Archive for April, 2012

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wild cards in the crosshairs – Trayvon Martin, FlaKey school discrict, Key West selections

Monday, April 30th, 2012

 

There is an earlier post today at this link: no justice, no peace – Blacks’ Trayvon Martin mantra?, which should take you to Today’s Vulcanite at goodmorningbirmingham.com. I slam Pulitzer winning Miami Herald journalist Leonard Pitts for what I view as a totally irresponsible article comparing the Trayvon Martin shooting to the Rodney King beating by several white Los Angeles police men. I include how I would strike an all-black jury, if I were George Zimmerman’s lawyer, and what I would do if Zimmerman objected.

 
Meanwhile, it’s a pretty bright Monday in the Florida Keys, too, if you equate bright with lots of sunlight …
 
From School Board member Ron Martin yesterday:
 
Subject: RE: Candidate Fairness
Date: Sun, 29 Apr 2012 16:28:09 -0400
From: Ron.MartinSB@KeysSchools.com
To: keysmyhome@hotmail.comSloan

To clarify I did not bring up the tax referendum to give pay raises to the teachers. I wanted to give the district the flexibility to reduce the impact the current recommendations would have on our students and schools.

Ron Martin

 
I replied:
 
Hi, Ron.I did not think you brought up a new school tax increase to get higher pay for teachers.

I felt a new tax increase was necessary, after Jesus Jara repeatedly said, in the newspapers and at school board and town hall meetings, that 40 teachers would have to be let go to balance the budget. I did not want 40 teachers fired. I said that at the recent school board meeting, and at the previous school board workshop, and I recommended everyone in the school district take a pay cut to balance the budget.

I told you during a break at the last school board meeting that the teachers union could not be allowed to get at a new school tax, for that would be a deal killer for the new tax.

I came away from that meeting not trusting anything Jesus Jara says. I can’t imagine he will be kept working for this school district.

Sloan

 
Ron replied:
 
Just remember I always have one thing in my mind and that is what is best for the students. That is how I base my decisions. Thanks for all you are doing. Ron
 
I replied:
 
Way I look at it, Ron, you are the only person on the School Board who knows the terrain, because you made the terrain your career, your life. I imagine you have forgotten more than the rest of the Board members and Jesus Jara will ever learn about teaching, running a school, and school children. Sloan
 
Ron replied:
 
exactly Sloan don’t let me forget it run have a great Sunday night
 
From a Key West amiga yesterday:
 
I am sending you this link to a newspaper article that came out today on the issue of Peary Court.

 
By the way, the attorney for Southeast housing is using the argument “What would happen if the City would annex Key Haven? ( a wealthy enclave a mile outside the city) Would the City require the 30 % affordable housing then? Isn’t that absurd?”
 
One could easily turn that around and say “What would happen if Key Haven petitioned the City to Annex it? Wouldn’t the City require that this new applicant comply with its codes and Comp Plan? Or would we just give them a free ride?” That more clearly fits the case as to Peary Court.
 
As a thirty plus year resident of Key West, I can attest to the need to sustain all existing affordable housing, and at this time we are about to lose some time limited affordable housing. Please help improve the quality of life for all our working force, military and civilian. Ideally, the best and highest use for this land is the currently used affordable housing. In addition, we certainly have a growing need for assisted living, as is the rest of the nation. We have an affirmative vote of the local residents for assisted living, the question is location.
 
If the 100% affordable housing currently existing on leased military land in Peary Court is to be transformed into more high end luxury homes in a gated community, please stand strong on the need for at least 30% affordable for the life of the property. What an appalling transformation of U.S. taxpayer assets in affordability being transformed through a British holding company to private use at the expense of our own taxpayer needs.
 
Sincerely,
Monica Geers Dahl, Ed.D.
 
And not a very nice British holding company according to the three KWTN articles, by Naja Girard, Dennis Cooper and Rick Boettger.
 
