 State Attorney Dennis Ward, left, was on US 1 Radio yesterday morning with news coordinator Bill Becker. After doing a segment on the Monica Acevedo sentencing, Bill had Dennis come back for another segment of the program. In that segment Dennis expanded the discussion to other areas, including the need for county ethics laws regulating lobbyist registration, county employees accepting gifts from outsiders, and conflict of interest. Dennis specifically mentioned a smelly situation at Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority, which I had only just the day before discussed with County Commissioner George Neugent.
Read what follows and tell me if you think it’s a smelly situation.
FKAA recently asked for bids for an external audit. Six firms submitted bids. All firms were deemed qualified. The list was paired down to three firms. One of the three was Orpeza & Parks, which had done FKAA’s external audits for 30 years. Another firm was Grau & Assoc. The third firm was Marcum Rachlin. (Forgive me if I don’t have these three firms’ names spelled exactly right.)
FKAA Board Vice-Chairman Rose Dell learned that Macrum Rachlin had done work for the City of Marahon, so she asked FKAA’s internal auditor to check with Marathon to see how its dealings with Marcum Rachlin had gone. Marathon came back thumbs up for Macum Rachlin. Dell reported this to the FKAA Board at its last meeting, at which one board member was absent.
Orpeza & Parks bid was for $106,000. Grau & Assoc.’s bid was for $85,000. Marcum Rachlin’s bid was for $58,000. Before the FKAA Board members turned in their rankings, Rose Dell asked the Board if any of them had had personal or business dealings with any of the three bidding firms. David Ritz said he has used Orpeza Park for the past 18 years. The other three directors said nothing. The directors gave their rankings. All directors present but Rose Dell ranked Orpeza & Parks first. Dell ranked Marcum Rachlin first. Orpeza & Parks got the contract for this year’s external audit, even though its bid was considerably higher than Marcum Rachlin’s. There was discussion about negotiating with Orpeza & Parks, to reduce its bid. The matter was to be finalized at a later meeting.
After hearing of this, George mentioned the selection of Keith & Schnars, for a $1,000,000 fee, to help the County develop a new Comprehensive Plan. George said other firms came in with lower bids but the county commissioners selected Keith & Schnars because it seemed far more capable of doing the job. I said, “What if you had been a stockholder in Keith & Schnars? Would you have had to recuse yourself from the selection process?” George said he would not have to recuse himself, because he would not be getting paid anything by Keith & Schars. I respectfully disagreed. George said, what if this was Ford Motor Company, with many shareholders; would he have to recuse himself? I said probably. Then he said Keith & Schnars is probably a closely-held company. I said that’s why I used them to ask my question.
I didn’t get the impression George thought David Ritz should have recused himself from the selection of Orpez & Parks. Perhaps David being the Despot of Ocean Reef Club, who decides which candidates Ocean Reef will back in local elections, had nothing to do with George’s position. Perhaps George playing golf from time to time at Ocean Reef Club had nothing to do with his position. Perhaps George simply believes that unless money is coming directly into his pocket from someone who comes before the County Commission, he does not have to recuse himself. George saw nothing wrong with the lucrative no-bid contracts the Guidance Clinic and David Rice had with the Sheriff and the County, when David was CEO of the Guidance Clinic and a county commissioner.
I’m of the school that if something bears the mere appearance of impropriety, then a government official should not do it. I am of the school that David Ritz should have recused himself from the selection of Orpez & Parks. To his credit, David disclosed his prior relationship with Orpez & Parks. Not to his credit, David only did so after Rose Dell asked if any of the FKAA Board members had dealings with Orpez & Parks? Given how I have seen things go in this community, I wonder if other FKAA Board members were not as honest as David Ritz? If not, and if they get found out, then I sure wouldn’t want for Dennis Ward to hear about it. We now have a State Attorney who works for We the People, for a change. AMEN.
It is well known in accounting/auditing circles that you need to bring in a fresh external audit team every few years to make sure the previous external audit team was not missing something the client was doing, and to make sure there were no shenanigans going on between the previous external audit team and the client. For the same external auditor to be used 30 years straight is a very big red flag. For the same external auditor, in a competitive bidding with other qualified external auditor firms, to make the highest bid by some margin and still get the bid is another big red flag. For a FKAA Board member, its Chairman, actually, who has done business for a long time with the 30-year external auditor, to vote to retain that auditor in the face of much lower bids, is yet another big red flag. For the external auditor to be a local firm (think bubba), and the other two external auditors to be from the mainlaind (thing non-bubbas), is yet another red flag.
Another red flag flew at the last meeting when Chairman Ritz said he would be out of town at the next scheduled Board meeting, which meant Vice-Chairman Rose Dell would chair that meeting. Upon hearing this news, Board member Bob Dean tried to get finalizing the new contract with Orpez & Parks put off until Chairman Ritz could be present. Before the next meeting is held, I believe it is really important that someone find out if any more members of the FKAA Board are doing business with Orpez & Parks. One Board member was not present at the last meeting. And, as I stated above, this being the Keys, I simply don’t trust public officials to necessarily tell the truth all of the time. I wish I didn’t feel that way, but I know I have lots of company.
As you are thinking this over, also be thinking over that the City of Marathon once hired Keith & Schnars and paid them a $500,000 fee. By and by, Marathon had to fire Keith & Schanrs and have city staff do what Keith & Schnars had been paid $500,000 to do. This was before our County Commission hired Keith & Schnars for $1,000,000, to do what county staff could have done for what we were already paying them. Do you see county employee raises flapping away to Keith & Schnars? If not, you must own stock in Keith & Schnars.
Sloan Bashinsky
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, theDistrict 2 county commission candidate who keeps looking for ways to get himself bumped off
 I attended Monique Acevedo’s sentencing hearing in Key West yesterday. Judge Mark Jones gave her 8 years in prison, followed by 22 years probation and restitution of the $413,000 she had stolen from the school system.
Driving back up to my place on Little Torch Key, I called Bill Loewy, who has been up on the mainland for a couple of weeks, and gave him the news. Then, I shared my theory on how Danny Coll and his backers had designed a slick campaign to defeat George Neugent in the Republican primary. Bill said I should share that theory with George .
So I called George, to see if he was at his county commissioner office on Big Pine Key, the next Key up US 1 from Little Torch. I got his voice mail. It was closing on 1 p.m, and I decided to head to Big Pine to have lunch with Rose Dell and her mother, Coco, who own and operate Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine shopping center. Originally from Nicaragua, they came to America when Rose was very young. The story of their history in the restaurant business and the Keys would make a good human interest story in the Keynoter or Citizen.
Anyway, I walk into Coco’s and grab the only stool left at the counter, only then to see my left-hand diner is George Neugent his own self. I say, ”There you go running my traps again.” I had learned that line from George when he accused me of running his traps after finding me in Coco’s one morning for breakfast, eating his regular Coco’s breakfast – huevos rancheros. My regular Coco’s breakfast, too.
I let out what happened at Monique’s sentencing hearing after she pled straight guilty, not no contest (nolo contendre). Then I tell George that Bill Lowey told me to tell him my conspiracy theory about how Danny Coll’s sneak attack. George doesn’t buy it. He says the outcome would have been the same vote split, if I hadn’t entered the race and closed the Republican primary to just registered Republican voters. Maybe so. Against Danny, George would have swept the Ocean Reef precinct, and, as they say, all the rest would have been history.
Ocean Reef going for George was the upper Keys centerpiece of Danny’s strategy. The lower centerpiece of Danny’s strategy was Key West and its large Cuban-American voter contingency. The middle strategy was Danny’s personal and business presence on Big Pine and nearby Keys. The Ocean Reef negative-vibe strategy ran down the Keys, the Key West positive-vibe strategy ran up the Keys. Surely I jest. Read on.
During the primary campaign, Danny Coll’s good buddy, Mark Howell, Editor of Solares Hill, did a huge documentary spread on Cuban-Americans, in which Danny was one of two featured, successful Keys people who had been born in Cuba. It was a good piece. However, it ran in direct violation of a Solares Hill and Citizen (which owns Solares Hill) policy of not giving candidates for office gratuitous press coverage before the election. I knew of that policy, having had Mark Howell himself once explain it to me. So I wrote to Mark and said to forget me, but Solares Hill owed George Neugent equal treatment, to level the playing field in his and Danny’s race. Not a peep did I hear back from Mark.
At Coco’s yesterday, George chipped in another piece of Danny’s strategy. Just before the election, Danny ran radio ads in Spanish up and down the Keys, which George said had caught him napping and had enhanced Danny’s showing in the primary. But for those ads, George said, his margin of victory would have been greater.
A lot of people do not realize that nearly all Cuban-Americans are Republicans because President John F. Kennedy, a Democrat, chickened out in the middle of the American-backed invasion of Cuba, launched to oust Fidel Castro and return Cuba to Cuban expatriates living in exile in America.
I had never considered the possibility of a Cuban-American voting block in the Keys, until I dreamt of large Hispanic men, wearing black suits, black ties and white shirts moving in on and taking over a community in which I was involved. I wrote about that dream, and that it had caused me to wonder if there was a Cuban-American voting block in the Keys, with ties to South-Florida Cuban Americans? If so, was Danny Coll their front man? If so, why would they choose Danny when he had so many troubles in his personal and business life? Why wouldn’t they choose a cleaner candidate?
(See my 7/27/2010 Men In Black – District 2 County Commission Race post to goodmorningfloridakeys.com. You can get to that post by clicking on its title in the previous sentence.)
Enter Richard Sands, who wrote a letter to the editor about a week before the primary elections, which the Citizen published. In his letter, Sands said the above post revealed the real reason I was backing George Neugent and getting onto Danny Coll. Sands said I am a bigot and am racially prejudiced against Hispanic people.
Sands letter actually was crafted by Danny Coll’s campaign manager, Tim “Hit Man” Gratz, whose reputation in not entirely clean campaign tactics, according to what I read on the Internet, dates back to Watergate times. The Internet search also revealed Tim had shown keen interest in Cuban-assassination-of John-F-Kennedy theories, which is what drew Tim and Danny and Mark Howell together. Mark had run a number of pieces in Solares Hill about that watery topic.
The Citizen published next day George’s reply to the Sands/Gratz letter, but the Citizen waited until after the Republican primary to publish my reply, which I had sent in before George had sent his. The Citizen waited to publish my reply, because it didn’t want Cuban-American/Hispanic voters to see it before the election. Here it is again.
In a recent letter to the Editor, Richard Sands accused me of being bigoted and racially prejudiced toward Hispanic people, and he said that‘s why I have been telling people to vote for George Neugent in the District 2 county commission Republican primary.
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident by my having eaten several meals a week at El Siboney in Key West, until it was sold to Hispanic people I didn’t know and the people who had been like family to me faded away.
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident in the five or so meals a week I have with Rose Dell and her mother at Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine Key shopping center, where I cut up with Rose and her mother, and with gringos and Hispanics, and anyone else I can get to play with me. Rose nearly split her sides laughing when I told her of Sands’ accusations.
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident in the number of Hispanic people, usually men, but a few women, I pick up at bus stops on US 1 and give a free ride to Key West or up the Keys.
As I wrote to someone the day before Sands’ letter to the editor was published (later published to goodmorningfloridakeys.com), I like Danny Coll; if he gets his business and private life straightened out, he might make a good county commissioner in four years and his Cuban origin might come in real handy if/after the US normalizes relations with Cuba.
I think it was two years ago that the Citizen adopted a policy of not endorsing candidates for office, which I had sometimes written was what the Citizen should do. Report the news, present interviews with the candidates, then let the voters decide which candidate to vote for. Alas, the Citizen, and its captured monkey rag, do not follow their own rules. The big rag and the little rag backed Danny Coll all the way. If you don’t now believe this in your heart, you need to see a psychiatrist.
