Good Morning Florida Keys

What, a candidate who does verse?
No, way, hosea –
Get outta here!
We don’t need no candidate poets.
We need social terrorists
to scare the politicians and crooks away!
Terrorists who prove each day
The pen is mightier than the sword,
Thus the sword defends the pen.

Amen

Thus fell out of me yesterday a call to arms for this campaign season in the Keys, and who knows, maybe across America. Fortunately, for me, I am not cursed with having to deal much with the national political scene. Unfortunately, for me, I am cursed with having to deal plenty with the local political scene. I leave for other Keys people to decide whether that is fortunate or unfortunate for them. My job simply is to do what I can to scare the local politicians and crooks away, and welcome others to do the same.

The front page of this week’s issue of Key West the Newspaper (kwtn.com) features two Category 5 hurricane alerts.

The first is a continuation of the hurricane Sheriff Captain Bob Peryam invented all by his lonesome, then pretended like he never had anything to do with it, and got a bunch of his buddies at the Monroe County Sheriff Office and the Keynoter and Key West Citizen newspapers, and “High Road” White, a paid campaign consultant, to make out like it was all made up by conspiracy freaks, lunatics and muckrakers. Actually, it was the alleged conspiracy freaks, lunatics and muckrakers, KWTN’s Publisher and Editor, Dennis Reeves Cooper, and sheriff candidate, Sandra Downs, who felt the lead winds of Hurricane Bob and sent out the early-warning evacuation advisories, which some folks heard and heeded. Others took the high road, by sticking their heads deep down in the sand and pretending there was no hurricane at all. They slammed Sandy and Dennis, and praised other sheriff candidates who had taken the high road just described. One of those praised candidates is quoted in this week’s Hurricane Bob alert as agreeing with the accused conspiracy freaks, lunatics and muckrakers, adding to the tsunami of evidence that the real conspiracy freaks, lunatics and muckrakers are Captain Bob Peryam & Crew, which is what I had thought all along.

The second Cat 5 alert is a fictional account of a Category 5 hurricane land-falling at Key West, then migrating up the Keys to the mainland. This stormy what-if tale is so well done that I’ll not spoil it by telling any of the details, other than to say a whole lot of folks had grown weary of evacuating at the sign of approaching hurricanes that never showed up, so they, and a heap of partying tourists, didn’t evacuate, and the big one showed up. What stayed in my thoughts the entire time I read this gripping tale was being glad I don’t have to pay attention to hurricane alerts put out by the weather seers, or evacuation orders issued by the political gods. I don’t pay attention to them, because I pay attention to the weather bureau in my dreams. If it doesn’t tell me to evacuate, I stay. If tells me to leave, I vamanos myself to the mainland, after posting an evacuation order to goodmorningfloridakeys.com, goodmorningkeywest.com, bigpinekey.com and my email contacts list. Conspiracy theorists, lunatics and muckrakers probably will ignore me, while others will take flight because the big one really is coming in to take the Keys back to the Stone Age, as described in the second hurricane alert in this week’s Key West the Newspaper.

As for the first Cat 5 alert, Hurricane Bob has only just begun to wend his twisted tale, and his buddies in the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office and at the Keynoter and Key West Citizen, and his high-priced whore, “High Road” White, aren’t going to be able to do a darn thing to stop it. Not a darn thing. Bob is going to hit them like the 1935 “Loop Hurricane” that leveled Marathon from out of the blue. The sad thing is, other political hatchlings should have warned Bob & Crew, but they wuz too busy politicking the high road deep down under the sand to issue the alert.

As Dennis Reeves Cooper likes to say, stay tuned . . .

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, in your dreams, written, borrowed, paid for and approved by just another weatherman . . .

Some people seem to think I just haul off and let fly when I write, which isn’t the case. I write cautiously and often reluctantly, because of how much trouble I’ve gotten into in the past for hauling off and letting fly. Not infrequently I get banged up in dreams for not writing about something, or sitting on something I’ve already written because I’m not sure what to do with it.

Yesterday I mailed four complaints to the Florida Elections Commission, which I had stalled filing because I wasn’t entirely sure there was any point to it, and I wasn’t entirely sure it was God’s will for me to do it. Then, I had dreams pushing me to file. The four complaints now are posted to the Sloan’s Ethics Complaints menu page of goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

Also yesterday, I went to Sandra Downs page on the Supervisor of Elections Office, and again saw the poem that fell out of her while she was providing the Elections Office with information about her campaign.

If you have a dream then God has a plan.
He’s moved mountains before,
He’ll move mountains again.
Give yourself to the Lord in wholeness and grace
You too can move mountains
If you have the faith.

I have a dream
we live in harmony
one human family where courtesy prevails
Where freedom is welcome
a badge is a symbol of justice
our treasures are our children
and U.S. 1 means us are one.

I have a dream
we’re all treated equally
honesty and truth manifest in integrity
Where the halls of the judges
doors are always open
the public servants are real
And accountable to everyone.

Although I can’t prove it, I rather suspect this poem was influenced by Sandy’s deceased son, Preston, whose memorial T-shirt I’m wearing today. On the front is his photo, and on the back his words, “You can’t get to where you want to go, if you only travel on sunny days.” 

Also yesterday, I received an amendment to Sandy’s ethics complaint against former County Commissioner David Rice, which amendment had been invited by the Florida Commission on Ethics, where that and three other complaints filed by Sandy concerning the Monroe County Sheriff Office were already under review. The amendment is posted to the Sandy’s Amended Ethics Complaint menu page of goodmorningfloridakeys.com.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, maybe from Venus, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me

Here’s an email forwarded to me yesterday by Dennis Ward, who works for the Public Defender’s Office and is running for State Attorney. It’s a story about people who ought to care but don’t, and a story about people who don’t have to care and do. Pam Martin, the main author, is a political activist, and I believe she lives on Key Largo. Below her email are some of my own thoughts this morning, and below that is my reply to Dennis last night, when I was a tad more heated up. A tad. Sloan

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Subject: meeting with village manager
Tuesday, May 27, 2008 – 4PM- 4:45PM
Meeting @ Village Hall
Islamorada, FL 33070

In Attendance: Islamorada Village Manager, Ken Fields; Public Defender, Dennis Ward; Islamorada residents (& UKSHAL Members), Pam Martin & Bobbi Haugen

The meeting was held to educate the new Islamorada Village Manager about problems with homeless & village police officers as suggested by the new Village Mayor Cathi Hill.

