary oversight of a district infrastructure fight. A request that names two citizens and the new three, and not those desks, looks like something else. “Something else” is not a charge. It is the shape of the paper.

1. Will the Village post the incoming Leighton / Mast-office letter, the search terms, the custodian list, and the production log the same way it would post any other Chapter 119 file?
2. Was the request sent from an official @mail.house.gov account on official letterhead, or from a personal address? Which signature block?
3. What official purpose sentence, if any, accompanied the request?
4. Why these two citizen names and not the developer file, the utility file, or the holdover council members who already voted the industrial framework?
5. Why the new three and not all five?
6. Does the office agree that citizen-to-citizen communications that never touched an agency account are outside Chapter 119, and will it say so in writing so named residents are not left guessing?
7. Has Rep. Mast reviewed, directed, or been briefed on the request? If the answer is no, will the office say so?
8. Ethan J. Loeb is on the caption of Leighton v. Merker. Has the same firm, or the same lawyer, entered an appearance for Silver Fox 606 LLC, Nelson Ferreira, or any related entity before the Village? If so, on which agenda and in which minutes?
9. The draft Silver Fox PUD names Robert A. Burson. If a second lawyer spoke for that applicant at the dais, which record shows it?
10. Is there a public filing that ties Scott Watson and Stephen Leighton as partners, co-clients, co-directors, or co-plaintiffs — or is the overlap only that both men work the same county?

Part III is not this document. It will examine, from public sources only, the working relationship between Rep. Brian J. Mast and Stephen G. Leighton, and Mast’s public political journey from enlisted soldier and EOD technician through injury, recovery, election in 2016, and the subsequent congressional career — including what the public financial disclosures, FEC reports, property records, and contemporaneous local reporting actually show about resources along that path.

That file will not treat battlefield service as a smear or as a shield. Mast’s Army record, Purple Heart, and Bronze Star are on the open biographical record and will be stated as such. It will not invent a net-worth number. Commercial “net worth” trackers disagree with each other and with older OpenSecrets personal-finance midpoints; Part III will use the underlying disclosures, not the recap sites. “Broke to famous” is a headline, not a finding. The finding, if there is one, will be whatever the dated paper supports.

Part III will also return to the 24-hour question in a tighter form: when a Member chairs Foreign Affairs and a senior aide is a lifelong local operator, where does district casework end and political intelligence begin. That line is drawn with documents, not with adjectives.

• Talk About Martin, Sept. 17, 2026: “Why is Brian Mast’s Asst Chief of Staff making records requests in Indiantown…” — Part I public briefing and posted exhibits. talkaboutmartin.com
• Talk About Martin, Sept. 15, 2026: “Walking into heavy industrial doors” — Silver Fox after the withdrawn PUD; Heavy Industrial / computer-and-data-processing use line.
• Treasure Coast Newspapers, Aug. 18–21, 2026: Seat 3, 4, and 5 results; data-center issues as a focal election question; “cleaned house” framing.
• CBS12 / WPTV / WPBF / Treasure Coast Newspapers, Sept. 1–6, 2026: Village Council terminates Manager Taryn Kryzda 3–2 at a data-center meeting; Giardino appointed; resident quotes; Wade Vose resignation on election night.
• Village of Indiantown Council roster and staff directory, indiantownfl.gov — Deanna Freeman, Community Development Director; current council seats.
• Tesoro Groves PUD approval, April 30, 2026, 5–0; FPL counsel statement that the vote was rezoning, not a site-specific project.
• Silver Fox 606 LLC materials previously posted (environmental assessment prepared for Nelson Ferreira; draft PUD agreement naming Village Administrator Taryn Kryzda as notice address).
• LegiStorm / House payroll, Q1 2025: Stephen G. Leighton listed Deputy Chief of Staff; AnnMarie Graham-Barnes listed Chief of Staff. Local identification of Leighton as Mast chief of staff in Treasure Coast reporting (including Nov. 2024 Fontenay column on Mast/Leighton as a working pair).
• ZoomInfo / Datanyze directories (commercial, not official): Leighton listed as Mast chief of staff; prior roles Deputy Sheriff, Martin County Sheriff’s Office, and District Director to Rep. Tom Rooney.
• Talk About Martin compilations, April–May 2026: ECI / PZAB / Terra Lago CDD narrative naming Scott Watson, Kevin Powers, David Powers, Danielle Williamson; Chapter 119 correspondence with Village Attorney Wade Vose.
• Indiantown Realty public biography of Kevin Powers — incorporation leadership, SFWMD governing board service, Indiantown Realty principal. Wife named as Marsha on that page. Powers is not Deanna Freeman’s husband.
• Working identification, not yet a posted exhibit: Kevin Freedman named locally as spouse of Village Community Development Director Deanna Freeman. To be sourced to a public form or withdrawn.
• Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress; House Foreign Affairs Committee biography of Rep. Brian J. Mast — Army service, EOD, injury Sept. 19, 2010, medals, election 2017, FL-21 after redistricting. Used here only to mark the ground Part III will cover.
• Working fact, not yet a posted exhibit: Village council member confirmation that a Leighton / Mast-office Chapter 119 request exists and names the communications described in Part I. Exhibit to be added when the letter is produced.
• Martin County Circuit Court caption: Leighton, Stephen G. v. Merker, Sarah, filed Feb. 21, 2023. Plaintiff counsel listed on the public case summary include Ethan J. Loeb, Elliot Parker Haney, Nicholas M. Gieseler, Steven Geoffrey Gieseler, Alexzander Gonano, and Cynthia G. Angelos. Docket still receiving filings in 2026, including a March 5, 2026 notice of appearance for the defendant.
• Martin County Press, Nov. 6, 2024, “The Unbearable Lightness of Lawsuits” — contemporaneous description of the Leighton–Merker action as a defamation / libel suit over the Martin County Watchdog Facebook page; demand letters to the County and to Crary Buchanan. Cited for the public description of the case, not as a finding on the merits.
• Draft Silver Fox Grid Station PUD agreement posted on Talk About Martin — owner notice block: Robert A. Burson, P.O. Box 1620, Stuart; manager signature block: Nelson Ferreira, Silver Fox 606 LLC.
• Searched and not found for this version: a Village agenda, minutes line, or video exhibit identifying Ethan Loeb as speaking counsel for Silver Fox 606 at a Village Council or PZAB hearing; a public filing that makes Scott Watson and Stephen Leighton partners, co-clients, or co-directors.