Flash forward to today’s Citizen (keysnews.com), which contains a letter to the editor from the real author of the Sands’ letter. Read Tim Gratz’s letter today, which again does not tell readers how to get to my7/27/2001 Men In Black – District 2 County Commission Race post to goodmorningfloridakeys.com. Observe how Tim twists what I wrote into his own psychotic dellusion.
After making the comparison, ask yourself why in the world Danny Coll associated himself with Tim Gratz? Ask yourself if you would want Danny Coll for a county commissioner, knowing he was being steered behind the scenes by Tim Gratz, a disbarred lawyer, who stole fiduciary funds from a client. A father being prosecuted in the courts for not paying child support. Ask yourself why Danny Coll associates with Tim Gratz?
Back to the District 2 race between George Nugent and me. Here is another erectile-dysfunction attack on bigpinekey.com‘s Coconut Telegraph blog (yesterday):
[The Devil Made Me Do It] Most of us just laugh at our perennial candidate who claims he does things because God tells him what to do. How many times have we read that someone does harm to someone because God told him to do it? We have seen his vicious writing attacks on a number of folks. Because our local weirdo takes no personal responsibility for what he does (he blames it on the “voices”). Maybe we should realize he has the potential to do harm because God told him to do it.
Right, the Devil made me back George Neugent over Danny Coll. Right, the Devil sent me that dream about Danny Coll being a front man for South Florida Cuban-Americans. Right, the Devil made me file in the District 2 race, which closed the Republican primary to only registered Republicans and very well might have stopped Danny Coll from beating George in that primary. Right, the Devil made me write this post today.
You can bet the conch farm the Devil is running whoever put up that comment on the Coconut Telegraph, I suppose one of George Neugent’s groupies. You can bet the conch farm the Devil is running Tim Gratz. I told Danny Coll to get rid of Gratz. When Danny didn’t do it, that told me the Devil was running Danny, too. What a bucket of snakes.
Sloan Bashinsky
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, the infuriating candidate from Little Torch Key
 Monique Acevedo
8:45 a.m. this morning brings Monique Acevedo before Judge Mark Jones, to enter a plea of guilty or nolo contendre to charges of swiping around $413,000 from our school system. Nolo contendre basically means the charges against the defendant are not denied but the defendant does not formally admit them either. Both pleas are guilty pleas, but nolo simply sounds a little nicer. Ether plea saves Monique a trial by a jury of her peers, and puts the entire load for determining her fate on Judge Jones.
Monique’s husband, Randy, our former Superintendent of Schools, was already convicted for helping cover up Monique’s theft. His case is on appeal.
After his conviction, before he changed lawyers, Randy’s local lawyer, a former assistant prosecuting State Attorney, was arguing in the local press that Randy was charged and convicted of helping Monique cover up crimes for which she had not yet been convicted, so how could Randy be convicted, if Monique was not yet convicted?
That defense was about the same as two apprehended bank robbers, one driving the get-away car, the other going into the bank to stick it up. The get-away driver is tried first and defends on the ground that the stick-up defendant has not yet been convicted, so the get-away driver cannot be found guilty.
Horseshit dreamed up by defense lawyers. If, beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury believes from the evidence that a bank robbery was committed by the stick-up defendant, and if the jury, beyond a reasonable doubt, believes the other defendant/accomplice was waiting outside the bank in the get-away car, then the jury can convict the accomplice even though the stick-up defendant has not yet been tried and convicted.
Now before Judge Jones is the stick-up defendant. Now comes the moment of truth. Will Judge Jones go easy on Monique, perhaps even give her house arrest for a while, followed by probation and a long-term restitution payment plan? Probation is what Randy received, even through he showed no remorse at his sentencing hearing and admitted not that he had done anything wrong; and then he appealed his conviction. Or will Judge Jones put Monique in prison? If so, for how long? And under what terms of eventual release? That’s what we all are waiting to learn today.
Monique will be allowed to put on character witnesses, if she wishes, and use their testimony, and the fact that Monique and Randy have minor children, and the fact that Monique might have been mentally deranged and on mind-altering drugs when she raped the school system, to try to persuade Judge Jones to go light on her. Assistant State Attorney Mark Wilson will be able to cross-examine those witnesses, which might turn out pretty embarrassing for them in a community still in shock and outrage over what Monique and Randy did.
Shock and outraged evidenced by the fact that just last week this community at the polls, by about 2/3 of the votes cast, revoked the historical election of the Superintendent of Schools method and replaced it with a Superintendent who will be hired, supervised and fired by the School Board. The Acevedos were the reason for this change in selection of School Superintendent. Several times previously, attempts to make this change were soundly defeated at the polls.
After Monique’s rape and pillage was discovered, Randy refused to take a voluntary paid administrative leave. A majority of the School Board, Steven Pibramsky and John Dick dissenting, refused to force Randy to take paid administrative leave. The School Board and school system were in pandemonium. They had what appeared to be a criminal for a School Superintendent. An elected official, Randy could not be fired by the Board. Only the Governor could remove Randy. The Governor waited until Randy was arrested and booked, then the Governor put Randy on leave without pay. Then, after some searching around, the Governor appointed an interim Superintendent, who is still on the job.
That about one-third of the voters wanted to keep an elected School Superintendent in the face of all of that astounds me. That this county ever even had an elected School Superintendent to begin with astounds me. It was a popularity contest. The Superintendent didn’t even need to have experience in a school system. In fact, Randy had never taught school a day in his life. In fact, Randy did not have a teaching certificate. In fact, Randy knew no more about teaching school than I know, but he became our Superintendent of Schools because people who liked him voted him into office.
Not satisfied with his own lack of qualifications, Randy sought to enhance his wife’s lack of qualifications. He got an outside firm to jimmy the requirements for a position Monique lacked the qualifications to assume. Then, Randy promoted Monique to that position. He did not tell the School Board he had done this until some time later. This new position put Monique in charge of areas where she now could steal from the school system. She used the new position well. And when she got caught, she got really uppity about it, as did Randy.
Monique’s Public Defender lawyer, and maybe character witnesses, will try to persuade Judge Jones to treat Monique like a common thief. Like she only embezzled $413,000 from a corporation for which she worked. Like she had worked for Key West developer-business mogul Ed Swift, and she had embezzled $413,000 from Ed’s company. Corporate white collar theft.
It will be argued by defense counsel that all that’s really necessary here is to put Monique on house arrest for a while; then on probation, and for her to pay all of the money back over time like it’s a mortgage. It will be argued that this is fair and appropriate, because that’s how other white collar embezzlers have been treated by the courts.
Excuse me?
Monique did not steal from a developer mogul for whom she worked. Monique stole from an entire school system and its community. She was a high official in the school system. She was a role model for the children. She was entrusted with our children’s welfare. She was entrusted with the taxpayers’ money. What Monique did, with Randy’s assistance, tore the fabric of the soul of this community to shreds. The community lost all faith in the school system, which was exacerbated by three of the School Board members vacillating on what to do about Monique after her crime became known. The Board members who did not vaccilate were Steven Pibramsky and John Dick.
After it was clear Monique was a thief, and a big time one at that, School Board Chairman Andy Griffith eventually came out in favor of giving Monique house arrest and then probation, along with restitution. Idiotic.
School Board members Pibramsky and Dick led the charge from the get-go, to deal with the Acevedos, while the other three Board members played safe. Pibramsky and his family received serious threats, which put them in fear for their and their small children’s safety. But for Pibramsky and Dick, the Acevedos might have gotten away with it.
State Attorney Dennis Ward has come under terrific pressure to cut Monique slack, treat her like a mere employee thief of corporate money. Make no mistake, the very people who did not want State Attorney Dennis Ward to be elected are trying to get Monique cut slack, because her husband, Randy, is a conch. As in, he was born in the Keys. He is a Key Wester. Yep, a bubba. Bubbas are supposed to get different (translate better) treatment because they are bubbas.
Make no mistake, if Dennis Ward had not been elected, Randy Acevedo probably would not have been charged by the previous State Attorney. Make no mistake, Dennis Ward is not going to do what the bubbas want him to do. Dennis is not going to make it easy on Monique or Judge Jones. Dennis and his troops did the job they were supposed to do, the job Dennis was elected to do. Now it’s time for Judge Jones to do his job.
There is one other thing that needs to be addressed today. School system administrative employee Kathy Reizel blew the whistle on Monique and Randy. Kathy didn’t blow it quickly, but she darn well did blow it. She blew it in an environment of retribution for going against the power structure. She blew it because she could not live any longer with what she knew was going on.
For not blowing the whistle when she first got wind of what Monique was doing, and of Randy covering for it, Kathy Reizel was fired by the new Superintendent of Schools, whom the Governor appointed. What chance now that another school system employee, or any county employee, will get fed up and finally blow the whistle? What was the new Superintendent thinking? People have been maimed and even killed in the Keys for doing less than what Kathy Reizel did. People above Kathy in the school system were not axed, even though they were part of the attitude that allowed this cataclysm to occur.
Kathy Reizel was the State Attorney’s chief prosecuting witness against Randy at his trial. But for Kathy Reitzel, Randy would not have been convicted. But for Cathy Reizel, Monique would not be going before Judge Jones today. If Judge Jones doesn’t put Monique in prison today, what kind of message will that send to ever school student and adult in the Keys? How many Monique copycats will that spawn?
Here’s what Steven Pibramsky wrote to Dennis Ward, in separate letter from what the School Board sent to Dennis:
“It is important for our community that justice is served and that any sentence be significant enough to serve as an example that the trust in our educational system serves as the bedrock of our community and that this trust should not be blatantly violated with impunity.”
Sloan Bashinsky, citizen
From yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph at bigpinekey.com:
If you paid any mind to Sloan throughout the years you would know that he is a total weirdo and it disgust me because he is an intelligent person. He could of had a very productive life and been a great asset to mankind/humanity. However he has chosen to waste his life by being a perennial aggravator and instigator. I can tell you first hand though that he does have a propensity for violence. The evening of the forum at The Botanical Garden I experienced that first hand when upon my exit (I had a death in the family and had to leave before it was over). I had just found out that Sloan was a last minute entry into the district 2 commission race so I told him that his antics were getting old and that he was not funny anymore. As I headed toward the parking lot he assaulted me from behind by jerking my arm and just about pulling it out of socket. I warned him not to ever put his hands on me again. Rather than respond in kind I wanted to summon a deputy and file charges but my great nephew had just passed away as a result of a tragic swimming accident so I had more urgent matters to tend to at the time and I was not injured so I let him get away with it. I saw him at other forums after that and thought maybe he would at least apologize but the guy apparently has no remorse about anything, as I am told by others. If you think Mario used to have anger management issues just wait until you experience the wrath of this maniac and see that crazed look in his eyes. I know he makes many decisions based on dreams but this instance must of been a spontaneous nightmare. Now nobody can say that I didn’t warn you about rubbing Sloan Bashinsky the wrong way & don’t forget to look over your shoulder if you do. ~1somostcrane@bellsouth.net
Somostcrane was so enraged that I had filed and closed the District 2 Republican primary to Republicans, that I thought maybe he was going to have a stroke. I thought to myself he surely was a Danny Coll backer, because there was no way a George Neugent backer would be upset with my closing the Republican primary.
As Somostcrane and I both were leaving the affair, he gave me another angry look. When I tried to speak to him, he growled he didn’t want to hear it and walked on. I reached out and grasped his upper left arm about like I would a heavy door I was opening, trying to get him to hear me out. He wrenched his arm away, growled for me to get my hands off it him, and stormed off.
Now I, too, was riled, because I don’t like hit-and-runs. Trailing close behind, I said, loud enough for him and others nearby to hear, that I must be doing something right to have gotten him so riled up. Then, I stopped walking and turned around and headed back to where it had started between us.