KEY WEST THE NEWSPAPER April 26, 2012
 
PAGE ONE COMMENTARY
 
Since 2007, Peary Court Has Been Operated as a For-Profit Real Estate Business— but no Property Taxes Have Been Paid
 
by Arnaud Girard
and Naja Girard
 
Key Westers recently discovered that, back in 2007, the Navy had discretely transferred all of its local housing facilities, including Peary Court, to a subsidiary of Balfour Beatty, a huge British company.
 
Attorneys for BB are now thundering and threatening the City with lawsuits if it dares interfere with the ‘economic rights’ of private owners to redevelop Peary Court without City affordable housing restrictions.
 
But, as the stealth privatization of Peary Court slowly decloaks before our eyes, we must ask this uncomfortable question: Shouldn’t that company have been paying local property taxes since 2007? Because, the fact is, it hasn’t.
 
Why is it that a private company which, as it claims at public meetings, owns all of the buildings at Peary Court plus a 50-year lease on the land and an apparent option to sell the entire property to the highest bidder should not have to pay its share of property taxes, like the rest of us? After all, it is a for-profit organization not only renting to military families, but also to the general public.
 
Interestingly enough, Florida, in its First General Assembly (Senate and House) in June 1845, authorized the Federal Government to own land in Key West and be “tax exempt” but only as long as the land is used for exclusive military activities“and not otherwise.”
 
In other communities where BB operates, like Pennington County, South Dakota, BB will apparently be required to pay property taxes on its military housing if it starts renting to the general public. So, what about here in Key
West?
 
We asked our Property Appraisers’ Office (PAO) for an opinion. The PAO, however, claimed that it had no knowledge of any transfer of interest in local Navy housing property. “If you have knowledge or documentation that the Federal Government has conveyed ownership, or otherwise transferred interest, we would be most interested in seeing such,” said Karl Borglum, Monroe County Property Appraiser in a March 26, 2012, email.
 
Even so, it appears that there was something going on at the tax appraiser level in 2007 concerning the Navy housing properties. When we checked the land values for 2007, we found that the value of the land under BB’s housing had in most cases been slashed in two— $883 million of Key West Navy housing land was devalued to $457.6 million in 2007. Also, 90 percent of the buildings were not assessed, with the land being described as “vacant land”.
 
Curiously, while the land values for these BB housing properties were halved, land value assessments just about doubled for neighboring properties. In 2007, the Restaurant Store’s land value went from $40/SF up to $75/SF, the Armory from $95/SF to $150/SF. Spencer’s Boatyard went from $34/SF to $75/SF, but Peary Court was reduced from $40/SF to $18/SF.
 
The Property Appraiser’s Office indicated that they have no record as to why the value shifts were made. However, that same year, in 2007, BB was trying to borrow some $526 million on its newly-signed military housing contract with the US Navy. Could the bankers have been worried about the potential impact of property taxes on the repayment of that debt?
 
According to official publications, the Navy clearly spelled out to BB that it might have to pay property taxes when entering into the housing deal. Devaluation of the property at the tax appraisers office could have helped the deal go through.
 
As to tangible tax, while every business in town must report and pay taxes on every asset from computers to chairs and tables, BB has not reported a cent.
 
So, what would be the implications of this property tax issue? No one is more likely to profit from a collection of taxes from BB than the school children of Monroe County. The School District is looking at a $6.2 million deficit for the 2012-2013 school year and, according to School Board Chairman, John Dick, “Local taxes cover about 75 percent of the costs, and I think a fairly close number would be $7,100 per student. It does appear that the houses at Peary Court should have been placed on the tax roll.”
 
How much money are we talking about? Remember, we’re not just talking about Peary Court. We’re also talking about Sigsbee Island, Trumbo Point, Truman Waterfront housing, and even the medical clinic and homes on Roosevelt Boulevard since 2007— potentially millions of dollars in tax revenue.
 
But, ultimately it’s up to the tax appraisers. BB may be exempt or it may have to pay real estate taxes only on the buildings it owns or conceivably on everything, land included. Some facts that would be relevant include whether more than 50 percent of the apartments are rented to civilians—the Navy claims that only 25 percent of the military in Key West chose to live in military housing— whether BB owns title to the buildings— they sure say they do— and whether BB has a lease on the land and can trigger the sale of the property— BB officials say they can do that, too.
 