We discussed middle of the night raids, homeless threatened with arrest, having their personal property destroyed such as drivers license, birth certificates, tools, VA records, marriage license, divorce records, clothes & personal property destroyed, etc. (Things that the homeless have a hard time replacing.) Bobbi told of a case where because she was there taking notes… one of the homeless got his bicycle & cell phone back. (She felt that he would not have gotten his things back if she had not been there.) Also discussed was the incident where a homeless man was hit by a car & threatened with arrest if he pressed charges against the driver who hit him. He was taken to Miami for treatment for his injuries. Incidents at the park behind the Islamorada Library were discussed.

We encouraged a change of attitude on the part of Village Police as well as to encourage law enforcement to treat the homeless with dignity & respect & to give homeless campers time to break down a camp in order to secure there belongings, clean the camp & find another place to stay if they have to move. Also we asked if they would stop the middle of the night or early morning raids and the destruction of the homeless property. Also the threats that they couldn’t come back to clean up their site & take their property.

Dennis Ward talked about the Pottinger Court Case, his work with the homeless as a former police officer as well as his work with the public defenders office. The homeless count was discussed in regards to HUD. Some of the local homeless are longtime Upper Keys homeless residents of 10-15 to even 20 years as well as the large number of homeless Vietnam Vets.

Village Manager, Ken Fields, received our input and is going to talk to (?Captain Fenilli?) of the Islamorada Police Department regarding educating the Village Police in regards to responding to the homeless people in our community.

Mr. Fields was invited to the next Upper Keys SHAL meeting along with the police captain. We also offered to have another meeting with the police captain, Mr. Fields & Village police officers. Pam M. will check next week to get a progress report and see what the next stage is. Dennis Ward said he would have a private chat with the police Captain as he knew him.

We will give the new Village Manager a chance to take the next step, than follow up. We also asked him to format an official Village policy to deal with the homeless with dignity & not threats.

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My thoughts this morning . . .

Yesterday, Sandy Downs and I had yet another of our many discussions about homeless people. For maybe the third time, I told her everyone should be homeless for 6 months. It would change their perspective completely. She countered with a week of being homeless should be enough. I said, no, it would take 6 months.

When I ordered my regular chamomile-lime herbal tea this morning at Sippin’ Internet Café in Key West, I noticed a man in line in front of me had left about 40 cents change on the counter after purchasing his coffee. When Holly, who works mornings at Sippin’, brought me my regular, I told her about the change on the countertop. She said she didn’t want to take it, because of who had left it. I said, yes, he had been homeless a long time, but I was putting it into the tip jar for him. I added that I had been homeless and had spent many days in Sippin’, getting out of the weather, waiting for time to go to my cubbyhole to sleep. Where was my cubbyhole?, Holly asked. Around the corner on Fleming Street, in a doorway next to the bookstore; I was glad to have it in those days, I said. She said she guessed I was. I was.

Here is my reply to what Dennis Ward forwarded from Pam Martin.

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Wow, Dennis. This sounds — hard to believe– a lot worse than what Key West was doing back in 2001, after 911 got everyone all shook up and looking, it sure seemed to me, for some place take out their fear and resentment for the terrorist attacks.

We fought KW’s apartheid against the homeless people in the press, at homeless, conferences, in private meetings with city officials, and in city commission meetings, using the “One Human Family” motto Key West had adopted, to appeal to their higher values. We also used the Pottinger Case out of Miami, a copy of which decision I got from KW Attorney Sam Kauffman, as I recall. Sam threatened lawsuits in some cases, and got a pretty good settlement in one, where KW City had a homeless camp bulldozed with all the homeless people’s belongings turned over in the dirt.

KW officials were very slow turning, and a big piece of the turn was they finally saw the City would be in a Pottinger-like case, if they kept the apartheid up, filed either by Sam Kaufman or by me. I told them that if I filed the case, I would bring it as a KW West Citizen, pro bono, pro se, saying I was doing it on behalf of the City because it was unable and/or unwilling to do what was right. I compared the case that would be filed to a shareholders’ derivative suit brought by stockholders of a corporation, on behalf of the corporation, because the corporate directors and officers were doing stuff that was harmful to the corporation, and thus to the stockholders and the public.

Also helping the turn was KW West Police Chief, Buz Dillion, befriended me. He did not feel his police, or any police force, should be used to implement social/politcal policy. He felt police were supposed to uphold the laws and protect citizens from crime. He called some of his officers on the carpet about they way they were behaving against homeless people. Even so, Buz was handicapped by receiving orders from the City Manager, who was receiving orders from the City Commission, and also from powerful private citizens who could just pick up the phone and make a call and get something done, just because of who they were.

It was, in my opinion, a great loss for KW, mainstream and the homeless population, when Buz was forced to resign by the City Manager. By then, Buz and I were fast friends. I wish he was here now, because in the past year or so, KW citizens and some KW officials have starting making a lot of noise again that reminds me of the post-911 apartheid.

The key to stopping the apartheid always was getting the police not to go along with it, while at the same time the police saw to it that the rough element of the homeless population toe-ed the line, just as the police were supposed to do that with the general population and our many visitors.

What I’m saying here is this: What is described in your forwarded email about that Village meeting could only happen if the police are participating. Islamorada has a contract with the Monroe County Sheriff Office, doesn’t it, to provide police protection? If so, this goes back up the line to Sheriff Roth, and to whomever under him has management/supervisory control over what deputies do in Islamorada. It maybe be that concerned Keys people will have to go there, threaten litigation against not only the Village but also against MSCO; and threaten to bring in the ACLU, which handled the Pottinger case.