Several people I knew standing nearby asked what had gotten in him? I explained and they said not to worry about it. I said, “He has a three year-old-dick and a three-year-old brain.” He was too far away to hear that, but I wrote about it and maybe he heard about what I wrote. I would have loved for him to have brought a deputy back to speak with the people who saw me nearly tear his arm out of the socket. Anger management, my ass. He was so mad that I had closed the Republcian primary, that he could hardly breathe.
Next time I saw Somostcrane was at the Hometown PAC forum at the Key West airport. He was wearing a “Mario” sticker and was sitting right behind me with other people wearing Mario stickers. I said to him, “I’m trying my best to help your candidate.” He said something that sort of sounded like, “Thanks.”
Somostcrane would be real surprised to learn what all I have remorse over, but he might not believe it. I have remorse over every rough work assignment I undertake, including what you are reading here today. I undertake the assignments anyway, because the consequences to me of disobedience are horrendous. Every time I ran for office, including this time, was an assignment. Told to file by the Boss, I filed. Simple as that.
Which brings me to this commentary in yesterday’s Solares Hill Sunday supplement of Key West Citizen:
Many observers believe Coll might have won the seat had the District Two primary been open to Democrats and Independents. Due to the entry of Sloan Bashinsky as an Independent in the race, it was not. [The Florida constitution “closes” primaries to voters registered to the relevant party but all can vote if there are not other candidates vying for a position.) Some would argue it is anomalous when a party primary is closed solely due to the entry of an Independent candidate who is not considered a serious one. Bashinsky has written that he entered the District 2 race to preclude Democrats and Independents from voting for Coll, adding that he did so at the urging of Neugent. Which has ended up effectively disenfranchising Democrats.
My candidacy didn’t also effectively disenfranchise Independents, who could have voted in the Republican primary, if I had not filed? Actually, there were a number of closed primaries in this year’s races, including the District 4 race, where two independents filed for Mario Di Gennaro’s county commission seat. If they had not filed, David Rice would now be that seat’s county commissioner.
Registered Democrats and Independents had plenty of time before the primaries to register as Republicans and vote in the Republican primaries. Danny Coll wrote that very thing in a letter to the editor. I wrote it a few times on my websites. We both criticized partisan primary voting in local elections. Maybe what happened in the District 2 race this year pissed off enough voters to launch a grassroots movement to end partisan primary voting in the Keys. I hope so.
As for my entering the District 2 race because George Neugent asked me to enter it, what I wrote about that was I got to talking with George during a break at a County Commission meeting a few days before the deadline for filing. He asked if I was going to file, and I said I was still hoping God was going to give me a free pass. George said it wouldn’t seem right not having me in the race, referring back to 2006, when I ran against him without any other candidates having filed.
I had written many times of being told in dreams early in the year that I was going to run for the District 2 seat again, and of my strong aversion to doing it. I had wailed and moaned plenty about it. Maybe two or three weeks before I had that conversaton with George, Danny Coll put up a post on the Coconut Telegraph, blasting me for the way I was behaving; he told me to file or shut up. Danny was the first messenger from God, George was the second. More messages came after I spoke with George. So I filed, albeit reluctantly and with remorse.
As for criticism that I am not a serious candidate, why, then, do people get upset with me? If I was not a serious candidate, if I was of no consequence, if I was crazy, I would be ignored.
Received this email early this morning . . .
Just thought I would tell you that on my desk cabinet door I hang things of great importance to me. A while back, months ago I suppose I cut and pasted your poem to a notebook page and printed it out and hung it where I could read it daily. Not only me, but all of the people that ever happen to use my computer.. and there are plenty of them. Anyway it is the poem that starts out :
I know what it is to love fully
have my heart broken by death
and by loved ones’ rejections,
Over and over again,
so I can love even more
and ends with:
I know what it is to explain God
time after time after time again.
Something demands I keep explaining:
Maybe someone will listen,
Maybe me.
– I love this poem, just wanted you to know it means a lot to me. Thanks for writing it.
Sandy Downs
The poem fell out of me in mid-April 2001. Here is all of it.
I know what it is to love fully,
have my heart broken by death
and by loved ones’ rejections,
Over and over again,
So I can love even more.
I know what it is to be engulfed in pain,
Awash in evil,
Terrified, enraged, despaired,
Believing God has again forsaken me,
Then be given the truth
that again makes me free.
I know what it is to doubt,
Be lost and wandering
time and time again,
Then be rescued yet again
and my faith grows deeper.
I know what it is to blindly trust,
Then be destroyed by betrayal
time and time again,
Until I trust only God.
I know what it is to have much
and be completely of this world,
Then have it all taken away
and be in the world but not of it.
I know what it is to fail in this world,
And fail and fail and fail:
The world’s greatest failure,
I can serve only God.
I know what it is to give
and give and give and give;
I cannot stop giving
because giving is receiving.
I know what it is to explain God
time after time after time again.
Something demands I keep explaining:
Maybe someone will listen,
Maybe me.
No way I invented that poem. It was given to me, just as running for the District 2 seat this year was given to me.
Sloan Bashinsky
policital advertisement, approved and paid for by me with a great deal of remorse
Email quibble with a Summerland Key snowbird spawned by yesterday’s Castle Walls & El Sloan post. Maybe God sent him just to make sure I never went stupid and wondered if I might get any votes from Ocean Reef Club.
One of my bridge partners here spends winters at Ocean Reef. She is a nice person. Why should she not get police protection?
This has nothing to do with your friend being a nice person, or not a nice person. It has to be with your friend living in a super upscale, gated, probably mostly Anglo community that does not let the public come in there, yet it has a sheriff substation paid for out of the sheriff budget, which is funded by the county treasury, which is funded by the public.
If Ocean Reef wants to keep the sheriff substation inside of the castle walls, or nearby, same result, as Ocean Reef is out at the end of nowhere and the substation is for Ocean Reef, they need to let the public come in there. Or they don’t have the substation and pick up the phone and call 911 just like everybody else on Key Largo has do do.
Ocean Reef provides its own fire protection, emergency services, wastewater treatment, etc., and has its own internal security force separate from the sheriff substation. I doubt your friend has noticeable security problems way out the end of nowhere that the Ocean Reef security force cannot take care of.
I felt all along that the construction of Card Sound Bridge was instigated by Ocean Reef to save about fifteen minutes driving time for Ocean Reef owners, guest and employees travelling to Ocean Reef from the mainland and back to the mainland from Ocean Reef.
In the early 1980s, I think it was, a federal judge fined Ocean Reef $60,000 a day until it stopped dumping its raw sewerage into the Atlantic Ocean. It had been going on a while before the judge got involved.
Ocean Reef was where my family stayed in March 1956, for a week. A very different place then. Old, modest wooden cottages, a similar-design dining room/meeting hall, a small marina, a bare-bones landing strip, an 18 hole golf course, or maybe just 9 holes. Some nice yachts moored in the creek running into the marina. Maybe two flats guides worked out of there and maybe two offshore boats. No gate. No walls. Open to the public. Reasonable rates for that time and location. No condos. Maybe a few private homes.
That’s when and where I fell in love with the Keys and flats fishing, age 14. Many years later, I fished the flats near Ocean Reef a few times, using an Islamorada guide, also a close friend, Rick Ruoff, who trailered his boat up there and we put in at a public marina. It was off of Ocean Reef that I fished the flats the last time in early 1987, with Rick. I told him that day I was done flats fishing and had only gone out with him so I could spend time with him.
I only was in Ocean Reef proper that one week in March 1956, and I can’t say I look forward to going back in there ever again, but maybe I need to do it, just to see what it’s like for me. They invited me to a candidate forum there in 2006, and I couldn’t bring myself to go. I didn’t get invited up there when I ran for the county commission in 2008. I don’t remember if they had a forum there that year. I don’t know if they are having one there this year.
It is true, I am racially prejudiced against the super rich, especially the white super rich. Maybe it has to do with growing up in a white super rich family, in a white super rich suburb of Birmingham.
Times have sure changed. Me, too. Rich has no privileges for me anymore. No privileges at all. Without the poor working stiffs, the rich would be up shit creek.
I was mainly teasing you with those three sentences I wrote.
I mainly don’t entirely believe you, you being a Republican and all, even though you don’t live in a gated Keys community, which lends toward your eventual salvation.
Here’s George Neguent’s reply to today’s post:
Sloan, OR does provide all those services for it self + represents about 13% of MOCO’s tax base. The only thing the county provides is one officer on the grounds. They provide security, hospital, garbage, sewerage, fire, animal control, public works all on their dime, or should I say dollars.
I wrote back that when I got involved in the sheriff race two years ago, for Sandy Downs, the sheriff had more presence at Ocean Reef than just one deputy. I talked a little while ago with a Key Largo resident, and he said Ocean Reef definitely has more than one deputy. I’ve got a call in for Sandy, to see what all she has to allow. As I recall, there were several deputies rotating out there in shifts, and a sergeant overseeing them. Maybe I’m remembering wrong, but somewhere in the backroads of the recesses of the memories of my mind, I think I recall a story about a couple of deputies being seen playing golf there one day. They now bill two championship golf courses and use their treated wastewater to water them, like what happens at the Key West golf course, which is owned by a family that owns a wastewater treatment plant on Stock Island, I think is where that plant is located. I think a similar irrigation is used at Sombrero County Club in Marathon.
The Key Largo fellow said he once went into Key Largo’s harbor in his boat, when there still was a US Customs Station there, and they stared at him like he was from another planet the whole brief time he was on the land. He said Ocean Reef keeps saying they will incorporate, if the County gives them too hard of a time, and I said let them incorporate. Maybe they will like being their own city better than Islamorada and Marathon like being their own cities after pulling out of the County. But guess who still provides Islamorada and Marathon’s police protection for a healthy fee? Right, the Sheriff.
There is a widely-known story up that way of some poor bulldozer operator stiff who cleared three acres of mangroves at Ocean Reef that weren’t supposed to be cleared, and Ocean Reef, which had hired and paid him to doze the area claimed they had nothing to do with it, the dozer guy did it on his own. So he got prosecuted, Ocean Reef didn’t. Please don’t insult your intelligence by suggesting Ocean Reef told the truth in that caper. The fine for bull dozing three acres of mangroves probably would have been several million dollars.
A Key Largo woman I know pretty well gives the evil doers hell all over the county, but when it comes to Ocean Reef she’s all smiles because Ocean Reef people patronize her business. I told the Key Largo fellow, who knows this lady far better than I, that she can’t have it both ways and come out on top. I meant come out spiritually on top, not on top in the coin purse department.
What I’m still trying to figure out is how come George told me Ocean Reef only has one deputy? Maybe he only meant one deputy at a time, which would add up to three deputies during a 24 hour day, wouldn’t it? And when they put in their 5-day work week, even more deputies would have to be brought in for the other two days, right? And all of those deputies answer to a supervisor, don’t they? And they all drive their patrol cars all the way out there and back, don’t they? And we don’t have enough deputies looking out for people who do not live in gated communities, do we?
Looks to me like the County needs to stop operating out of the fear position. Threats from Ocean Reef, also called ORCA (Ocean Reef Community Association), as in killer whale. Threats from FEMA. Threats from developers demanding due process treatment of their applications, which are patently bad for the County (Wisteria was the latest, Safe Harbor earlier, for examples). Looks to me like the County needs to start telling the muggers and lawyered-ups to take their best shots or shut up. There is no other way to deal with bullies and everyone knows you don’t negotiate with terrorists.
It seems to me that if the rich folks pay 13 percent of Monroe County’s taxes, they can have their relatively small substation there.
Yes, if they let the peasants in. No, otherwise.
This sort of reminds me of upscale private schools saying they should get federal funding because their students’ parents pay federal income taxes.