“Ironic. The British are not paying local taxes,” jokes Pascal Bergevois, who is British and a school teacher at a local pre-K, “Maybe we need a sequel to the Boston Tea Party, this time with the ‘Indians’demanding OUR tax money from the British.”
 
In the meantime, BB’s bonds on the military housing project have been given a “negative” outlook by Moody’s Investors Service and on March 28, BB warned all 12,000 employees in the UK that their jobs were in jeopardy.
 
Also, over the years, BB has paid millions of dollars in fines associated with charges of bribery, negligence and fraud in America and other countries around the world.
 
So, the School District probably shouldn’t budget BB’s money just yet.
 
BRITISH COMPANY HANDLING RENTALS AT PEARY COURT HAS PAID MILLIONS OF DOLLARS IN FINES ASSOCIATED WITH BRIBERY, FRAUD
AND NEGLIGENCE CHARGES
Who is Balfour Beatty?
by Dennis Reeves Cooper
 
Based in the United Kingdom, Balfour Beatty (BB) is a huge transnational civil engineering and construction giant. Since October 2007, a subsidiary of BB has reportedly owned all of the buildings at Peary Court and has a 50-year lease on the land— according to statements by representatives of BB at public meetings here.
Since 2007, BB has operated Peary Court as a for-profit real estate business, renting units to military families as well as private citizens. Some sources say that during this time, BB should have been paying city and county property tax— possibly millions of dollars. They have not.
 
Some sources also say that, since 2007, BB should have been complying with all city, county and state regulations, codes, inspections, as well as paying all associated fees. They have not.
 
If these allegations are true, BB has broken the law here. The truth will eventually emerge. But in any event, Balfour Beatty is no stranger to allegations of wrong-doing.
 
• In October 2008, the London-based Guardian newspaper reported that Balfour Beatty had paid a multi-million- dollar fine to settle bribery allegations relating to a construction project in Egypt.
 
• In 1999, according to press reports, Balfour Beatty was ordered to pay a fine of $1.8 million after a railway tunnel collapsed during construction at London’s Heathrow Airport.
 
• In 2007, Balfour Beatty was fined $12 million for negligence after a train accident in southern England killed four and left 102 injured. The accident was reportedly caused by a broken rail. BB officials reportedly knew about the broken rail for months before the accident.
• In June 2000, 40 FBI agents raided BB’s Massachusetts office as part of an investigation of fraud allegations. Allegedly, BB had doubled the cost of an Amtrak project from $321 million to $680 million. In October 2005, the London-based Telegraph newspaper reported that Balfour Beatty and two other companies had agreed to pay Amtrak $25 million to settle fraud allegations.
 
• In 2001, BB along with a number of other transnational companies involved in a dam construction project was charged with bribing a Lesotho government official. Lesotho is a small country completely surrounded by South Africa.
 
There are no allegations of fraud, negligence or bribery concerning BB’s development project here in Key West.
 

LESSONS OF PEARY COURT

 

COMMENTARY

 

by Rick Boettger

Our front page recently asked, “Was Harry Powell right?” My answer is, wow, was he ever right. And not just about Peary Court, but about the Shipyard affordable housing and even, I will argue, about the way he made his case—threatening to blow himself up, and going to prison.

I’ve read tens of thousands of words on the record, and here’s the short story. The Navy built housing they knew they didn’t need. They used bad faith in the process. The populace and our local government tried very hard to reason with and plead our case to the Navy, but were scorned. Our local political leaders eventually gave up. Harry, after doing everything within the system, for years, to no avail, snapped.

The Navy decided to build on Peary Court as the Cold War was winding down, and decisions were already in the pipeline to downsize in Key West. Meanwhile they had had recently upgraded 222 units of housing in Poinciana which they then decided to give away, demolished 188 on Sigsbee, and tore down 30 trailers across from Glynn Archer. They also had numerous alternative that would have avoided demolishing many mature trees and covering a beloved green space in the middle of town.