In that case, the City of Miami itself had tried to run all of its homeless people out of the City, by arresting and jailing them for sleeping outside at night, cooking outside, relieving themselves in areas where they could not get to a toilet because there wasn’t a public one nearby. The federal judge held that the City of Miami was guilty of constitutionally-prohibited cruel and unusual punishment, and the City got hit pretty hard with damages and a healthy attorney fee for the ACLU.

The judge also ruled that Miami could provide the homeless with a place to stay at night, and if they could not get there on their own, they had to be transported there by the City. If they then refused to go to a shelter, they could be arrested. But if there were no shelters, and no transportation thereto for homeless people without the means to get there, they could not be arrested.

That federal judge/court retained jurisdiction over all homeless matters in Miami. The city had to run anything new it did about the homeless by that federal judge/court, before doing it. As I kept telling KW City, having a federal judge take over your city is like having 100 mothers-in-law come to visit and they never leave. I also kept telling KW, as did Sam Kaufman and Father Steve Braddock, of Florida Keys Outreach Coalition, and Charles Davis, who was FKOC’s homeless outreach liaison person, that the same federal court in the Pottinger Case had jurisdiction over Key West.

Ditto for Islamorada and all of the Keys, the Miami federal court has jurisdiction. It was in that court that I was going to file suit against KW City on behalf of KW City, relying on the Pottinger case. I was not going to ask for damages but only for injunctive relief and ongoing federal oversite. I wasn’t looking forward to doing it, but I would have done it, if KW City kept the apartheid going. Now KW is trying to do it in more subtle ways, so more subtle resistance methods are being used, for now.

Not at all subtle, if Sandy Downs is elected Sheriff, she will not let MSCO be used by KW or any Keys cities or the County Commission or County government to harass homeless people. Sandy and her husband and children have helped feed and clothe the homeless since they moved to the Keys. They see them as human beings, not as criminals, although some of them indeed are criminals and need to be dealt with accordingly, just as some mainstream people are criminals and need to be dealt with accordingly.

In my opinion, speaking now as a lawyer, what Islamorada has been doing to its homeless people, as described in the email you forwarded to me, is criminal, and should be investigated and prosecuted by MSCO and the State Attorney. The investigation and prosecution should be against the responsible city officials and responsible participating deputies, and also their supervisors, for ordering/allowing it. You can bet your boots this would happen if Sandy Downs was now our Sheriff. She will not tolerate criminal behavior by anyone, against anyone.

And, I imagine, were I on the County Commission now, and I learned of what is described in the email you forwarded, I would be told to make a lot of noise about it. If that didn’t do any good, I imagine I would be told make more than just noise. I imagine I would be told to put the appropriate governments and law enforcement agencies and people into federal court, on behalf of Monroe County. I would not ask for damages, but would asked for injunctive relief and ongoing federal court oversight, not unlike the ongoing state oversight the Keys now have from Tallahassee, because Keys people and governments practiced environmental apartheid against the Keys. Sandy Downs doesn’t care much for that kind of apartheid, either, as quickly will become clear, if she is elected sheriff.

Sloan

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By chance, if you believe in it, which I don’t, I went fishing a couple of days ago with a bird colonel in the U.S. Army. He fought in the Persian Gulf War and now is stationed in Germany. He had nothing good to say about George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, or the original US General in charge of taking Iraq, Tommy Franks. We talked quite a bit about Vietnam and the huge homeless population it spawned in America, and in the Keys, and the big increase in homelessness the Iraq war will spawn. I can’t help but wonder how many homeless haters in the Keys voted for George Bush and backed his war policies. I can’t help but wonder.

Political advertisement, maybe at the state mental, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

I, Sloan, continue to receive encouraging feedback about the recent tough questions about the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office, which I posed to Republican sheriff candidate, Ken Davis, to which he did not reply until I mentioned in a later post that he had not replied.

“Sloan

“I will address these issues in the proper forums. Thank you, Ken”

The first time I wrote to Ken with questions, he answered some of them, and ended with, “If you have any other questions please let me know. I believe you will find I respond as soon as possible. Take care and God bless, Ken Davis.”

It was because of his invitation that I sent Ken some more questions. All of a sudden he reminds me of other politicians I keep reading about in Keys comic strips.

Speaking of which, a few days ago I read a Key West Citizen editorial about Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson’s vision of the City acquiring and turning Higgs Beach into a “world-class” fee-paid beach park. I was left wondering again. Wondering if Morgan has ever even been out to Higgs Beach? Or to Miami Beach, Daytona Beach, Pensacola Beach, Ft. Walton Beach, Destin or Panama City Beach? Or Cape San Blas, off Port St. Joe, or St. George Island, off Apalachicola? Or to any beach made of real sand Mother Nature put there?

I wondered if Morgan’s “world-class” beach will be sort of like the “affordable housing” scam used by Keys developers to get their deals approved, which provide precious little, if any, real affordable housing? I wonder if Morgan actually believes what he is saying? I wonder if anyone in Key West does not believe the real reason is to put a fence around Higgs and charge an entry fee, to keep homeless people out of there? I really would like to meet a Key West person who doesn’t actually believe that. Yep, I really would like to meet that person, so I can direct him to the nearest psych ward. Key West would be a world-class psych ward, if it really tried to turn Higgs Beach into a “world-class” beach.

Someone asked me if I was the person who posted to “Citizen’s Voice,” in the Citizen, that I would personally see to it that all homeless people have the entry fee to Higgs Beach, if it is fenced off and a fee is charged to get in? No, I was not that person, but I wished I was, because it was hilarious and the most world-class thing I had seen in print since I came to Key West in late 2000, dead broke, to spend a great deal of time at Higgs Beach.