Neither of us can afford to live there, so this discussion is academic.
You couldn’t pay me to live there, and there is nothing whatsoever academic about this discussion.
A later reply to George Nugent’s email:
I called Safety and Security at Ocean Reef. The woman who answered said they have five deputies assigned there, working 12 hour shifts each, 24 hour coverage. Only one deputy at a time. That works out to two deputies a day, with 12 hour shifts.
I’m pretty sure other amenities once were proudly shown on Ocean Reef’s website as having been funded by grants: fire and rescue, security (different from deputies), sewerage treatment plant, hospital, emergency room, etc. How does a millionaires club get grants for stuff like that when we can’t get money just for the sewerage mandate? Bizarre.
George’s reply:
Sloan that’s correct. A lesson I learned, 1 means 5, 2 means 7 and so on.
Not really, it works that way. Not saying it’s right.
OR are big tax payees also, I think it’s unfair to discriminate against successful folks as it is to discriminate against anyone. Unfairness anywhere is a threat to fairness every where.
For some reason, I thought grants are based on need, and if you have plenty of wampum, you don’t get grants. Guess I don’t know much about grants.
Back in 2008, there were about 60 sheriff deputies on the beat. I doubt these hard times have increased that number. Meaning, ORCA has twelve percent of our deputies tied up at a location that I never heard of any crime happening that required a deputy’s attention. The FBI or CIA maybe. But not a deputy sheriff.
If I wuz on the County Commission and Sheriff Bob Peryam brought us a budgent to approve, I would say put those five Ocean Reef deputies on the road, then bring your budget back to me.
Sloan Bashinsky
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, the District 2 county commission candidate who left the castle to live across the tracks
 tiny kingdom In today’s Citizen is this from Ron Miller of Key Largo:
What was Ocean Reef thinking in primary?
I was looking at the election results from Tuesday’s primary election, specifically the race between commissioner Mario Di Gennnaro and candidate David Rice. Of the 33 precincts in Monroe County the voting results in 32 of those precincts reflected the fact that the citizens had rejected Mario by a large margin. Apparently Ocean Reef Club (precinct 33) did not share the sentiments of the rest of Monroe County citizens. Ocean Reefers voted 82.26% in favor of Mario. Looking at the figures I doubt that these voters ( Ocean Reef) used their own brains and intuitions to formulate their choice of candidates or perhaps it was the Monroe county citizens outside of Ocean Reef who were badly misinformed,however, I believe, that, If the Ocean Reefers were involved in what has been going on in Monroe County they would have been a little more conflicted about Mario instead of voting en masse in his favor. I am concerned that a gated community with this many votes, containing intelligent and caring people, has behaved like mice following a pied piper. I am appalled that a group of people such as this could allow their vote to be manipulated to this degree.
Ron Miller
Key Largo
When I called Ron yesterday to talk about something else, he told me about his letter to the editor. I said I had heard Ocean Reef historically votes for the incumbent, and he said that was true. Given how the rest of the county precincts voted, I say Ron hit the nail squarely on the head. So squarely that I’m beginning to wonder if Ocean Reef should be stripped of all privileges the county government offers. Starting with closing the sheriff substation that lies behind the gate to the castle, through which the peasants of this county cannot pass unless we have been invited in by an Ocean Reef member. I say let Ocean Reef provide its own police protection. It’s own fire protection. It’s own everything. Let it become a separate state altogether. Meanwhile, let not our county commissioners set foot there ever again, for any reason. If the Ruler of Ocean Reef wants to see our county commissioners, let the Despot make an appointment with our commissioners to come into their office and talk, like everybody else has to do. Meaning, no more private dinners for county commissioners at Ocean Reef.
Also from up Key Largo way yesterday was this email from John Hammerstrom, retired Naval aviator and aeronautical engineer, who now spends a good bit of time worrying the you know what out of our local Navy base and our county government to do the right thing:
Dear Sloan, It sounds trite, but nevertheless Keep up the good work Your contributions to the education of voters are appreciated, significant and validated. John
Thanks, John, I have never associated trite with you. Sloan
Along similar lines yesterday was this email exchange with a Little Torch Key neighbor:
Hi, Ken. Sorry so long in replying. Here’s something bizarre I got involved in on the Coconut Telegraph today. Must be eating too much honey. Sloan
Hi, Sloan
Just recieved your e-mail and thought I would let you know that I , myself & quite some others as well , are & have been behind you for sometime now.
Keep up the good work and refuse to cow down to the ahve’s and the hell with the rest of them crowd.
You , are the voice that many of us wish we had and, rightly so, back you & your endeavors.
I wish more people like you would take a stand for what is right & not just to see that there own is taken care of & the hell with the rest of them.
WE ARE THE REST OF THEM…& IF THER AHVE’S DO NOT BEND TO THEIR WISHES, THEY ALSO WILL BECOME ONE OF US !
KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK.
KEN D
Also in today’s Key West Citizen: Bigotry accsation was unfounded, laughable
In a recent letter to the Editor, Richard Sands accused me of being bigoted and racially prejudiced toward Hispanic people, and he said that‘s why I have been telling people to vote for George Neugent in the District 2 county commission Republican primary.
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident by my having eaten several meals a week at El Siboney in Key West, until it was sold to Hispanic people I didn’t know and the people who had been like family to me faded away.
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident in the five or so meals a week I have with Rose Dell and her mother at Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine Key shopping center, where I cut up with Rose and her mother, and with gringos and Hispanics, and anyone else I can get to play with me. Rose nearly split her sides laughing when I told her of Sands’ accusations.
My bigotry and prejudice against Hispanic people is blatantly evident in the number of Hispanic people, usually men, but a few women, I pick up at bus stops on US 1 and give a free ride to Key West or up the Keys.
As I wrote to someone the day before Sands’ letter to the editor was published (mine later published to goodmorningfloridakeys.com), I like Danny Coll; if he gets his business and private life straightened out, he might make a good county commissioner in four years and his Cuban origin might come in real handy if/after the US normalizes relations with Cuba.
Sloan Bashinsky
As if something might have been in the wind — you think? — I received this yesterday from Tim Gratz, Danny’s campaign manager:
Hi Sloan
As a Christian, I cannot hate you but any rational person knows that what you wrote on 7/27/2010 was racist, whether you are or not. (One is not absolved from racism by having a few Hispanic friends; if you yourself do not fear a Hispanic take-over then you were just pandering to the fear of others and that is equally wrong.) And of course I am upset that you chose to air my legal and financial difficulties merely to try to defeat Danny Coll. Despite my bar problem, I am an honest person (very honest I think) and my child support problems are due to my support payments being set unreasonably high (contrary to guidelines given my income) and financial difficulties. You did not paint a fair picture of me at all and the attempt to smear DC merely because I supported him was regrettable and i think beyond the pale of civilized discourse.
Now, that being said, for what it is worth, I do agree with you on many of your positions including:
I howl for full transparency and real ethics in our county government:
1) An ordinance banning anyone who works for the county government from doing business with the county government, like David Rice did the last time he was a county commissioner, and he made a mint;
2) A lobbyist ordinance that requires registration of people in the habit of asking the county government for favors for themselves or other people/entities, and disclosure of what they are paid and by whom.
3) An ordinance banning all county employees, including county commissioners, from accepting gifts of any amount from anyone doing business with or seeking to curry the good will of and/or favors from the county government.
I howl for Code Enforcement and Growth Management to be reined in.
I howl for the County and FEMA to get off the backs not only of owners of homes with so-called illegal downstairs enclosures, but also off the backs of the entire Keys community. What FEMA and the County Government have banded together to do is get rid of about 7,000 so-called illegal downstairs enclosures in a community of about 70,000 souls, which unholy jihad alliance will destroy this community
The irony, Sloan, is that you do not stand much chance of being elected but as I said when I started this discourse, Coll’s position on all of these issues, plus Wisteria Island and Amendment 4, was far closer to yours. Had you really wanted your “issues” and policies adopted, you should have supported Danny. The main difference I see is on the DCA but of course a county commissioner has no say in whether or not the DCA continues.
I fear you are more interested in having a “forum” than in getting your positions adopted.
Again, I regret that you chose to pander to anti-Hispanic feelings and that you found it necessary to air my personal problems when I was not the candidate, but I do agree with you on many of your positions. Had Coll been elected, I think you would have seen most adopted. Not so with GN. Alas.
Blessed to you,
Tim Gratz
Morning, Tim, going toward afternoon.
What if I had dreamt of large black Italian-looking men, in black suits, black ties and white shirts, moving in on Wisteria Island. What if I had written that I wondered if that dream meant the Mafia was involved in the Wisteria Island deal, and they were aiming toward putting a casino out there some day? That would have been racist? Rest assured, I have heard rumors of that very sort of scenario happening in the Keys, although not on Wisteria Island. As have I heard rumors of Miami-area Cuban-Americans wanting to make inroads into the Keys, prelude to a change of weather in Cuba. Someone told me the other day, I’d heard it before, that Danny was too chummy with our U.S. Representative Lleana Ros-Lehtinen for his comfort. Lleana was born in Cuba and is tight with the south-Florida Cuban-American community. Danny himself never disclaimed ties with Lleana or the south-Floria Cuban-American community, nor did you. Instead, you turned it into a race issue for Danny’s campaign, and he endorsed it by going along with you.
You conveniently ignored that I was beating Danny up hard before I had the dream about the large Hispanic men wearing black suits, black ties and white shirts, moving in on a community in which I was involved. You conveniently ignored what I was beating Danny up with, which I explained many times in posts, before and after that dream. Yet you wrote a letter to the editor, in which you stated my motivation was purely racial, I am a bigot and racially prejudiced against Hispanic people. You did that knowing full well that I had rejected Danny totally because of his business and personal difficulties; his wanting to get rid of DCA and area of critical concern oversight; his signing letters to the editor written by you as if they were his own; his claims of transparency and being a fiscal watchdog, when nothing could have been further from the truth; his accusing long-time employees of stealing, then firing them, but they did not steal from him, evidenced by Danny not defending their unemployment claims with the stealing defense [claims Danny now is paying]; Danny jimmying his inventory records (according his former store manager), to trick parent NAPA and his financing bank into thinking he was carrying the required amount of inventory, which I still think are federal offenses, if that is what happened.
All of these things you knew I had unearthed, which you had tried to convince me had nothing to do with Danny’s campaign or qualifications for office. Not once did Danny deny any of it, and yet you conveniently ignored all of that when you accused me in print of being a bigot and racially prejudiced, and said that alone was the only reason I was promoting George Neugent. You libeled me, Tim. You did it intentionally. And you have no remorse. As Danny’s campaign manager, it transfers to him. He libeled me through you. He never disavowed what you wrote. He adopted it as if he himself had written it.
I say this now, not as a litigation threat, but because you several times hinted at what I was writing about Danny and you being libelous. You even told me printing the truth might be libelous, under certain circumstances. You are one sick man, Tim. I tried everything I knew to get Danny to shuck you, and he didn’t do it. You lied to me about no longer working for his campaign. Danny confirmed to me that you still worked for him, even before it became visible to all that you still worked for him.
If Danny runs with someone like you, Tim, what other people like you does he run with? Why would the people of this county want a candidate like Danny in office? I cannot imagine why, but about 45 percent of the votes cast in the Republican primary went to Danny. Astounding.
What scares me even more is, what would have happened if I had not entered the race? What would the final vote tally have been in an open primary, with Democrats and Independents voting along side of Republicans? We will never know, but I will always wonder.
As for what would have happened if Danny ended up on the County Commission, thankfully, I do not have to worry about that and the likes of you working his strings behind the scenes.
As for your being a Christian, I leave that for Jesus to decide.