What I found most shocking in this story is the scornful disrespect the Navy showed towards not only the people and elected leaders of Key West but towards their own rules and procedures. They ignored our City commission’s 14 resolutions begging for any kind of accommodation. They did cursory and cynical environmental assessments. They ignored the role of green space or value to the community of the trees and ball fields. They repeatedly lied about not having received any objections during a 30-day noticing period, and then, when busted, said “It doesn’t matter whether we…” The Government Accounting Office investigated and castigated them for ignoring the availability of housing in Key West, among their other errors in the Peary court process.

Our Water Management District ordered them to stop working until they corrected drainage issues, and they simply ignored their injunctions. They completed the project, after themselves officially acknowledging a housing surplus, just because the money had already been allocated and the contracts signed.

The biggest diss to the City came after the sad breakdown of the City Commission’s years-long resolve. They fought until the Navy threatened to charge us $20,000 to remove the bleachers from our softball fields. The City blinked, tore down the bleachers, and thereafter like whipped puppies approved the Navy plans. In one two-hour final fight with only Harry still resiting, Jimmy Weekley delivered a tirade against Powell, telling him to stay out of his way because Weekley was making progress toward a compromise. But a month later, the Congressman Jimmy thought was helping us meekly delivered a terse non-sequiter, repeating the already-busted lie that “no responses were received in the 30-day period,” essentially flipping us the bird.

Harry had fought for four years as a Commissioner. He gathered 5,634 signatures on a petition. After leaving office, he continued his campaign in Washington, writing 250 letters (one response). He got arrested for chaining himself to his bike on the property. He flew to Washington five times to visit everybody who might help. The final act of faking the explosives was thought of in just a day, a desperate impulse.

Those are the short facts, from my reading of J.D. Doolittle, Nancy Klingener, and Mike Smith, reporting at length at the time. So what are the lessons we can learn from this urban tragedy, our losing a prime green space in our overbuilt little burg, losing it to callous indifference to not only our needs but the needs of the military itself? In brief, who we elect REALY MATTERS, working the system can be a waste of time, and sometimes you have to sue or go to jail yourself.

When Harry left the Commission, he was replaced by Harry Bethel, and Dennis Ward took Captain Tony’s spot as Mayor. So another “concrete coalition” ruled Key West. On this Commission, Jimmy, Joe Pais, and Sally Lewis changed their former votes to save Peary Court, and abandoned the cause. Worse, even when the former Commission was writing resolutions, they refused to spend a cent to send Harry to D.C., or join Last Stand in their lawsuit.

Our national leaders also refused to offer meaningful help. Senator Connie Mack finally asked the GAO to formally investigate Peary Court only because it was Harry’s single demand in his explosive meltdown.

It is hard for me to believe how badly the Navy acted in this matter, through three change of commands. When I moved here in 1996 the base was open to all, and I’ve seen nothing more disagreeable than the normal tension surrounding large fighter jets, which has been handled by comparison with caring mutual respect. I have no idea what we the people can do to influence our military if our national leaders don’t manage them for us.

The only unarguable positive outcome was seeing Last Stand really step up to the plate. They filed the lawsuit that the City refused to even sign on to. They stuck with it, even prevailing at first, before losing on appeal. They have proven to be able fighters for the public good, willing to hang in there over the long run, and at substantial expense. Bravo, Jim Farrell, the President at the time.

The lesson our current City Commission should take from this is to stand on their hind legs and at the very least require the normal proportion of affordable housing, still allowing the developers to make enough millions of dollars from their investment. Please, redeem the sad heritage of your impotent predecessors.