For several years, I spent a great deal of time at Higgs. I learned the sea water out there often is contaminated with human shit. I learned it is not a place I would let my children swim. I learned it is a much better place to glimpse bare boobs of sunbathing damsels, some pretty darn world class. But I don’t imagine that sort of nature watching would be allowed after Higgs it is fenced in and becomes a “world-class” fee-paid beach — although I have seen bare boobs at free world-class beaches elsewhere. And bare bottoms, too.

I wonder if Morgan has any idea what it takes to put Higgs Beach back together each morning, after it has been used for a day and part of a night by people who never even think of tossing their cigarette butts into a trash can? I wonder if Morgan has ever been at Higgs just after the sun gets up good, to see the big farm-like combine used to “mow” and “vacuum” the beach? I can’t imagine what that mother costs to keep up. Nor can I imagine what it costs in personnel and equipment to maintain the other parts of the Higgs Beach park on the other side of Atlantic Blvd and next to White Street Pier. Nor can I imagine what is involved in restoring the beach after a major hurricane washes out its artificial sand, or busts up its pier again.

Maybe Morgan will convince a gullible private foundation or charity that it can take over and operate Higgs at a profit, under lease from the City. Maybe Morgan will persuade his mullet that world-class beach lovers are just dying to come from all over the world to pay money to swim with their children in shit-infested water. Maybe Key West could promote going to Higgs Beach as a way to strengthen people’s immune systems. No alcohol in the ears or ear plugs necessary. No worries about nicks or scratches, or swallowing a little polluted sea water. Open containers now legal out there, just wash it all off and down with straight whiskey or tequila.

Were I Mayor of Key West, I would never be so world-class as tell Key West people that Higgs can be turned into a “world-class” beach, or so world-class as not warn people that they and their children very likely will be swimming in human shit and could catch a world-class disease they really don’t want to catch, like MRSA. If I were Mayor of Key West, I would see to it that permanent signs are installed at Higgs Beach, saying “Ocean may contain fecal matter. Swim at own risk.” And I would do all I could to help Key West stop polluting the ocean.

Monroe County has plenty of world-class troubles, and very definitely does not need Higgs Beach any more than the Tourist Development Council needs Morgan McPherson and newly-reincarnated Monroe County Mayor Mario DiGennaro dominating the TDC. Like Higgs Beach, those two bubbas, and their appointed TDC director cronies, need to go — before they get the TDC to take over and operate “world-class” Higgs Beach with TDC funds.

So liberated, Morgan and Mario then could do the world-class thing: use their own money to turn Higgs into a “world-class” beach, where they go every weekend with their wives and children to sunbathe and swim.

Meanwhile, I’m wondering if Ken Davis thinks God wants him to make prompt and frank responses to serious and pertient questions posed by Keys voters about the Monroe County Sheriff Office, which he seeks to lead?

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Just another low-class political advertisement, written, approved and paid for by none of the above my name

Here is something Sandy Downs sent by email last night, which she told me on the phone just up and fell out of her after she sat down to write something else. It is very, very difficult for human beings to relate to a visionary, which Sandy truly is. She was born one. She has been one all her life.

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Since I was a small girl, 3 yrs old. I have had vivid dreams, foretelling the future. I knew that my sister was going to die when I was 3 yrs. old. My sister was in the hospital, and when the phone rang, I waited for my mothers tears, I knew she had died before the call even came. She had died.

Before my niece at 3 months even got sick, I called my sister to find out if her daughter had symptoms of what I knew would befall her. I told my sister that her daughter had to have stomach surgery, they didn’t think they had insurance for it, but it would turn out alright. She started vomiting that night, and had to have emergency surgery. They thought their insurance was cancelled due to job changes, but it turned out they had it. I predicted it all. When the same niece fell ill with a heart condition at age 5, I told my sister she was fine, there was no need for surgery. They checked the young girl, and said “Miraculously, the hole in her heart had closed.”

I was baptized at age 11, in a cold stream in Indiana in March. But I was already on a quest, long before that.

At age 10, I knew my uncle would die. I didn’t know how, but I saw death on him 3 months before he passed. I was appointed to talk to him about God, but I did not. He intimidated me. I was always ashamed of that decision after he died of a gunshot wound to his stomach. He died entering his own home through a window during a rain storm. His room mate thought he was an intruder, my uncle had merely forgotten his keys. I knew he would die. He knew too. He told his sister a week prior to his death. I had done nothing, told no one. I was young, who would believe me?

I likewise, don’t expect any of you to believe me. I thought everyone had these dreams, I thought everyone could see what I saw. I learned they did not. I learned very few people saw ahead. I learned that most of them kept it to themselves for fear of the ridicule. I learned there was ridicule. I learned it was not ordinary, and for the most part it was not acceptable to have this “gift”.

I learned that people were for the most part blind.

I entered the Sheriff’s race. It is not a matter of the Sheriff‘s race. I have always sought out to cure society of injustices. That is what I lived for. That is who I was…from early on and still now. They call me crazy, I call them blind. They say I‘m delusional, I say they are.

I thought everyone knew the same things as I did. I have been called a visionary by some people that have known me for 30 or more years. I am always ahead of our time in my thoughts, and also in my fears. I see things coming, sometimes clearly, sometimes in a fog. Nevertheless I see them. Everything from fashion to wars. From health problems to death. I see.

When my son died, I knew he was going to die. I just didn’t know how. I knew 3 months before that. I told my parents in Indiana, please come to visit now, while we are all still here. That didn’t persuade them, so I finally said, “You will be coming for a funeral. Please come now.” They didn’t believe me. They did not come.

At first, I thought it was me who was going to die. So I got all my things in order. I gave my life insurance to my daughter and prepared her to take care of the children. She also had visions of a death, she also thought it was me.

It wasn’t until 2 weeks prior that I knew it would be Preston my son who would die. I asked for a restraining order from Judge Peary Fowler and said I feared for his life, exactly 1 week prior to his death. I thought it would be at the hands of MCSO Det. Manny Cuervo. I sent him to the work site with my husband and his big brother to keep him safe and he died there. The last conversation I had with him was the night before and concerned Terri Shavo, I said that her parents should let her go. I expressed that either you believe in something after this life or you don’t . I told Preston, if they believed they should let her go, instead of her being held hostage in a body she could never use again. They should let her go, and tell her it was OK to leave them.