Sloan
( Tim made a number of posts to the Citizen’s “recent articles” blog at keysnews.com, stating what I had written was racist toward Hispanics and I was fanning Hispanic hysteria. Tim provided Richard Sands with the same accusations.)
Hmmm, I forgot to ask Tim if Danny was going to throw his support to George Alas, or to me, the bigot racist? A hell of a choice. Maybe Danny just won’t say. I also forgot to remind Tim, which he had conveniently ignored, that Danny had come out against suing FEMA because it might cost the county government a lot in legal fees and it might not be a winnable case.
If I get elected, I’m going to sue FEMA and the County, and that’s going to be real interesting because, my being a county commissoner, county legal staff will have to pick which side to be on: the other four county commissioners’ side, or my side. I figure county legal staff will go with the majority. I hope they don’t farm out the case and cost the taxpayers a lot more money. I hope, instead, they file court papers admitting every awful thing I allege against FEMA and the County, because all of it is true, and they ask the Court to have mercy on the repentant, contrite County and take the Court’s wrath all out on FEMA. Should be a lot of fun. Might make 60 Minutes. Mike make every law school class in the US. Might get President Obama’s attention, which is what we want to happen, isn’t it? Well, isn’t it? Didn’t we all want to go over FEMA’s head in Washington? Well, didn’t we?
political advertisement, approved and paid for by El Sloan, District 2 County Commission candiate from Little Torch Key, a super upscale exclusive anglo castle-walled community so lush with landscaping and lovely secluded meandering drives and promenades that our members don’t even know where the championship golf courses and airport are . . .
Found this love note on day before yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph page of bigpinekey.com.
 Let me be the first to congratulate you Sloan on not breaking your incredible life-long losing streak by once again failing to get elected. A loss for you is a win for me.
If I had to hazzard a wild-ass guess, I’d say this is yet another erectile-dysfunction jab from the AntiSloan, who stands for everything I do not and therefore is terrified that I will be elected. The AntiSloan is the Mayor of FAIL, and its population is legion.
I tell people who ask me why they should vote for me, “If you like the way things are going, you sure as hell shouldn’t vote for me.” I tell people who say they want me in office and I need to campaign harder to win, ”Campaign for me. Get other people to vote for me. Get them to get other people to vote for me. It’s all on you. I’m doing my part, speaking to the issues. Do your part, if you want me in office.”
No, I will not put out campaign signs and litter the landscape with advertising that tells you absolutely nothing about me except I spent money littering the landscape.
No, I will not run newspaper, radio or television ads that toot my own horn and beg you to vote for me.
No, I will not give out bumper stickers and campaign buttons begging people to vote for me.
No, I will not stand on street corners grinning and waving at passersby.
No, I will not be nice and polite in the face of what is not nice and polite.
No, I will not stop saying angels tell me what to do, and if people don’t like that, they should not vote for me.
Here’s what I do.
I speak to the issues across the board, not caring whose toes I step on and whose sacred cows I shoot and kill.
I attend candidate forums and answer every question put to me nearly always in a way that’s different.
I answer candidate questionnaires.
I accept invitations from and participate in interviews with the news media.
I publish daily to goodmorningfloridakeys.com, goodmorningkeywest.com and the Coconut Telegraph page of bigpinekey.com, usually two different posts daily.
I respond to emails and comments to the websites and to the Coconut Telegraph, either publicly or privately, as circumstances dictate.
I get around and listen to what people who show up in front of me have to say.
I suggest no-cost out-of-the-box ways to turn the Keys economy around, such as: county-wide clothing optional beaches; legalize medical marijuana farming Keyswide for export to the mainland; promote the Keys online as spiritual energy vortex comparable to Stonehenge, Sedona, the Andes and the Himalaya.
I look out for Mother Nature and the little people of the Keys. The rich and powerful don’t need my help, and in most cases, I fight them fang and claw.
I howl for full transparency and real ethics in our county government:
1) An ordinance banning anyone who works for the county government from doing business with the county government, like David Rice did the last time he was a county commissioner, and he made a mint;
2) A lobbyist ordinance that requires registration of people in the habit of asking the county government for favors for themselves or other people/entities, and disclosure of what they are paid and by whom.
3) An ordinance banning all county employees, including county commissioners, from accepting gifts of any amount from anyone doing business with or seeking to curry the good will of and/or favors from the county government.
I howl for Code Enforcement and Growth Management to be reined in.
I howl for the County and FEMA to get off the backs not only of owners of homes with so-called illegal downstairs enclosures, but also off the backs of the entire Keys community. What FEMA and the County Government have banded together to do is get rid of about 7,000 so-called illegal downstairs enclosures in a community of about 70,000 souls, which unholy jihad alliance will destroy this community. If elected, I will personally and as a dissident county commissioner sue FEMA and the County in Federal Court, on behalf of the entire Keys community.
I am doing my best to get Amendment 4, Mother Nature’s amendment, passed on November 2. Amendment 4 is the most important item on the ballot. If passed, it will empower We the People to stop developers and their hip-pocket government officials and their lawyers and lobbyists and chambers of commerce and Realtors from paving the rest of Florida and the Florida Keys. Amendment 4 terrifies the AntiSloan, who loves development better than God.
Somehow, though, I don’t think most of you folks living in FAIL want this kind of county commissioner. You prefer to bitch and moan. You like things the way they are, even though you say you want it to be different. That’s why you live in FAIL. Your choice. Not my problem. Your problem.
The Sloan
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, Independent District 2 county commission candidate, and I do mean INDEPENDENT. I owe no money. I accept no campaign contributions. I owe no favors. I cannot be bought or flattered or hoodwinked, because the angels won’t let it happen even if I want it to happen, which I don’t.
Found yet another love note from the AntiSloan on yesterday’s Coconut Telegraph of bigpinekey.com.
 Sloan, Save your beloved taxpayers money get out of the race. Regarding your issues, this is the way it is
1) Downstairs enclosures will not be accepted in your lifetime.
2) Growth Management will soon be set straight.
3) Code Enforcement, you are partly right, code enforcement needs to be restructured to assign officers to enforce solid waste and sewer codes, along with illegal trash businesses that have popped up in several areas of the county. Code enforcement has focused so much on the downstairs enclosures that the officers do not know how to enforce anything else. This county is giving away hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly, by allowing people to get away with coming to Monroe County and doing business without businesses licenses. It is time that code enforcement be refocused to enforce all codes not just downstairs enclosures.
The Anti-Sloan (ariel photo of its abode above) still lives, thank God! Otherwise, I’d have to pick on someone a lot smarter and far less deserving.
Don’t you just love the AntiSloan’s roll-over-and-play-dead strategy on downstairs enclosures?
Don’t you just love the AntiSloan’s hijack of the three goliath issues I’ve been hammering the County Commission with for months?
Don’t you just love the AntiSloan’s feigned disregard of the Third Reich in Code Enforcement, who goosestep as if their offices and beats are their own personal fiefdoms over which they have the power of life and death, and who use the downstairs enclosure genocide to cloud over what they are really doing to our citizens.
The AntiSloan sees very well that I hit the nail slap dab on the head three times at the Harvey Government Center on election night, when no other candidate had even picked up one of those nails during the entire campaign season, and here I went and hit all three of them squarely on television and didn’t even have to pay for the free campaign commercial the angels had arranged, which drove the final and fourth nail slap dab into the center of the AntiSloan’s jealous cold black heart.
The AntiSloan does not own a home with an “illegal” downstairs enclosure. The AntiSloan owns a nice spread carrying a big mortgage and doesn’t want the County Commisision to do anything that might cause the AntiSloan to end up not having el cheapo federal-backed flood insurance. The AntiSloan is terrified of my getting on the County Commission, because the AntiSloan knows I ain’t nothing like Citizens Not Serfs, I don’t just talk about the big evil FEMA. The AntiSloan knows I will sue FEMA and the County in Federal Court and ask that 8,000 lb. gorilla to deal with the 800 pound gorilla and its trained chimpanzee.
The AntiSloan loves Citizens Not Serfs because they made lot of people think they wuz the White Knights what was gonna save thousands of Keys homeowners from having to give up their downstairs enclosures. So lulled to sleep, those thousands did nothing to protect themselves. They didn’t get a lawyer. They just sat there on their pretty tail feathers like anesthetized ducks in a shooting gallery, just like the AntiSloan wanted them to sit.
The Brown family on Cudjoe Key scares the pig shit out of the AntiSloan, because the Browns are a poster family for what is wrong with FEMA and the County’s downstairs enclosure genocide. The Browns are the AntiSloan’s worst nightmare, because any county commissioner who doesn’t give them a hardship variance on their downstairs enclosure for their tragically-paralyzed son will be burned at the stake at the polls.
What’s left of the Keys economy and this way of life the County Commission and FEMA are going to finish off, if they don’t stop the genocide against downstairs enclosures a lot sooner than the end of my lifetime. Yesterday wouldn’t have been soon enough to stop the genocide, nor last year, nor four years before that. It never should have been allowed to start. We never should have gone into FEMA’s pilot. We should have sued FEMA instead, and let the 8,000 pound gorilla decide it.
How about this, AntiSloan. George Neugent has served three terms already. What if he just decides he is tired of dealing with the likes of you and your uncle FEMA. What if George drops out of the race, so he can do something he really wants to do but has been putting off? Won’t that save the taxpayers the same amount that would be saved if I drop out of the race?
Did you know, AntiSloan, that when I ran against George four years ago, he said at candidate forums that my policies would bankrupt the county? If my policies had been adopted back then, the county would have quit spreading its legs for developers and just maybe the crash would have been just a gentle downturn, and just maybe the county land values and ad valorem tax rolls would have held closer to steady, and just maybe the county government would not have gone bankrupt.
It don’t take no hindsight fortune teller or rocket scientist to know development bankrupted our county and is the reason so many homes went upside down and so many foreclosures and short sales swooped in and did far more damage to the Keys than Hurricane Wilma ever thought about doing, and that’s why county employees and lots of other Keys people aren’t getting raises and are lucky even to have jobs at all.
Stick around, Anti-Sloan. I ain’t even got the motor warmed up good yet.
The Sloan
political advertisement, approved and paid for by The AntiSloan
 Josie Koler
All work and no play, such as today’s post at goodmorningkeywest.com, makes God a seriously dull boy; therefore, some deliciously scandalous frolics here below for your amusement:
Foward from Josie Koler, Key West Bureau Chief of The Weekly Newspapers.
Naked vacations gain popularity
Going to a nude resort is one way to avoid paying the airline a checked-bag fee.
Posted by Karen Datko on Friday, August 20, 2010 7:49 PM
Travel alert: Nearly 50% of U.S. readers recently surveyed by TripAdvisor said they’d welcome a visit to a nude beach — with open arms, we’d expect. That’s a big jump from the 31% who endorsed nude beaches last year.
Did you know there’s a name for this type of trip? It’s the “nakation” — a play on vacation, staycation, nocation, et al. And, naturally, the number of sans-clothing destinations is growing to meet the increased demand. TripAdvisor members recently rated their favorite ones.
While we wrote the subhead above about checked-bag fees as a joke, further research revealed it’s really not. CNBC.com writer Cindy Perman wrote, “A recent survey showed 2% of travelers choose nakations as a way to avoid airline baggage fees, cheap-flight finder Skyscanner.com reports.” (That site also lists its top five nakation destinations.)
In fact, the executive director of the American Association of Nude Recreation told USA Today that if more travelers nakationed, that would surely stick it to the airlines and their reviled baggage fees. The thinking is, if all you need to take with you are sunscreen and a toothbrush, you won’t even have to pay Spirit Airlines for a carry-on. Nakationists can be rebels with a cause.
End of advertisement. Begin dirty old man’s comments.