I take two personal lessons from it all. First, it reinforces my conclusion that attending meetings, trying to work together, and writing articles trying to come to a consensus is too often a waste of time, and the only thing to do is sue the bastards. Harry did everything he could, with the help of literally hundreds in the community, including a young gal who chained herself in a tree for five days. It accomplished nothing. Only the Law gave us a chance. And being right is no consolation. Harry had previously been dead-on about the Shipyard condos. He objected to their special “affordable housing” zoning dispensation, warning that rich Northerners would buy them out and rent them out to transients. He voted “No” alone, saying local workers would not benefit. Yup.

The second lesson is tougher. I ran into Harry at the Waterfront Playhouse back when I was planning to chain myself to a Fort Zach pine tree to stop their destruction. I asked him if he had any advice. He said, “Rick, you get one wild card in life. Play it carefully.”

Hmm. This is profound. “Wild card.” I’ve got one. And I should “play it,” not die with it up my sleeve. But I should play it “carefully.” What the hell does that mean? Harry was “careful” in that he hurt no one, nor even threatened to harm anything but a trailer and himself. He didn’t get himself shot by a sniper. But he did spend a lot of time in prison.

Rosalind Brackenbury wrote that Harry“equated those few green acres with the worth of his own life . . . It was the last large green public open space on the island. Mature trees grew there, people had picnics, played and relaxed. It belonged to the people who live here, what city planners call a ‘lung,’ the necessary breathing space in all urban development. It was home to wild life, nesting birds, the tropical life that is under assault in these days of rampant greed for land. . . On an island this stares you in the face: if you use this up there isn’t any more. But the piecemeal destruction goes on. Bit by bit, acre by acre, lot by lot, fish by fish. So you have to pay attention to the pieces, because in them is the whole. That’s what Harry Powell has been doing for years. That’s why he’s in the Monroe County jail.”

Harry cared. Too much? No. I think what he did was more right than doing nothing. At age 63, I still have my wild card, burning a hole in my pocket. I think of Harry, and I am ashamed.

 
I wrote this to Rick:
 
Hi, Rick.Tipped off by someone in Key West with links to KWTN, I read Naja’s and your articles re Peary Ct.

Most interesting, most infuriating.

Naja said she would send me in the body of an email the text of her article. Can you do that with your article?

The wild card thing is intriguing, challenging.

I hated to think it as I read your article, and got to where you realized being nice and so forth is a waste of time and breath, and the only way to deal with them is sue them.

What I hated to think is, it seems to me Key West is just like Balfour and the Navy: you have to sue the city to get it to behave.

I asked Naja, who taught whom to behave that way? The city, the Navy, Balfour?

Birds of a feather?

Karma?

I wonder if someone in the Tax Assessor Office, or someone with influence there, or both, are a bit nervous after this Navy/Balfour thing got aired out in KWTN?

I wonder if the State Attorney is a bit unhappy about it?

I hope so.

And the US Attorney, too.

Thanks,

Sloan

 
Rick replied, with a text copy of his article:
 
You play your ‘wild card’ every day of your life, Sloan. YOU don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Rick

I did not write to Rick that Jimmy Weekly was on the City Commission who told the City Attorney to grind Duck Tours to dust.
 
I did not write to Rick that Jimmy was Mayor, as I recall, when the city drove Robert Krutko and his wife out of business, al la Duck Tours, so the Fury tour boat owned by local attorney Michael Halpern and several local business men could get the choice boat slip the Krutko’s tour boat had enjoyed, and ten times more passengers than had been allowed to the Krutko’s boat.
 
I did not write to Rick that Jimmy is on the current city commission who are telling the city’s Gestapo to make homeless people’s lives a living hell, while encouraging everyone else to drink as much booze in Key West as possible.
 
I did not write to Rick that Jimmy is on the current city commission who are protecting the citys tree Nazis.

From someone who play lots of wild cards, who put herself in snipers’ cross hairs lots of times:
 
As you know, Sloan, the first time I actually met with Assistant City Manager Mark Finigan was yesterday. My brief encounter with him nearly a year ago was when he resolved a code permit problem for the church when they were trying to replace their old wooden sign with a new sign that was the same dimensions going up on the same two little poles. The city staff was requiring the church go through the same procedure as Home Depot did to put their large sign up, I.E.: demanding swale area surveys, and traffic impacts, and 2 plans and property surveys, and inch to scale drawings of entire property,…..etc. Mark stopped the madness in one day and a permit was issued. 