The day Preston died, I was working on their entries for the Florida Keys Fishing Tournament . They had weighed many big fish in and they were winning many awards. I was doing paperwork for it and getting ready to go to Big Pine in an hour or so for Mother’s Day Tea with my younger son. I felt an urgency to go to Key West, and kept asking my son John, if he needed to go for any reason. He said, “No.” I knew I needed to go to Key West but it didn’t make sense to me. I had to be in Big Pine in an hour.

I heard a yell, a gut wrenching yell from my son, the fisherman, Danny. He was screaming Preston’s name. He frantically searched for him, and I told him, Preston was in Key West. My phone rang then at that moment, and before I even picked it up, I had grabbed my keys and was heading for my car. I don’t know how it happened, but both my younger sons were in the car with me, one came straight out of the canal from swimming and only had his trunks on, no shoes. I had not even told them about my call. They knew. We all knew. My older son had told me Preston had an accident, I knew he was dead already.

As I drove to Key West, Preston said to me, “You don’t have to build on to the house Mom, now you can have my room for someone else.” I was so angry that he thought I needed his room for someone else. I thought, did I ever make him feel that way? Did he feel he was a burden? I wrestle with his words to this day.

His body arrived at the same time as we did. They wheeled him into the room, and I followed through the automatic doors. I smelled death. I mean, I smelled death. Ask a soldier and they will tell you, it has a smell. It is death and there is no mistaking it. I smelled it. His brothers begged me for reassurance that Preston was going to be alright. I told his brothers and sister in law, that Preston is not going to be alright. They need to get ready to say good-bye to him.

I had given him permission the night before to not hang on in a useless body. I had told him it was OK to go. I had told him you either believe in something after this world or you don’t. I had told him he could leave. With his hands fused together, and his organs damaged, and his body burned that he could never use it again, I knew he wouldn’t want to be here. The champion fisherman, the superb 100 ft. free diver, the track star and athlete, the mechanic…..he would find no joy in this world lying in a hospital in a vegetable state from here on. I miss him so. But he had to go. I told him it was OK.

I entered the Sheriff’s race for a reason. It was not to comfort me for my son’s passing. It was not to enact revenge on the Sheriff’s Dept. It was because my son loved the Keys. He Loved the Keys!! He loved it all! He loved the water, the fishing, the homeless, the kids, the sky, and the boats. He loved the Keys.

It is ending, the Keys as we knew it is ending. Long gone is Houseboat Row, long gone are the real conch Cruisers, long gone are the pets in the restaurants, long gone are the fishermen smoking and drinking and comparing their catch. Long gone are the local restaurants, and the locals. Long gone is One Human Family. Long gone are the rainbows, the sunsets, the artists, and the dreamers. Long gone.

I figured if I could take back the Sheriff’s Office and put it in the hands of the locals, and create the oversight committees of the locals, then slowly but surely we could get the Keys back on track. No more harassing the eccentrics, the workers, the kids, the poor, the homeless. No more jail cells for an open container, or half a joint. No more running our people out of the Keys just to make a little more room for the 2nd home residents and the posh upscale resorts that sit empty ¾ of the year. I figured, we could restore the Keys to a humane place,…. at least we could do that.

We are measured as a society by how we treat the LEAST of us, not the most successful. I have never been a respecter of persons for what they’ve accumulated. I always figured they had to squander from a lot of little folks to build up such a wealth. I always loved the worker, and so does God. He says so over and over again.

I will tell you what I know. That what has been printed on Bob Peryam is the least of what he has been accused of. I will tell you that in the Big Pine 29, 29 people went to prison for a family we name parts of Key West after. I will tell you that the MCSO Officer of the Quarter is accused of much more than burning a trailer down. I will tell you that Sonny McCoy’s friend went to prison for what Sonny McCoy was doing to Celeste Bruno. I will tell you that we are headed down a WRONG path. I will tell you that people don’t see here because they don’t want to, not because they can’t. I will tell you that the “seers” are afraid and are hiding, and that is not OK. I will tell you that there are enough left handed people in Key West to move a mountain, and a mountain needs to be moved. I will tell you that people need to start stepping up to the plate and backing these “lone rangers” trying to take their County back for them. Or it will be too late.

I will remind you of Robin Hood fighting the Sheriff of Nottingham, and I will remind you of the Braveheart movie, and I will remind you that there always is a choice. You can sit on the side and watch, or you can engage yourself and stand up. I will remind you, I am looking for my Merrymen to help. I will promise you, it can be done. I will tell you, it is not too late. It is too late, if it is only Sloan and me fighting to take back this County for you all. We don’t want it for us, for God’s sake, can’t you see by the way we live. We want it for YOU! Help us! 10% of this County wants it all for them….there are 90% of us who are willing to share it all, with all, with everyone. Please join us! Please come forward!

Sandra Downs

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I was not born a visionary, or if I was, it was asleep in me until it was awakened suddenly in August 1988, as if a light-switch had been thrown. From that moment, I lived day and night with a blessing and a curse, which is what being a visionary is. We see in ways that no one around us comprehends. We frighten people. Sandy’s way of perceiving is different from mine, but the end result is similar: there is no hiding from us, even as there is no hiding from ourselves. We are shown everything: the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly; and right now, the bad and the ugly are getting the most votes in the Keys. Right now. Fortunately, there still is time for the pendulum to shift, but as Sandy says so eloquently, it is up the people of the Keys to create the shift. All she and I can do is share what we see, and do what is given to us to do.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, yeah, right, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me

I went fishin’ yesterday, so to speak. Today is Memorial Day. Don’t you think it would have been a world-class act for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, along with their wives and children, to have led the charge into Baghdad?

Meanwhile, here are some questions I posed last Wednesday, by email, to sheriff candidate Ken Davis. I sent the email to ken@kendavisforyoursheriff.com. No reply, so far.