I emailed Josie back that this sure-to-succeed economic stimulus package might succeed even more if she leads the charge, in the buff. The Weekly Newspapers are home-based in Marathon. Just imagine the effect on the sleepy, or should I say nearly dead Marathon International Airport, if the City of Marathon and Key Colony Beach, and Long Key, Curry Hammock and Bahia Honda State Parks, make their Atlantic-side beaches, hmmm, buff-it beaches. Just imagine hordes of passengers wearing only sunscreen disembarking from commercial airlines at a thriving Marathon International Airport. County Commission candidate David Rice would have a coronary. Eat your heart out Key West. Eat your heart out. Go get ‘em, Josie! Send me the announcement for your buffing out debut. I’ll spread it around. Yours very arduosly. Sloan
Next today, this Har, Har, Har, A-FUCKING-MEN civics lesson forward from my esteemed Republican opponent, George “Bubba” Neught. I’d say the inner city terrorist author of this nuclear interlocal missive has an excellent grasp on the proper use of the 1 iron. An excellent grasp. I’d say this EPISTLE oughta be published in every newspaper/blog in the Keys – Hell, in America!
Love Letter to the Islamorada City Council:
In last week’s Free Press, Islamorada Mayor Michael Reckwerdt seemed to place the burden of justification for additional budget cuts squarely upon Councilman Dave Purdo and myself, referring to budget areas or items where cuts are “palatable.” Hmmm. Palatable for whom, one might ask? It is impossible to make any real budget cuts without affecting people, so please define palatable. Nevertheless, honorable mayor, please ponder the following areas for consideration and feel free to be part of this painful process.
Every year at budget time, Islamorada department heads scramble to defend their own turf, and every year the “sacred cows” moo the loudest. Usually, for staff, this is only the beginning of a process lasting several arduous months, inclusive of shameless lobbying, while gradually working up excessive eye moisture. Fire Chief William Wagner III has long since been elevated from the title of Sacred Cow to, perhaps, Sacred Bull.
There can be little doubt our Islamorada Fire Department has grown to be the largest fiefdom within the kingdom, now commanding approximately $3 million annually, which is about a third of Islamorada’s total budget. Of that amount, over half is compensation ($1,664,531) for 52 paid people — 25 full-time and 27 part-time or stipend personnel. The top seven (elite) EMS/firefighters earn 35 percent of the total compensation portion, averaging $84,510 each, not counting benefits, according to 2009 tax filings. This year, Chief Wagner has requested overtime wages to be budgeted at $217,176.
On the operation side, perhaps a priority should be making our fire trucks last longer, such as not dispatching both an EMS vehicle plus a big fire engine for every routine fender bender or driving through a tidal surge. Still, we’re fully aware the numbers of dispatches are important to justify the above expenditures. Firemen always want raises, new equipment, more benefits and lots of overtime, and who wants to say no to a guy who runs into a burning building, even though Islamorada rarely has a fire, and even more rarely, an extinguished one. In essence, for a little town of 6,323 souls, we are currently spending about $8,200 per day for fire and EMS service.
Village-wide, the same pattern seems to exist as top management and department heads sport salaries that are no place close in comparison to similar-sized communities. Village Manager Kenneth Fields grossed $171,716.12; Cindy Lawson (Finance), $109,564.70; Ed Koconis (Planning), $113.588.28; Myles Milander (Wastewater), $99,725.24; John Sutter (Parks, Public Works, Marina), $91,638.35; and Gerald Albertson (Building), $88,909.50. Again, these 2009 tax figures do not include benefits or raises from last year’s budget.
Personally, I’d support a downward salary adjustment of 15 percent for the village manager, 10 percent for all named parties listed above and 5 percent for all others employees between $50,000 and $80,000, including the Village Council. Another option, if needed, would be to extend the 5 percent adjustment to all village employees. In addition, we are paying U.S. Water about $330,000 plus the six people in Milander’s department who should be taking over the Plantation Key Colony plant operations, as we are now enjoying the worst of both worlds. Also, I believe our legal budget numbers can be trimmed, maybe up to $200,000. Although I’m restricted from discussing any specific legal case, there are some cases that have been lingering for ages.
Now here’s the thing: This economy has affected everybody, especially in the private sector, where most Americans are working harder and longer for less money. While many individuals are struggling to keep their homes and simply survive, small businesses are fighting to keep employees and stay open. But we already know that. And what we also know is that every level of government — local, county, state and federal — there is a massive debt created from spending, supported by taxing, assessing and borrowing. Here, in our little village, we are currently paying interest on approximately $21 million. Had we lived within our means, there wouldn’t be a budget crisis. But we didn’t. Spilled milk perhaps, but now it sours.
Recently, I asked one (unnamed) employee for their reaction to a percentage salary reduction in these tough times and here is the reply: “Well, I’ve already thought about this and obviously wouldn’t like it. But the truth is I’d still have a great job with great benefits and I’d rather have it that way than to see others lose their jobs completely. Besides, where else could I find anything close?” Unfortunately, that employee was the exception, not the rule.
But Manager Fields indicated we’d be asking others to work harder for less and instead we’d need to cut services. Other staff threats emerged, such as closing fire stations, working a four-day week, taking away the police boat, closing the pool and letting the village become overgrown with weeds. Hell, at one point, Fields even implied the management employees might unionize to force a tax hike. Actually, if there were three votes, I would have fired Fields on the spot for this string of threats. In private business and like most other businesspeople, I’ve never tolerated threats from any manager. And, that’s exactly when the owners jump in until they find somebody with a better attitude.
So, most respectfully Mayor Reckwerdt, what’s palatable here is for our council to collectively find the necessary political courage to do what we need to do. And this would be a great time for the entire staff to think this thing through. I believe our citizens would have far greater respect for a municipal staff that would be willing to endure a necessary sacrifice in a severe economic downturn. Yes, it’s time to work harder, take less and do it with a smile.
Bob Johnson, councilman, Islamorada
Next today, this email banter with Deer Ed at bigpinekey.com, where the world-famous Coconut Telegraph bitch and laugh page regales hordes of people too disabled to simply go out and have a beer and dance to live music and, gosh, maybe end up getting hauled off into the jungle to do something fun and disgusting.
The Citizen has you as perennial again! Great results in all the elections except for McPherson’s win.
I wasn’t happy with Rice’s win, but otherwise youse and meese be on the same page.
Well, I can’t argue with being called “the perennial candidate,” after running every year starting 2006; meaning, this is the 5th straight year I’ve run for something. Tack on the Key West mayoral in 2003, and a brief, then aborted, write-in county commission race in 2004, and that leaves out only 2005. Perennial is pretty close to the money.
So far this year, the Citizen hasn’t called me a “gadfly,” which they have done in the past when writing about my candidacy. It used to bug me, then Sandy Downs looked up “gadfly” after she got tagged with it during her one race for sheriff. I just pulled this down off the Internet:
“Gadfly” is a term for people who upset the status quo by posing upsetting or novel questions, or just being an irritant.
The term “gadfly” (Ancient Greek: ?????, myops)[1] was used by Plato in the Apology[2] to describe Socrates‘ relationship of uncomfortable goad to the Athenian political scene, which he compared to a slow and dimwitted horse. The Bible also references the gadfly in terms of political influence; The Book of Jeremiah (46:20, Darby Bible) states “Egypt is a very fair heifer; the gad-fly cometh, it cometh from the north.” The term has been used to describe many politicians and social commentators.
During his defense when on trial for his life, Socrates, according to Plato’s writings, pointed out that dissent, like the gadfly, was easy to swat, but the cost to society of silencing individuals who were irritating could be very high. “If you kill a man like me, you will injure yourselves more than you will injure me,” because his role was that of a gadfly, “to sting people and whip them into a fury, all in the service of truth.”
In modern and local politics, gadfly is a term used to describe someone who persistently challenges people in positions of power, the status quo or a popular position.[3] For example, Morris Kline wrote “There is a function for the gadfly who poses questions that many specialists would like to overlook. Polemics are healthy.”[4] The word may be uttered in a pejorative sense, while at the same time be accepted as a description of honourable work or civic duty.[5]
End of definition. Resumption of gadfly commentary.
Sandy was especially pleased to be compared to Socrates. I suppose I should be, too. I don’t seem me running for office again in the Keys. So “perennial” has a limited shelf life in my case. If I win this year, I won’t run again.
At the Big Pine Candidate forum, I spoke during my opening two free minutes to the prospect of being elected. I was feeling really laid back, talking slow. It went something like this.
“If I somehow win this race . . . I probably will die of fright . . .(some laughter) Recovering from that, I probably will ask for a recount . . . (some more laughter) If that doesn’t work, I might kill myself . . . (some more laughter) On coming back from the dead, I will get to work . . . (no laughter that I recall)”
I suppose that scenario playing out would create some seriously interesting headlines, and, who knows? Perhaps the Keys would become a mecca for public office seekers. They come down here. Get fucked bad with by angels. Then, they are sent back to where they came from to start fucking with people back there; doing unto others what is being done unto them.
I know, don’t even say it. I’m nuts. But then, so are you. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be able to know I’m nuts.
Let me know when you have another slab of fresh venison, and I’ll be right over to get it. I still have plenty of manatee and porpoise cuts, so you won’t need to get any of that out. FYI, if you haven’t heard, Coco’s Kitchen now is serving, when available, road kill key deer specials. Right tasty, the way Rose’s mom serves up those little dearly departed Bambis.
Rose and Coco have been serving free range-chickens there, too, but not lately, as the wild fowls what used to hang out around the shopping center all got ate and Rose and Coco are waiting for the next captured Key West wild chicken deports to arrive.
Had a free-range iguana last night; Miss Kitty caught and dropped it in the side yard. Tasted a little better than free-range tourists I ate a few times in different Key West restaurants during my next previous life.
Sometimes I wonder what’s really in the pulled pork they serve as BBQ at Looe Key Tiki Bar, which wait staff there say, notwithstanding rumors on the Coconut Telegraphy, has not been bought by the owners of Boondocks.
How ’bout that drubbing Dombroski put on Marzella in the skeeter board race? Can’t see me taking a staycation at Parmer’s any time this century.
Slown, sort of rhymes with clown.
Last today, a congulatory email for my unopposed just-squeak-by victory in the Independent primary (we don’t have Independent pirmaries) day before yesterday:
Sloan,
So……… you’ve made it to round 2. Congrats! Will the ballot show only you and George, or will there be others? If you are suppose to be on the commission, you will be there. I am sure you will give George a run for his money. You have a good platform and a strong sense of what is right.
It is good that there are AntiSloans out there. I always say, “if I am not in trouble, then I am not doing anything.” To me that means I am on the right track and so are you.
Best to you for the primary.
GF
Bubba Neugent and Bash Bashinsky square off in the November 2 general election. George is in trouble. I have the little ole ladies’ 1 iron he gave me, plus the King Kong 1 iron my cousin Bubba Major in Birmingham UPS’d to me c/o Harpoon Harry’s in Key West. You shoulda seen the commotion what went off in my harem there, when they saw the size of that 1 iron. You shoulda seen the commotion.
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, District 2 county commission candidate from The Far Side
 anxiously waiting for Josie
 Post-election rumination.This email from somebody who doesn’t live around these parts but of late has been following my posts after being introduced to me by a mutual friend:
Well, at least you got rid of Mario-but I’m sure you have not heard the last from him- Regards-JW
David Rice beat Mario Di Gennaro nearly 2-1. I hope we have not heard the last from Mario. God has a plan for him, and how it plays out will depend on how much Mario has learned during the past four years on the County Commission. He started out horribly and that’s what defeated him. David Rice didn’t even have to campaign, all he had to do was lie low and let Mario’s past do the campaigning. David acknowledges this in a Key West Citizen this morning, and says he is the same person he was when he served on the County County Commission before he resigned to run for State Representative and Mario went onto the Commission. And that’s what really scares me.