He was/is a very sincere gentleman who understands rules, intent of rules, etc. and has at times past worked diligently to impart this knowledge to others within the city whom are burdening people with misinterpretation of rules, and wrongly taking fees and fines that are not applicable. I do want to give him a chance to “separate” himself from the “moneychangers in the temple” on the matters I am concerned about now. I don’t think he will be a part of the city’s own criminal enterprise….and I believe he will either stop it, or distance himself from it very far. 

Marc has never been made aware of the problems I have with what the city doing is doing in their extortion of private homeowners and the city’s refusal to trim trees and clear lines so no one dies from electrocution…and Ramsingh has zealously tried to keep me from meeting with him. Yesterday my attorney assumed I was arrested for entering the city offices for an appointment I had made. Ramsingh had called my attorney and told my attorney that I was to stay away from all city officials and employees. Sounds like an attempt at restraining me from doing business, as well as to keep certain officials in the dark about my concerns. Ramsingh might be very afraid I will bring in his sworn-to, fraudulent statement he submitted in a coerced frivolous lawsuit as a “citizen” and show the city he lies under oath. 

I haven’t shown this to them yet….maybe it is time to do that. That has nothing to do with my cases, and I am free to discuss anything other than my cases with the city. I have to have communication with them, or I can’t work…because as you say, they still govern my business….and are required to issue my permits, etc. So how does Ramsingh think I can conduct business when he is threatening me with arrest if I enter a city office. This so reminds me of when I went to the records department at the Sheriff office to pick up and pay for the records prepared for me by Sheriff attorney Mark Willis, only to have a host of Sheriff employees threaten me with arrest merely for being there because they did not want me to have the records Willis had prepared for me. Oh, the memories. 

My intentions with the city are: 1. Stop the RICO enterprise 2. Stop the Tree Commission from oppressing and terrorizing citizens and businesses with made up authority, rules and fines 3. Start taking care of trees in power lines so nobody else dies from attempts to hide power lines from tourists…. 

I am entering the city meek for now …..but I believe, I will soon be made to visit the moneychangers…in the temple.
 
Sandy
 
I replied:
 
That the city has kept Ramsingh involved with your case, in particular, and with the Tree Commission’s various criminal enterprises, in general, is legal ratification by the city of everything Ramsingh has done, is doing, and will do re the Tree Commission, for so long as he is allowed by the city to do it. It also is legal ratification by Ramsingh’s boss, City Attorney Shawn Smith. Ramsingh is clearly off the reservation and rabid, and should have been put down the day after your Star Chamber proceeding. Alas, the city is so corrupt in its core that it thrives on rabies, as time has proven over and over again. Some examples fairly familiar to me: Duck Tours, Robert Krutko, Jim Young, Radim Havlicek, Tarzan Tree Care.

If I were Mayor Craig Cates and saw my Tree Commission appointees behaving like that, I would bring a resolution at the next City Commission to have them fired. Meanwhile, I would ask the the State Attorney to prosecute them. If I were Mayor Cates, I would be screaming at Shawn Smith to get rid of Ramsingh. Ah, but there’s the rub. If Mayor Cates does that, if Smith get rids of Ramsingh, voila!, they admit your side of it is true, and, OMG!!!, it goes all the way back, doesn’t it?

 
Someone told me yesterday that I will be elected mayor of Key West, if I run again. Like I want the job in that den of thieves. Like conchs will flock to the polls to vote for me, when they know it will go easier on them if they vote for you for mayor :-) .
 
Sloan
 

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no justice, no peace – Blacks’ Trayvon Martin mantra?