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Do you know of and will you stop the practice of providing sheriff cars to MCSO employees who are not deputies, detectives and higher officers in the MCSO chain of command? Do you know of and will you stop the practice of “loaning” patrol cars to people who do not even work for MCSO? Will you keep the seldom used and expensive Sheriff’s Air Force? Will you cut back to 1 the number of assistants a MCSO department head can have? Will you take a reduction in pay from $119,000 annual salary, plus benefits, to $90,000, which Sandra Downs has said she will do if she is elected Sheriff? Will you cut $6,000,000 off the existing $44,000,000 Sheriff’s budget, while increasing deputies’ salaries $10,000 a year, which Sandy says she will do? Will you reduce the number of staff and increase the number of deputies, which Sandy says she will do?

Will you do anything about the Ocean Reef Club Sheriff Substation? Do you believe MCSO should provide a substation to a private city inside county boundaries, into which the public cannot go without being specifically invited? Do you think the 6-10 deputies sitting behind that locked gate, doing very little, ought to be out cruising our public roads and neighborhoods instead? Do you think Ocean Reef ought to have to provide its own police force for so long as nobody can go in there but Ocean Reef members and their guests?
 
What do you know about the additional $17,000,000 funding MCSO received this past year from High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area funds, over and above the $44,000,000 Sheriff budget approved by the County Commission for this year? Sandy says HIDTA paid for 55 personnel in the Keys, according to their report, but Sheriff Roth reported only 2 in his budget. Sandy says HIDTA is the cooperative effort of numerous law enforcement agencies to reduce drug “trafficking,” and when she thinks of drug trafficking, she thinks of airplanes, large cargo boats, big trucks, etc. She and I wonder if you worked for the DEA as part of HIDTA? Where that $17,000,000 went? What crimes HIDTA investigated in the last 12 months? Who got caught and put away, and for what? Who has to account for that $17,000,000, and to whom? Can you answer these questions?

Will you investigate Det. Manny Cuervo for orchestrating the kidnapping five Keys teenagers and holding them incommunicado in the adult section of the jail, without their parents knowing where they were? Will you use polygraph examinations when citizens make complaints against MCSO deputies, detectives, officers? Will you initiate mandatory drug testing for all MCSO employees, including yourself? Will you see to it that Internal Affairs serves the people of Monroe County and not the Sheriff’s Office? Are you in favor of a Citizen Review Board over MCSO? As far as I know, Sandy Downs is the only person in the Keys who knows enough about these subjects to educate you.

Sonny McCoy was accused of sexual harassment of his own aide. One of his friends is doing time over it, but Sonny is still a free man. His friend was not a county commissioner, nor a former Key West mayor. Sonny and two other county commissioners seem inclined toward backroom dealing and ignoring the Sunshine Law. County Mayor Mario DiGennaro had a sheriff deputy evict Kay Thacker, of Key Largo, from a county commission meeting, after she gave a thumbs-down sign over a county commission vote. Kay said nothing, just gave the thumbs-down sign. If the deputy evicted anyone from that meeting, it should have been Mayor DiGennaro, for violating Kay’s constitutional rights.

So my question, Ken, is will you, as Sandy Downs keeps saying needs to be done, enforce the laws against our wayward elected government officials? Against wayward MCSO personnel? Against a wayward State Attorney’s Office, and wayward F.B.I. and DEA agents? Against the rich and powerful? Against anyone and everyone? Equally and fairly?
 
And will you enforce environmental laws the Florida Department of Environmental Protection lets slide? We live in a designated area of critical concern. Our ocean and beaches are polluted because of us. Our reef is dying because of us. We need someone with clout and determination to enforce the environmental laws. Will you do it?
 
I ask all of these questions, Ken, because if I end up on the County Commission and you end up Sheriff, I will be one of the five people you ask to approve MCSO’s budget, and I will want to be satisfied it is money well spent.

Sincerely,

Sloan Bashinsky

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A slightly less than world-class political advertisement, written, approved and paid for by Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Several people challenged me on what I wrote about Brooks White’s letter to the editor in the May 21 Keynoter. The challenges concern Brooks’ right, as a private citizen, to freely express himself in a letter to the editor. I never said he didn’t have that right. He does. The First Amendment guarantees it. But First Amendment doers not abolish the Florida election disclosure laws.

I started thinking back yesterday to what I learned in law school. Once a principal-agent agreement is reached, for the agent to do something for the principal, what the agent then does within reasonably expected parameters in furtherance of the employment agreement is assigned also to the principal, even if the principal doesn’t know precisely what the agent is doing.

Meaning, if I hire someone to carry campaign posters (which don’t use, but let’s assume here that I do) up to Key Largo and put them out up there, then that person is working for me. If en route to Key Largo, my agent causes an automobile accident that injures someone else, then I also am legally responsible for the injuries. Respondeat superior, this is called in the law. The master is liable for the acts of the servant.

Meaning, if sheriff candidate Bob Peryam hired Brooks White to help him get elected, then a subsequent letter to the editor by Brooks, praising Bob and two other sheriff candidates, and slamming two other sheriff candidates, was part of Brooks’ campaign work for Bob. Under the law of agency, it was the same as if Bob wrote the letter to the editor, even if he did not know Brooks wrote it until after it was published.

Now let’s look at this from the agent’s side. As I explained to one of the challengers yesterday, who sometimes gets onto me hard about my spiritual views and remarks, the First Amendment (render unto God) gave Brooks the right to write what he wanted to write. However, if he was, in fact, working for Bob Peryam, the Florida election disclosure laws (render unto Caesar) gave Brooks the duty to publicly disclose his relationship to his employer.

Now, I do not know for a fact that Brooks is working for Bob, or for any sheriff candidate. But Brooks sure behaved on the phone with me in a way that left me thinking he was working for a sheriff candidate. All he had to do was tell me that he wasn’t, and that might have been the end of it. Might, because I might have done some checking around anyway, because Brooks has done this sort of thing in the past, when he was working for candidates. As far as I know, neither Brooks nor Bob have denied Brooks was working for Bob when Brooks wrote the letter.

