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:

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:

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 . . .

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.

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.

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?

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

 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

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.

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:

Robo-calls

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.
 

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.   

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:  

George Neugent, Danny Coll and moi

Below is recent correspondence concerning the District 2 county commission seat, mostly, some of which I published previously. All of it was copied to Tom Tuell, Editor of Key West Citizen. The other correspondents’ parts are in italics.
 
Richard Sands letter to the editor, which Key West Citizen published:

Richard Sands

Key West 
 
 
George Neguents reply letter to the editor, copied to me, which the Citizen published: 

In response to Mr. Sands comment that I ( George Neugent) should have distanced myself from Mr. Bashinsky due to his racism. First, Sloan may be many things, a racist he is not.

It is not my job to clean up my opponent’s campaign manager’s, Mr Tim Gratz’s, mess. He attempted to befriend and solicit Mr Bashinsky’s support – it backfired. Sloan attacked my opponent and campaign manager Tim Gratz unmercifully for reasons unknown by me.

To suggest that someone is part of a “Cuban Cabal” is not racism nor bigotry.

Mr Sands, Your political inaccurate message within your letter to the editor, along with your insinuation of me being guilty of same because of me “not disassociating myself,” is reflective of the pot stirring, character assassination efforts of this newspaper. It’s really sad commentary for both of you.

George Neugent

 
Thanks, George, for sharing with me your letter to the editor. You are right, I am many things, but a racist is not one of them. I abhor racism, and have demonstrated that many times in posts to my websites. I have beaten people up for being racists and bigots: whites against blacks, blacks against whites; straights against gays, gays against straights; cities and communities against homeless people, homeless people against cities and communities; men against women, women against men. Everyone who knows me, knows this.
 
As for Richard Sands letter to the editor, he is either not very bright or is a hit man. His line of reasoning actually reminds me of some of the arguments I saw Tim Gratz weave against you in emails he sent to me, trying, apparently, to win my support for Danny Coll against you in the Republican primary, and perhaps trying to persuade me not to enter the District 2 race, which would have made yours and Danny’s an open primary in which Democrats and Independents could vote. After I entered the race, Gratz continued to lobby me hard for Danny, against you.
 
I went after Danny hard because that’s what the angels told me to do. I had no problem doing it, because I became convinced Danny was presenting himself as a fiscal watchdog for the county government, even though all evidence literally falling into my lap was that his NAPA business is in shambles due entirely to mismanagement. I verified the mismanagement through former employees and through local mechanics and garage owners who normally would pull parts from Danny’s NAPA, given his close proximity to them. Instead, they use Danny only occasionally and pull most of their parts from the Marathon NAPA, Advance Auto Parts in Marathon, and even from the mainland.
 
In a rough down economy like this one, Danny’s NAPA should be doing great because people repair instead of trading in their old vehicles for something new. I confirmed this about NAPA stores with two Keys NAPA dealers: Key West Mayor Craig Cates, who recently sold his NAPA dealership, and the owner of the Marathon NAPA dealership. Danny’s NAPA store, I was told by the people who fell into my lap, got into trouble because he let his fiance influence his business judgment. She knew nothing about the business but he was letting her run it. This circles back around to what I asked Danny the very first time he and I sat down and talked at his request, with his fiance present, early this year, at his NAPA store. I asked Danny where he would find the time to put in 60 hours a week to be a county commissioner and still run his NAPA business? He said his fiance would run it and he would oversee her management.
 
That’s part of why I  went after Danny.
 
Another part was because he wants to end oversight of Monroe County by the Department of Community Affairs and the state-designation of the Keys being an area of critical concern.
 
Another part was because I see it as my citizen duty to do what I can to inform the public about candidates for office, when I feel there is something the public is not seeing and/or being told. I beat up your friend David Rice over the tidy sums he made off no-bid contracts for his psychological services to the Sheriff Department, and for the Guidance Clinic of the Middle Keys similar no-bid services, while David was the Guidance Clinics’ CEO and a county commissioner. I also got onto David about the even larger sums given by the County Commission to the Guidance Clinic while David was a county commissioner. I jumped on other candidates: Morgan McPherson and Matt Gardi, in the Republican state representative primary. I jumped on Jay Marzella in the Mosquito Control Board race.
 