Monday, April 30th, 2012

 

To Leonard Pitts: re your “no justice, no peace” column in the Miami Herald

 
Below is what I put up today at goodmorningbirmingham.com, perhaps the 10th time I have posted something there re Trayvon Martin shooting. I am white. However, you might wish to read the second portrait – “She worked behind the scenes” – in A Few Remarkable (Birmingham) People I Have Known, as part of your sizing me up. That’s a page at goodmorningbirmingham.com. I was born and raised there, but now live in the Florida Keys.

no justice, no peace – Blacks’ Trayvon Martin mantra?

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Bash


What would he tell Blacks re Trayvon Martin shooting?
 
From ex-lawyer Tim Gratz of Key West to ex-lawyer me yesterday:

By Leonard Pitts Jr.
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com

Twenty years ago today, my hometown burned. I had moved to Miami the year before and there is, let me tell you, something surreal about watching on television from a continent away as places you’ve been and streets you know are smashed and burned.
The Los Angeles riots happened because justice did not. They happened because a predominantly white jury in the far flung suburb of Simi Valley looked at video of four white cops bludgeoning a black drunk driving suspect, Rodney G. King, so viciously that even Chief of Police Daryl F. Gates said it made him sick.— and yet, pronounced them not guilty of any crime.
To acknowledge this is not to lionize the rioters. You do not lionize 54 deaths and a billion dollars in property damage. You do not lionize what almost killed Reginald Denny, beaten nearly to death for the “crime” of being in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong color skin.
But one need not lionize the rioters’ method of expression to empathize with the message they expressed. Namely, a certain frustration, a certain sickness at heart, a certain outrage at being betrayed by justice — again.
It is an experience far older than the L.A. riots — and as relevant as the shooting of Trayvon Martin. On the surface, perhaps, the two incidents have little in common: the then-27-year-old drunkard beaten so badly after a high speed chase that his body and mind still bear the scars, and the unarmed 17-year-old boy shot to death by a neighborhood watchman who thought him suspicious because he was dawdling and looking around.
They are not dissimilar, however, in one telling aspect: delay. It took a ruinous riot and a new federal trial for Rodney King to receive anything approaching justice. It took 46 days, uncounted public demonstrations and the appointment of a special prosecutor for that process even to begin for Trayvon Martin. Historically, that has always been the problem when African Americans seek redress of grievances pregnant with racial overtones. Justice comes slowly, grudgingly, and grumblingly, when it comes at all.
I hear all these warnings not to “rush to judgment” in the Martin case, and it is sage advice. Yet I find myself wondering: when is the last time I saw anyone who is not black look at one of those episodes where the justice system failed African-American people — look at Trayvon, look at Jena, La., look at Tulia, Texas, look at Amadou Diallo, look at Abner Louima — and say, unprompted and unambiguously, that thus and so happened because of race. Outside of the most far-left liberals, they seldom do. Even when it is as obvious as a cockroach on white satin, it is something most cannot bring themselves to admit.
And yes, I know someone wishes I should just shut up about it. I hear that a lot. Indeed, more than once, someone has actually told me there’d be no racial problems in this country “if you didn’t talk about it.” What a piece of logic that is: ignore it and it will go away.
Such people, Martin Luther King once observed, mistake silence for peace. Silence is not peace.
As we count the lessons we have learned since L.A. burned, count that as one of the lessons we have not. Here is another: Justice too long delayed is justice denied. As protesters often put it: “No justice, no peace.”
Sometimes, I wonder if some of us really understand what that means. With the L.A. riots now 20 years behind us and the Martin case before us, it is a good time to consider those words afresh, consider them in light of our noble ideals and too-frequent failings, consider them as if it were you, looking for recourse after justice failed you — again.
Because, you see, that slogan is not a threat. It’s not a prediction. It’s not even a warning.
“No justice, no peace” is a certainty.

______________________________

Hi, Tim.

Okay, I read Pitts’ diatribe. He clearly is not able to shed the color of his skin in likening Trayvon Martin’s tragic death to the beating by several white L.A. police officers of Rodney King. Pitts seems to have convicted George Zimmerman already. How did this guy win a Pulitizer? Oh, same way President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize? Skin color? How come Pitts did not jump on the blacks who bludgeoned the white man in Mobile, and the white man in Chicago, for Trayvon? I agree with Pitts, who seems to be a front man for Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson: we might see a L.A. riots repeat if Zimmerman is acquitted, except it might be in lots of American cities, large and small. And if that happens, I wonder if Pitts will justify that, too?