Brooks made a lot of noise in the letter about candidates he liked taking the high road and not slinging mud. But he did not answer my repeated questions about him working for a sheriff candidate. He slung mud at Ken Davis and Sandy Downs. And if he already was working for Bob Peryam and did not disclose it in his letter, he wallowed in the mud below the road.

Perhaps this was why I saw The Counterfeiters last night at Tropic Cinema in Key West. The main character was a master counterfeiter the Nazis caught and forced to lead a counterfeit lab that produced a great quantity of British pound notes that the British government could not tell were counterfeit.

Not everyone in the Keys is duped by counterfeiting, according to an email Sandy Downs received out of the blue yesterday, from someone she didn’t know.

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Hello Sandy,

I just wanted to drop you a note to express how sad I was to read of what has happened to you and your family. Having six children myself, I can not imagine how I would go on if I lost one of them. You have not only moved on but at a vengeance pace. I am glad to see someone standing up to the corrupt government of the keys. My family has lived and owned property in the keys since the early 1960’s. So much has changed since then. You are right, the average person’s rights are not protected. I really am hoping that you win this campaign and set right the wrongs that are being committed. You definitely have my vote come election day! Thank you for making a difference!

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Writer’s name withheld by my choice, to protect her and her family. I’ve seen far too much already about how the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office retaliates when it does not like what is going on. I’ve seen far too much.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, written, borrowed, paid for and approved by me in the homeland of master counterfeiters

Texts of emails about political consultant Brooks White’s recent letter to the editor in the current Keynoter, reproduced in full at the beginning of the first email. In one of my emails, I asked for a formal investigation of Brooks and any sheriff candidate he represents, and Larry Kahn, Editor of the Keynoter, and the Keynoter itself, for potential violation of the election disclosure laws.

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Dear Harry Sawyer, Supervisor of Elections, Sheriff Rick Roth and State Attorney Mark Kohl:

Just below is a letter to the editor in the May 21, 2008 issue of the Keynoter.

Candidates need to take the high road

EDITOR:

Thanks for Alyson Crean’s excellent two-issue series detailing the campaign positions of the five sheriff candidates. I thought it interesting that three of the candidates, Bob Horan, Phil Mandina and Bob Peryam, chose to take the high road, and only speak of their own qualifications and platform. Peryam and Mandina spoke strictly of their experience and benefits why voters should elect them. Horan addressed only his libertarian philosophy. None of these three candidates mentioned their opposition.

The other two candidates, Ken Davis and Sandra Downs, focused on debasing their opposition and pointing out what they perceive to be problems and conspiracies with the current Sheriff’s Office. Davis implies his opponent would be effectually bribed into making unfair employment choices because of contributions from deputies, employees and contractors. He attacks the operation of our jails and criticizes deputies that commute to the Upper Keys. Downs alleges department-wide massive conspiracies including stalking, kidnapping and the electrocution of her son. Perhaps because neither of these candidates claims any local law enforcement background, they feel compelled to go dirty.

The behavior of candidates in a campaign speaks directly to their character. With six months remaining until election day, are we voters to be forced to endure another half year of this pair of naysayers’ negative mud slinging?

Brooks White

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I know Brooks White personally. It is generally known in the Keys that he is a professional campaign consultant/promoter. With that in mind, I called Brooks, whose phone number just so happens to be in my cell phone directory. This was yesterday, May 21, 2002.

When I said I’d just read his letter to the editor and perhaps he did not know it had been published, Brooks said he had seen it. When I asked if he was representing a sheriff candidate, he said he wrote the letter as a private citizen. I asked several more times if he was representing a sheriff candidate, and each time he said he would not answer the question. I said he has an affirmative duty to the public, when he writes a letter to the editor such as this one in the Keynoter, to disclose if he is representing a candidate. I got nowhere, it was like talking to a brick wall.

I said we had great trouble in the Keys, and I had thought he was someone who would help with it, but I was seeing that he is part of the problem. When I said I might be asked to write about his and my conversation, he said for me not to put words into his mouth. I said he had put words into his own mouth.

Just a little while ago, I call the Supervisor of Elections Office in Key West, about requesting an investigation for possible violation of the Florida Election Laws by Bob Peryam, Phil Mandina, Brooks White and Keynoter Editor Larry Kahn, who admitted on the phone to Sandra Downs yesterday that he knew Brooks represented many political candidates. I was told no one was at the Elections Office who could help me. I left my phone number and asked that Harry Sawyer, whose office it is, call me back. I was told he might not be able to return the call, but someone would call me.

If I had Brooks White working for my county commission campaign, and he wrote a letter to the editor such as this one above, putting me into a favorable light and slamming some of my opponents, without disclosing that is was a paid political ad approved by me, it would be a violation of the Florida Election Laws. By me. By Brooks. And by anyone else who knowingly participated.

In past articles about candidates, the Keynoter has indicated when Brooks White is involved in candidates’ campaigns. A seasoned journalist, Larry Kahn knows the election laws require candidates and their hired help to disclose in their political advertising that it is paid political advertising, approved by the candidate.

I ask that Bob Peryam, Phil Mandina and Brooks White be investigated, and if it turns out that Brooks White represents either Bob Peryam or Phil Mandina, that prosecution begin against the appropriate candidate and Brooks White, and against Larry Kahn and the Keynoter (as accomplices).

Thank you for your prompt attention to this request.

Sloan Bashinsky

626 Josephine Parker Rd, #102
Key West 33040
(305) 407-4285
May 22, 2008

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Sloan:

As you know all paid advertisements require a political disclaimer. Letters to the editor are free and therefore do not require a disclaimer. Each election I see more of these types of letters printed in our local newspapers. I understand your frustration; however Florida election laws are clear that the advertisement has to be paid in order to require a disclaimer.

I am not aware of any election law that places additional requirements upon a political consultant that is not otherwise required of a private citizen, when writing letters to a newspaper.