I bonked you a few times, George. I bonked Mario Di Gennaro some, but not as much as I bonked David Rice, because most of Mario’s dirty laundry is pretty well-known in the Keys. I need to bonk David again over the letter to the editor in today’s Citizen from his bosom friend Bill Ehrhorn, which tears Mario up for accepting lots of money from developers and from outside the Keys. Ehrhorn gratuitously starts his letter with pejorative mention of Kay Clubs, without saying he is David Rice’s good friend, or that David received a great deal of money from Cay Clubs in his 2006 fiasco race against Ron Saunders. Nor does Ehrhorn say Mario received no contributions in this year’s race from Cay Clubs, which Mario told me this afternoon he did not receive. Yet anyone who reads Ehrhorn’s letter will take it to mean Mario is being backed by Cay Clubs in this race. Meaning, I don’t see any difference between Ehrhorn and Sands, and between Ehrhorn and Tim Gratz. Meaning, somebody in the Republican Party ought to beat up Ehrhorn for behaving like Sands and Gratz, instead of leaving it to me to do.
 
Meaning, obviously by now, I did not just beat up on Danny Coll and Cuban-Americans. I’m bigoted and racially prejudiced against anyone who does not play fair.
 
Another part of why I went after Danny was because you are clearly the superior candidate in the Republican primary. It might well have been to my advantage to leave Danny alone and hope disenchanted Republicans and cross-over-registration Democrats and Independents would give him victory in the Republican primary. It might well be that I would have a better chance against Danny on November 2, than against you. It is a fact, if I had held silent and Danny had beaten you, and then he beat me and became a county commissioner, I would feel like I had thrown the Keys and all people who live here under a very large bus.
 
The final part of why I went after Danny was Tim Gratz, whom I came to view as serious trouble. I told Danny in one of my blog posts that he should disassociate himself from Gratz. I told Danny he should start writing his own letters to the editors, instead of letting Gratz and other people write them for him, and then he signed them as if he was the author. Before the Hometown! PAC forum started at the airport, I told Danny sitting right beside me to just answer the questions that would be forthcoming and not wander all over everywhere like some other candidates would do. I said answer the questions even if nobody likes his answers. He said that’s what he meant to do. I must have really hated Danny to tell him that.
 
All of this above, except for the last three sentences, I wrote and posted to my goodmorningfloridakeys.com and goodmorningkeywest.com quite a few times. All of those posts both you and your aide, Terri, received from me by email. There is no way, George, that you do not know why I attacked Danny. I explained it time and time again. Otherwise, you are right: Danny being Cuban had absolutely nothing to do with my going after him.
 
I did raise in one website post, the one post Sands bet everything on, whether or not Danny is a front man for the Miami-area Cuban-American community trying to make inroads in Keys politics? In that same post, I also asked why the Miami-area Cuban-Americans would use Danny like that, when his own personal and business life was so out of whack? Sand’s lifted and used it out of context. Thus my surmise Sands either isn’t very bright, or he is a hit man in the ilk of Tim Gratz.
 
Last below is the letter to the editor that I sent today to Tom Tuell and the Citizen, responding to Sands’ letter to the editor. I agree with you, George. The Citizen does not meet the standards of journalism this community needs.
 
For example, the Citizen published blatant politically motivated letters to the editor from Danny Coll, wiithout showing by editorial footnote that Danny was a candidate for the county commission.
 
For another example, the Citizen’s in-house subsidiary Solares Hill did a very big and informative article on Cuban Americans, and one of the two local Cuban Americans prominently featured was Danny Coll. After reading that article, I jumped Solares Hill’s Editor Mark Howell’s bones. I said forget about me, but Solares Hill owed George Neugent equal time and treatment, since the article was pubished during George and Danny’s race in the Republican primary. I heard nothing back from Mark, nor did I see you get equal treatment in Solares hill.
 
Sloan

Jay Marzella and David Rice, the little one and the big one that got away with it

Yesterday’s “unedited” Coconut Telegraph blog at bigpinekey.com started off with this from Jay Marzella:
  

 
Not persuaded, I called Dennis Ward, who said he himself had only just gotten through reading it and he had told Jay no such thing. More like, Dennis felt it would be too hard to make out a case, but it was unethical, what Jay did:  offer the school system employee pool a 20 percent discount at his resort while he was campaigning for a seat on the Mosquito Control Board.

If Jay twisted Dennis’ words around so badly, what’s to cause me to believe he didn’t twist Karl Borglum’s words around? More to the point, Jay knew when he rented his homesteaded home that he was not supposed to do that. Further to the point, he knew he was soliciting votes from the school system when he offered the 20 percent discount at his resort. You’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb not to know that.
 