As I told US 1 Radio’s Bill Becker and the audience at the Harvey Government Center last night, it was televised over the County’s TV station, when David was on the County Commission, he made a lot of money off the Sheriff Office and the County Government. As far as I know, I’m the only person who has said this on radio, television and online. It’s as if there is a code of silence around David’s profiteering when he was on the County Commission. As if it’s not supposed to be aired out. As if the general public is not supposed to know about it. Well, by the time we get to the November 2 general election, the general public is going to know about it; I’m going to see to it. I’m going to do plenty to try to keep David from going back on the County Commission. There are two Independent candidates. I will be writing about them.
Meanwhile, Jay Marzella got beat up by his Mosquito Control Board opponent, for which we all should be grateful. Henceforth, we will have a School Board-appointed Superientendant of Schools, instead of an elected Superintendant, for which we all should be grateful.
In the other Republican county commission primary, George Neugent beat Danny Coll 55-45 percent, for which we all should be grateful. I found myself wondering, “If Danny got 45 percent in a closed Republican primary against a seasoned county commissioner, what would the vote split have been if I had not entered the District 2 primary and Democrats and Independents had been able to vote in the Republican primary? George and I will square off in the November 2 general election.
I told Bill Becker at the Harvey Government Center last night of three big issues I see in George’s and my race:
1) Downstairs enclosures. I said we have 7,000 illegal downstairs enclosures in the Keys that FEMA is trying to eliminate and destroy the Keys economy and its way of life. The County Commission is terrified of doing anything that might upset FEMA and cause it to pull Federal-backed flood insurance out of the Keys. FEMA needs to be put into Federal Court, so an 8,000 pound gorilla, a United States Discrict Judge, and deal with the 800 pound gorilla, FEMA.
2) Growth Managment. I said we have a serious problem in Growth Management. It defected, went over to the developers in the Wisteria Island deal. It forgot who it represents: the county government and the taxpayers. It has to be straightened out.
3) Code Enforcment. I said we have some good people in code enforcment, but we have too many people there who, and I’m hardly the only person saying it, behave like the Gestapo. They have to be reined in. They have to start serving the county correctly.
I said George and the other commissoners know about these three problems, but we might have different ways of trying to deal with them. I said I like George, he has been a good county commissioner.
Someone at the KONK 1500 AM election party just around the corner from the Harvey Government Center said someone had asked him if I would be able to get along and work with the other commissioners, if I were elected? That would be important, he said. I thought a moment, said, “If you like the way things are going, you definitely don’t want me in office.” And that’s the core issue, isn’t it? I do not play by the old rules, or by any rules. I do what I can to try to change what isn’t working into something that works better.
As I told Lee Rohe the day before yesterday, Lee is the lawyer representing the Brown family, whose son, Darren, is paralized from the chest down, if George Neugent doesn’t do all he can to get the County Commission to give the Browns a code variance, so Darren can live in their downstairs enclosure, I will beat George up with that in the ensuing campaign. I said, so far, it seems all George, and the other commissioners, are really concerned about is how the Browns’ case ended up before the County Commission. They don’t want ot have to deal with it, because if they side with the Browns, they go against FEMA, as they see it. I told Lee to stay on top of this, to be prepared for the County Commission, or county staff, to try to get the Browns’ case off of the County Commission docket.
Lee and I both are convinced the Browns’ case was put off from being heard in July to September because of the primary elections. What incumbent commisisoner would want to rule against the Browns before an election, with 7,000 owners of illegal downstairs enclosures watching on? What incumbent commissioner would want to rule against the Browns before an election, with 70,000 Keys residents watching on? Unfortunately for the county commissioners, this is not a situation of a fake injury, with a fake letter from a fake doctor. This is a real injury. The Browns really do need a vairance for their downstairs enclosure, so Darren will have a place to live. Otherwise, they are going to abandon their home, because no way can they cope with the pressure code enforcement will put on them over that downstairs enslosure.
The way code enforcment found out about the downstairs enclosure was the State of Florida offered to give the Browns an elevator and install it, so Darren could get up and down. The State delievered the elevator to the Brown’s home. A county permit was applied for, to install the elevator. That’s when code enforcment learned of the downstairs enclosure and initiated code enforcment proceedings againt the Browns, to remove the downstairs enclosure. Meanwhile, the State ran out of money and could not install the elevator, and the cost of doing that fell upon the Browns, who could not afford it. The code enforcment case was set before a Special Magistrate.
Enter Lee Rohe, representing the Browns. Lee told the Special Magistrate the Browns wanted to apply for a variance. The Special Magistrate said okay, give that a try. Lee and the Browns went back to code enforcement. Code enforcement said there was no such thing as a variance. Lee persisted. Code enforcment finally discovered an old form for applying for a variance, dated in the 1970s, as I recall. The Browns filled out the form, submitted it. That’s how the application for a variance got into the system, working its way up to the County Commission. Meanwhile, the Special Magistate issued a stay against code enforcement action against the Browns, pending the outcome of the application for the variance.
The Browns are a poster family. They did nothing wrong. In 2002, they bought a home with a downstairs enclosure that was part of the original construction in the late 1970s. The downstairs enclosure had a kitchen and bathroom and storage area. It was permitted and a certificate of occupancy was issued. Ad valorem taxes were paid on the downstairs enclosure all along. Darren was injured in 2005. The Browns remodeled the downstairs enclosure, without increasing the square footage, to accomodate Darren’s life-changing tragedy. All they want is permission to leave the downstairs enclosure as is, for so long as Darren lives there. The Browns are not asking for a permanent variance that can be passed on to a purchaser of their home. This is what the County Commission wishes had never come before it.
I will beat George and the other commissioners up, if they do not give the Browns the contitional variance. I will beat them up. As should you beat them up, although many of you won’t because you are afraid of FEMA taking away your Federal-backed flood insurance. You will join the AntiSloan movement, and I wager you will have plenty of company. If elected, I will file the Federal lawsuit, as a dissident county commissioner and private citizen, asking the Court to stop FEMA and the County Commission from destroying the Keys economy and way of life. I will file the suit on behalf of all Keys residents, because what FEMA and the County Commission are doing will be fatal to all of us, not just the Browns and 7,000 other owners of homes with downstairs enclosures, of whom I am not one.
Also last night, I told Bill Becker, and the audience present and watching on TV, a little about Amendment 4, and that I hope they vote for it. I will have more to say about Amendment 4 in the coming days. It will stop developers and their bought government officials from paving the rest of Florida. It is the most important thing on the November 2 ballot. More important than any race. More important than any other Amendment. Amendment 4 is Mother Nature’s Amendment. We all know what happens when we piss off Mother Nature, don’t we?
Meanwhile, after lunching with Rose Dell and her mom at Coco’s Kitchen yesterday, I spied a man o’ war bird yesterday hovering over US 1 at the upper entrance onto Little Torch Key. “Uh, oh,” I said to myself. I told Jim Hendrick a while back that whenever I see a man ‘o war bird, it means I’m going to be spiritually attacked pretty soon. Not rational, I know. But then, neither is God rational.
Arriving home, I went online looking for an attack email. Nope. Then I went to the Key West Citizen blog looking for an attack comment. Nope. Puzzled, I wondered if the attack would come in a phone call? Or in a dream? Then, I thought, maybe I should check out the Coconut Telegraph. Bingo! A response frm the AntiSloan to to someone who had beat him up the day before. Here’s the entire scenario, which started several days ago:
Hello Sloan, this is your good twin the AntiSloan. Thanks for the invite to breakfast the other day but you know what would happen to you if we were to ever meet. Just like when matter meets anti-matter. Your beard would melt right off your face.
AntiSloan. I don’t always agree with Sloan, and sometimes vehemently disagree with his ideas.
I have spoken out against some of his blog material in this forum several times in the past couple of months, particularly with regards to “The Spill”.
But the person calling him or herself "the anti-sloan is simply wasting oxygen in this “room”;
You are dismissed.
Begone.
Thank you.
To which rebuke from a much bigger AntiSloan the little AntiSloan replied:
So you think I’m wasting your oxygen in this room? That hurts my little feelings. I guess that makes you the Anti-Anti-Sloan. As I have stated before: as long as Sloan is free to post his insane ramblings here I will also be here to give an equal and opposite response. Very Newtonian of me. But thank you for taking the time out of your day to dismiss me anyway.
And speaking of the Sloan, did anyone else take a good look at his refutation of the racism charge against him? He claims to have physically attacked ("beaten up" is his words) men, women, blacks, homeless and even cities for being racist. The man is amazing! He has left a trail of broken bodies and has never even been charged for assault once. And just how do you "beat up" a city, Sloan? Do you head-butt the front door of city hall or maybe kidney punch the police station? You are a very violent person Mr. Bashinsky and a threat to the historic buildings in Key West. They are old and fragile and can’t defend themselves from an assault by you. Try to limit your attacks on the city of Key West to the more recently built structures.
Darn, I now have two AntiSloan’s fighting for my affection. Darn, which one to choose? I’m not used to such a dilemma. Darn.
Darn, I really like the way the little Anti-Sloan changed the words in my mouth to fit the thoughts in his pea-sized brain. Obviously, the little AntiSloan has a one-dimensional mind; he thinks like a literal-minded Bible-thumper and has no sense of metaphor, symbolism, irony or poetry. If I said I had been playing chess against the Devil, the little AntiSloan would think I meant a physical chess board and wooden pieces at a coffee shop somewhere.
Maybe if the little AntiSloan could be with me when the Monroe County Commission tries to dodge giving the Brown family of Cudjoe Key a hardship variance for their paralyzed son, Darren, so he can live in the downstairs enclosure of their home, and the county commissioners start talking about what FEMA might do if they grant the variance, and they quake and say they can never do anything that might cause FEMA to pull federal-backed flood insurance out of the Keys, the little AntiSloan will know the difference between getting beat up with words and getting beat up by fists.
For sure, the little AntiSloan doesn’t want the Browns to get a conditional variance for Darren. For sure the little AntiSloan doesn’t want FEMA put in Federal Court. For sure, the little AntiSloan doesn’t want Grown Management and code enforcment straightened out. The little AntiSloan is like a piece of school notebook paper. From the front or back, the paper looks substantial, but turn the paper up on its edge and you can hardly see it. One-dimensional, the little Anti-Sloan. Literal, like a Bible thumper. Devious, a twister of words, prevaricator of the truth, like Jim Hendrick and Pritam Singh. I have never seen the little AntiSloan do anything on the Coconut Telegraph but toot the little AntiSloan’s own horn.
Have mercy, Coconut Telegraphers. Please don’t get rid of the little AntiSloan, I need the laughs!
The dumb shit must have forgot Jesus was bearded
and was called the Word.
The dumb shit hides his face and his name.
He lives in subterranean caverns
and would vaporize in sunlight.
He and walks and talks and quacks
like a coward –
Res ipsa loquitur,
The thing speaks for itself.
Yes, the little AntiSloan is a thing,
An it,
Not human.
A vampire indeed,
the little AntiSloan:
Take, take, take,
give nothing back.
Far more generous, a black hole
brews and sends forth food
to feed the stars.
Appropo of nothing, here’s something I sent to Jim Hendrick the other day, to try to get him to stop stalking me. I’m not holding my breath:
“SHANGHAIED”
A calling to serve carries its own wisdom,
which legitimates both the calling and the serving
so that the two are one:
Only the one called to serve
can know this wisdom,
and for some who are called
the knowing comes easily,
while for others the knowing is a fiery baptism.