As we get closer to our elections I guarantee there will be more, and not just in one newspaper.

I get this question every time this happens and the answer will be the same. Unless and until the Florida Legislature changes the law, letters to the editor, printed free in our newspapers, will not require any type of disclaimer.

I called you today and left a message on your phone.

Sorry I was not there to talk to you when you called. I am attending a Division of Elections workshop.

Harry L. Sawyer, Jr.
Monroe County
Supervisor of Elections

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Thanks for writing, Harry. I picked your message off my voice mail too late to return your call.

I respectfully disagree. If the letter-to-the-editor writer is a political consultant/promoter being paid by a political candidate, and the letter to the editor promotes that consultant/promoter’s candidate and bashes the candidate’s opposition, that is part of the services for which the candidate is paying the political consultant/writer, and it should be disclosed in the letter to the editor.

Where do I appeal over your decision?

Sloan

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Sandy Downs told me last night that Phil Mandina said Brooks White is not working for him. Does anyone really think people who read “High Road” Brooks’ letter to the editor, who know what is really going on, will see the letter in the same way they would see it if they did not know what was really going on? Aren’t election disclosure laws supposed to protect the public and not candidates and their paid campaign consultants? Well, aren’t they?

The Keynoter, Key West Citizen, Key West the Newspaper and perhaps other Keys newspapers know Brooks has a practice of writing letters to the editor like the one involved here, for candidates he represents and/or hopes to be hired by. He and apparently others seem to think this practice is okay. I don’t, and neither does God. In fact, it seems that God doesn’t think a lot of what goes on in Keys politics, campaigns, journalism and so forths is okay . . .

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me, even as I wonder what items of my own personal wearing apparel I will be made to shed down to the bare assets, as this campaign season progresses . . .

Must have been something in the air yesterday.

A fellow I sometimes see around Key West trapped me on Southard Street and gave me an earful about a friend of his who had been busted by the KW police for having an open container. This fellow had a wife and kid, home. Into the slammer he went, and stayed, because he had not the means to get out. His wife left him, took the kid. He went berserk, became violent. Then, he lost his mind. This fellow on the street was almost out of his mind telling me about it.

When later I told Sandy Downs about it, she told a story of a Keys fellow she and her husband knew, who was picked up on a warrant from another place and held in the Stock Island jail three weeks. It finally was determined that he was not the right person, and he was released without even so much as an apology. By then he had lost his job and was homeless.

I also told Sandy, and Ken Davis by email, of something else that left me shaking my head yesterday.

I read in the new Keynoter a letter to the editor from Brooks White, whom I know personally. In his letter, Brooks praises Bob Peryam and Phil Mandina for taking the high road in the sheriff’s race, and pounds Ken Davis and Sandy Downs for going after the issues, as I see it.

Brooks is a professional campaign consultant/promoter. His phone number just happened to be in my cell phone directory, so I pressed “Send.” Brooks answered. After hellos, I said I had just read his letter to the editor and perhaps he did not know it had been published? He said he had seen it. I asked if he was representing a sheriff candidate? He said he wrote the letter as a private citizen. I asked several more times if he was representing a sheriff candidate, and each time he said he would not answer the question. I said he has an affirmative duty to the public, when he writes a letter to the editor such as this one in the Keynoter, to disclose if he is representing a candidate.

I got nowhere, it was like talking to a brick wall.

I told Brooks that we have great trouble in the Keys, and I had thought he was someone who would help with it, but I was seeing that he is part of the problem. When I said I might be asked to write about his and my conversation, he said for me not to put words into his mouth. I said he had put words into his own mouth.

Later, I received an email from Sandy:

Hello Sloan,

Today I called Larry Kahn, Editor of the Keynoter, to ask him about the May 21st edition of the Keynoter. Larry published a “Letter to the Editor” from Brooks White which discussed the Sheriff’s race. I asked Larry if he felt Brooks White should have disclosed that he is a political consultant hired by the big guns to run their campaigns and help ensure their wins?

Usually, the Keynoter prints who has retained the services of Brooks White. But there was no mention of his hire in Alyson Crean’s articles on the Sheriff candidates. Nor was their any mention of it in Brook’s Letter to the Editor, nor any Editor’s note** made by Larry Kahn to disclose it.

I asked Larry Kahn why neither he nor Brooks disclosed if Brooks represented one of the candidates? He said, “Brooks works for lots of candidates.” I said, “But this article was about the Sheriff candidates, and his possible representation of one of them is not only important to note, but is only fair for the public to know”, because Brooks identifies himself as only a “voter” in his letter and he attacks me and Davis for “mud-slinging”. He praises Peryam and the others for taking the high road.

Larry said, he’d have to call Brooks and see if they had to disclose that. Had to disclose that? I asked Larry if he thought this was a little deceitful? Larry continued to say he would call Brooks. I told Larry, maybe the Ethics Commission could clear up “disclosure rules” for him and Brooks. If Brooks represents Peryam and Kahn knew it, then all 3 attempted to sling mud on every person who honestly believed they were just reading a letter from a “voter”, not a paid consultant for Peryam.

Sandra Downs

P.S. Number #159 on Peryam’s list of contributors is Brooks White, the “voter” who hates “mud-slinging”.

I told Sandy and Ken that it certainly is understandable that someone running for public office does not want dirt dug up on him (or her), and it is just as understandable that that someone would counter it with talk of taking the high road. Alas, if the dirt is not dug up and exposed to the light of day, it remains underground, festering, causing problems. So it needs to be dug up and aired out and dealt with. Phil Mandina knows this, and, contrary to what Brooks wrote, is digging up dirt.

I also told Sandy and Ken that people who run for public office surrender the right to keep their dirt underground. If they truly want to serve the public, they dig it up themselves, so nobody else has to do it for them, and make them look like they are not the person they want the voters to think they are.

Sloan Bashinsky, non-partisan county commission candidate, District 3

Political advertisement, written, borrowed, approved and paid for by me