What astounds me is Jay got pounded so hard in Key West Citizen, but as far as I know the Citizen has yet to pound David Rice for the mint he made off of the Sheriff Office and the County through no-bid contracts with the Guidance Clinic while he was the Clinic’s CEO and was a county commissioner voting to approve county and sheriff budgets that made him that mint. According to Key West the Newspaper, David’s net worth increased from $1.24 million to $2.58 million while he was a county commissioner, and it sure as hell wasn’t from wisely investing his $43,000 per year county commissioner salary. $43,000 gross, before cuts for taxes, social security, etc. Key West the Newspaper claimed it got David’s numbers off of financial reports. To date, I am not aware of David saying it didn’t happen just as Key West the Newspaper reported it. What I am aware of, David thinks he didn’t do anything wrong.
 
When a while back incumbent District 2 Commisisioner George Neugent asked me how I thought the District 4 Republican primary between David and incumbent County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro would  turn out, I said  I thought it would be close but David probably would win because of all the things Mario did after he went on the county commission in 2006, when Sonny McCoy and Dixie Spehar were commissioners.

One item from that black time, Jay Marzella was Dixie’s appointee to the Tourist Development Council. Mario appointed himself to the TDC, and along with his buddy, Key West Mayor Morgan McPherson, and Jay, Mario tried to take over the TDC and get rid of its director, Harold Wheeler. A firestorm of public protest stopped that from happening, but the memory lingers, along with just as unpleasant other memories of Mario’s first two years on the County Commission, until Sonny and Dixie were ousted in 2008 and the so-called Gang of Three met their very just-deserved demise.

When I ran for the District 3 County Commission seat that year, at every candidate forum I told the audience if they didn’t get rid of the Gang of Three, they could forget about all the other stuff that concerned them. I did that, while the other candidates were lying low and trying to get themselves elected. Somethings just don’t change, do they?
 
When I told George all David needed to do was lay low and let Mario’s past campaign for David, George agreed. Meaning, somebody had to campaign for David’s past, and since he and his friends sure as hell weren’t going to do it, it became mine to do. At breakfast yesterday morning at Coco’s Kitchen on Big Pine Key with Mario and his wife, Margitta, I said I listen to what David says at candidate forums and after he says it I don’t remember what he said. Mario and Margitta both agreed. If you do not attend candidate forums, you’ll just have to take my word for it. David is very clever at leaving you with nothing to hold onto. He also is devious. He puts his friends up to writing letters to the editor for him, bashing Mario’s past. Letters to the editor, in which the authors do not say they are David’s close friend, or anything about David’s checkered past, of which they are fully aware. Two such devious authors are Sherry Popham of Duck Key and Bill Ehrhorn of Marathon. I beat Sherry up some time ago in a post, and I eviscerated Bill in yesterday’s Old School Journalism – Florida Keys Politics post.
 
Make no mistake, David Rice is running on Mario’s record because David has no record of his own to run on. Margitta said yesterday that when she saw Key West attorney Robert Cintron, whom I know pretty well, wearing a David Rice button, she asked Robert what had David done when he was a county commissioner? When Robert didn’t seem able to grasp the question, or maybe he couldn’t find a find a safe answer for it, Margitta said she asked the question again. Robert still didn’t answer the question, because the only thing he could have answered was David made a mint off of the taxpayers while he was a county commissioner, via the Guidance Clinic of the Middle Keys compliments the Sheriff and the County Commission. Make no mistake, Robert knew that. Make no mistake, Robert does not let that bother him when he backs David against Mario. Make no mistake, nobody who backs David against Mario lets David’s profiteering off the county coffers bother them, any more than what Jay Marzella did bothers him and his supporters. You can bet the conch farm what Jay did bothered the hell out of Dennis Ward, and if Dennis had been in office when David was running the county treasury printing press for himself, that would have bothered the hell out of Dennis, too.
 
Here’s the deal, folks. If you vote for David Rice and/or Jay Marzella, you vote for people who think a lot like Monique and Randy Acevedo think. It’s just that simple. Vote for David and Jay, if you must, but for God’s sake, don’t pretend you didn’t vote for the ones who got away with it. And if you get them elected, don’t complain when they try to get away with it again.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
political advertisement, approved and paid for by me, Independent District 2 county commission candidate from the Ethics Board