Each calling is different,
and while some callings can be declined,
others cannot,
and those whose calling is without repentance
know they are in it for the duration of the calling,
and while others may try to persuade them out of it,
the calling for ones such as these always prevails;
thus is it advised to all called for keeps
that they view their calling as a blessing
even when it seems at times to be a curse,
and that they try to reconcile the loss of their captain status
and allow the Spirit of God to man the helm of their ship,
and be glad and willing crew members thereon,
knowing that all sailing ships of souls
need a crew as well as a captain
to maintain and navigate the ship through
seas of many tones, depths and flavors;
so consider each league sailed
as part of the overall journey
going to where the captain deigns to go
by using whatever winds and sea currents available
to navigate the ship to the experiences
this ship and crew need to have
in order to fulfill their calling and its wisdom
revealed by the journey of many leagues,
many known only to the ship and its crew,
all of whom come to know,
some sooner than others,
that once conscripted
there is no safe jumping ship.
(2004)
Love and Kisses,
Sloan Bashinsky
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, Independent District 2 county commission candidate from someplace the little and the big AntiSloan would have a tad of trouble navigating
 Danny Coll
Someone directed me yesterday to several comments on keysnews.com’s “recent articles” blog bonking District 2 County Commission Republican candidate Danny Coll for running Robo-call ads. A DannyColl Robo-call came to Rose Dell, while I was having lunch at Coco’s Kitchen in the Big Pine Key shopping center. Rose let me hear some of it, then she hung up. Wonderful Hispanic people, Rose and her mother, Coco. Below the anti-Robo-call comments was this rebuttal comment:
Submitted on Sun, 08/22/2010 – 8:02pm by tim
This unidentied poster is telling tales. I set up the robo-calls for Mr. Coll through a firm that does that work in Massachusets. One call only was made last weekl-end and one call Saturday the 21st. The firm will confirm that. No politician in his right mind would schedule more than one call per day. Danny did make a call tonight directed only to Hispanic Republicans, necessary because of the anti-Hispanic hysteria being spread by Neugent’s advocate Sloan Bashinsky. [emphasis added by me, Sloan] This poster is either mistaken or deliberately posting false information. Robocalls can be effective in delivering “breaking news” too late for print ads. In his call Danny pledged to the voters that he would do his best to ensure that county taxpayers never again face an 11 per cent tax increase. That should be important information for those who want to chose candidates on the issues rather than on receiving a single robo-call!
If I had to wager a tidy sum, I would say this Tim is Tim Gratz, Danny Coll’s not entirely squeaky-clean campaign manager, with whom I probably exchanged two dozen emails, all initiated by Tim in his efforts to persuade me that Danny would be a better county commissioner than George Neugent. Along the way, I decided Tim stretches the truth to make points, and he makes leaps to makes points I would never attempt. In sum, I decided I wouldn’t know when to believe Tim and when not to believe him.
For a fact, Tim was a lawyer who got disbarred in another state for dipping into a clients funds in a fiduciary account. For a fact, Tim is the target of an out-of-state reciprocal non-support action filed by his former wife over non-payment of child support. For a fact, Tim claims disability and indigence as grounds for not being able to pay child support, but he has plenty of time to do extensive legal and factual research for Danny Coll, and write letters to the editor for Danny, which Danny signs as his own. For a fact, Danny pays Tim to do this. For a fact, Tim might very well end up apprehended by law enforcement and taken back to the state where his wife and child live, and put in jail for non-payment of child support. A few years ago, a north Georgia man I know ended up in jail for three years in a reciprocal non-support case filed from another state.
If I had to make a wager, I’d probably bet a tidy sum Tim either wrote or pretty much dictated Richard Sands’ letter to Key West Citizen, accusing me of bigotry and racial prejudice against Hispanics. Weird, my reply letter to the editor the Citizen has yet to be published, although the Citizen published George Neugent’s reply letter the very next day. Weird, I sent in my reply before George sent in his. I’m starting to wonder if maybe Danny Coll, Tim Gratz, Richard Sands and the Citizen are prejudiced against Poles with Jewish ancestry. More to the point, I’m past wondering if the Citizen is trying to get Danny Coll elected. What else could I conclude after Solares Hill ran a huge story on Cuban-Americans, with Danny and another local Cuban-American as the centerpieces? And then Solares Hill ignored my request that it run a similar piece on George Neugent, to level the playing field in the District 2 Republican primary.
I wrote extensively in yesterday’s District 2 County Commission Race, Mostly – Florida Keys post about the Hispanic hysteria I was accused of spreading. The only people I see spreading Hispanic hysteria are Danny Coll, Tim Gratz, Richard Sands and the Citizen. Inasmuch as I wrote yesterday, and previously to my websites, that I liked Danny and thought he might make a good county commissioner in four years, if he got his business and personal life straightened out, I now have to retract that. Someone who invents and promotes racial hysteria is not someone we want on the county commission.
Hispanic Republicans are voting for Danny Coll simply because he and they are Hispanic. Is that bigotry? Is that racial prejudice against Anglos? Imagine what would have happened if I had not filed to run for the District 2 county commission seat and Hispanic Republicans had joined forces in an open Republican primary with Democrats and Independents, combined outnumbering the rest of the Republicans more than 2-1, and voted George Nugent out of office. What better proof that we need to get rid of partisan voting in local elections in the Keys? If elected on November 2, I will try to end partisan local elections. And I bet I will be accused of being bigoted, racially prejudiced against Cuban-Americans, nearly all of whom are Republicans, thanks to John F. Kennedy’s abort of the American/Cuban-American invasion of Cuba.
Meanwhile, I will be on the air from 10-11 a.m. this morning, with Richard Tallmage at KONK AM 1500 AM, discussing the races and other political trivia. Join us, if you wish. I believe the station takes call-ins, but maybe not from Poles with Jewish ancestry.
Sloan Bashinsky
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, Independent District 2 county commission candidate from Poland and other places
Also today, this latest from Florida Hometown Democracy on what I often say is the most important thing on the November 2 ballot, more important even than any of the races for office:
Dear Friends and Supporters,
Tomorrow is Primary Election Day in the state of Florida which is also the official kick-off of the final weeks leading up to the General Election on Tuesday, November 2nd.
Many of you may already have plans for poll coverage on Election Day but here are a couple of quick suggestions on how you might be able to help Florida Hometown Democracy (FHD) during tomorrow’s election activities…
Hand out literature as voters are leaving the polls… You can either use the palm cards we have provided many of you or you can go to our website, download our literature in the Campaign Material section and then make copies to hand out to voters as they are leaving the polls.
If you are with an organization that is supporting FHD and have your own literature featuring positive Amendment 4 information, make sure your group’s volunteers know to hand out your lit as folks are leaving the polls. And one more thing… THANK YOU for your help and support!
Tomorrow is the end of the Primary season and the beginning of the General Election. For many of you this initiative has been over a seven year campaign. Well it is down to just weeks now before the voters decide. Let’s all take a deep breath and get ready to put on the fight of our lives to get OUR message out about Amendment 4 so that we can push back on the lies and distortions being created by the other side.
Thank you for all of your hard work and support!
Mitch Kates
Campaign Manager- Florida Hometown Democracy
Vote YES on 4
P.S. Please make sure that you are following us on Facebook and Twitter. We have a growing number of supporters following us. The more we get to join, the faster our positive message gets out to the other voters in Florida.
Commissioner Joe McClash does what few politicians have the guts to do: tell the truth about Yes on 4
Let’s be honest: many politicians oppose Amendment 4 because they either a) have grown too myopic in office and believe what their bureaucrats tell them, b) don’t trust the voters to make good decisions about a community’s growth, or c) can’t stop feeding at the trough of developer/special interest money or shake the influence of lobbyists.
That is why it is so refreshing when you hear from elected officials who remember that it is the voters who are their bosses, not the bailed-out builders or real estate interests.
As a commissioner for 20 years, I have seen changes to our Comprehensive Plan that were not for the benefit of the community, but did benefit the influential developer. Yes, you can get rid of the elected official if you do not like the way they voted, but the damage to your community has already been done.
That quote is from a Guest Editorial published Sunday in the Bradenton Timesfrom Manatee County Commissioner Joe McClash. Here are his experienced insights:
Guest Editorial: Amendment 4: the Truth Behind the Lies
Published Sunday, August 22, 2010 7:00 am
by Joe McClash
- Lie Number One: Voters must “Vote on everything.”
NOT TRUE! Only Comprehensive Plan amendments will need to be voted on. There is no requirement to vote on land use items that are zoning issues. Their use of this lie has people believing that if they want to build a house or add a room, it would have to be voted on in a referendum. Just not true!
- Lie Number Two: “Will drive jobless rates higher.”
Florida has the ability to more than triple its population without one more additional Comp Plan change, so this is just not true! And wasn’t it the “run wild development” that caused this great recession we are in now – speculation and over-development which created the worst crisis since the great depression?
- Lie Number Three: “Would mean higher property taxes.”
If anything will drive taxes higher, it would be more development. Several studies show new residential development costs 10 to 30% more in taxes than we receive, which leaves existing taxpayers to subsidize developers.
- Lie Number Four: “Local government will be required to hold expensive referendums. More elections require more tax dollars.”
The fact is, no expensive referendums are required. Every two years we have a primary and general election. There is even a Presidential primary “Super Tuesday” in March every four years. Amendment 4 would allow citizens to give their stamp of approval as part of the existing elections. The process allows that if a developer is in such a rush to change our community’s comp plan, they can request a special election – at their cost.
- Lie Number Five: “Ultimately Amendment 4 would force local and state governments to raise taxes or cut services.”
This is already happening under our current economy with the devaluation of property values caused primarily from over-development. Amendment 4 will allow a process for citizens to give their stamp of approval on only those comprehensive land use changes that have the initial approval of their elected officials. There would be no reason to believe all these changes would be voted against. However, some could be voted down if citizens like their current plan over the developers’ proposed change.
As a commissioner for 20 years, I have seen changes to our Comprehensive Plan that were not for the benefit of the community, but did benefit the influential developer. Yes, you can get rid of the elected official if you do not like the way they voted, but the damage to your community has already been done.
Candidates receiving generous contributions from influential developers and the construction industry, put good people who care about our community and have decided to run for a commission seat at a disadvantage. Less money means less opportunity to let citizens know who you are and your vision for the community. Some may call this representative government. I call it a special interest (representative) government, which is the reason so many of us feel that government is no longer representing the best interests of its citizens.
Amendment 4, if passed, would finally give the average citizen an equal voice to the developer’s influence. Most people realize all development is not bad and there are good developers who truly care about their community.
However, the history of Florida is riddled with the scars from horrible development approvals. If you like the status quo, then do not change our failed policies. If you want something that may finally change our history of past development practices, then Amendment 4 can be the answer.
In summary Amendment 4:
Will not force expensive elections
Will not ruin the economy
Will not increase the jobless rate
Will not force governments to raise taxes
And is definitely not a vote on everything built.
Amendment 4 is a valid option for citizens to better manage their community’s Land Use Plan. The opposition has created a scare campaign filled with outright lies. They often refer to a study conducted by “The Washington Economics Group” that is not based in Washington and relies upon no facts, but mostly opinions – opinions of developers and elected officials who are against Amendment 4.
The outspoken special interests tied to “development as usual,” including those elected officials who help spread these lies, are not interested in what is best for Florida but what is best for themselves. The news media has been threatened to support development interest or lose their advertising revenue. The only risk with Amendment 4 is that we have to trust you, the people. This is a risk I am willing to take.
Sincerely,
Joe McClash
Countywide Commissioner, District 7
Getting the truth out about Amendment 4 may be difficult since the opposition’s money can fund their campaign of misinformation. We can only hope the citizens see through this and vote for what is in the best interest of our local communities and the State of Florida.
It is disappointing that those opposing Amendment 4 have resorted to lies in this important state decision. As an elected official, I find it necessary to provide a response to their misinformation as follows:
Pd. Pol. Adv. By FloridaHometownDemocracy, Inc. PAC, P.O. Box 636, New Smyrna Beach, FL.
Next Page �
|