I still think the only way through this now is for Zimmerman to insist on being tried by a black jury, since he started this problem by ignoring the police dispatcher. If I were Zimmerman’s lawyer questioning a black jury pool on voir dire, I would ask each of them if they are Christians? Those who say yes, I would ask if they swear on their life and souls, with Jesus and God as their witnesses, that they will return a verdict based on the facts and the law, as the judge instructs them, and not based on their skin color? If they say yes, I would accept them as jurors, subject to the prosecution accepting them. If any say they are Muslims, I would ask them the same thing, with Mohammed and Allah as their witnesses. If they say they do not belong to a religion, or they cannot put their skin color aside, I would strike them.

Comes the question, what if Zimmerman doesn’t want to do it that way? What would I do if I were his court-appointed lawyer? I would tell him I could not in good conscience represent him, and I would tell the court that, and why, and ask to be relieved of duty.

Sloan

sloanbashinsky@hotmail.com

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George Zimmerman’s test, FlaKey school reckonings, who was Jesus, angels and demons

Sunday, April 29th, 2012

Nashville replied to my sending him news that I had used his and my emails re Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman in yesterday’s post:

Sloan:
Not sure anything I say is worth printing but I do appreciate your replies and look forward to reading your blog every morning.
Regards,
J

I replied:

 
Not sure anything I say is worth printing, either. Can’t say I look forward to writing and publishing my blog every morning. Can’t say I even look forward to waking up every morning, or from day time naps.
Had a nap dream just a little while ago, which left me wondering if I’m about to be called on the carpet by the angels, or by someone, for today’s post, or something in it.
Maybe my comment about George Zimmerman being no more, nor less, a white man than President Obama.
Maybe something that came to me after I put up today’s post, and I did not include it because of how much trouble it is on the formatting when I edit a post already published.
What came to me is, the Zimmerman judge should consider the case a matter of National Security. As you wrote to me yesterday:
“On the other subject we discussed the other day, just imagine what it is going to be like if the verdict is not guilty. Sharpton/Jackson and the MSM are getting the results they wanted.” Or maybe it’s about something not my doing headed my way.
My thoughts return to my writing a few days ago that I hoped the special prosecutor was not being driven by her own skin color and political pressure, and that if she had sized this truly awful case up dispassionately and had concluded there was no case for murder 2, or murder anything, she could have diffused the matter because of her skin color and respected prosecutorial reputation, by saying she would not prosecute for murder, perhaps not for anything.
Whether we like it or not, that is the kind of test God lays on us to see what we are made of. Will we do what is right, or what is expedient, more comfortable, more popular, what serves our personal interests?
I don’t know what all cards the special prosecutor is holding, for her sake, for America’s sake, I hope she holds cards that point directly to murder 2; I hope she is not throwing spaghetti against a wall and hoping some of it will stick.
And, I hope the jury is predominantly black, or all black. Only a jury of that make up could return a not-guilty verdict and not set off a firestorm throughout American, is my opinion. I hope the special prosecutor and the defense lawyer are thinking along the same line, but that might be too much to hope for, given how our legal system works.
Zimmerman’s lawyer is supposed to do all he can, short of breaking the law, to get an acquittal, and selecting a jury he thinks gives him the best shot at an acquittal is his lawyer duty to his client. The only way Zimmerman’s lawyer could go against that duty is for Zimmerman to say he wants a predominantly black, or all-black jury, and the judge is notified of that and it is read into the record that Zimmerman asked for it himself, and insisted on it in open court.
I continue to feel fish out of water dealing with politics, which seems to be a strain of the oldest profession. I had no involvement there growing up, other than sometimes talking about something, usually in the national theater, about which I felt strongly. It was not part of my spiritual training. I was told in a nap dream in late 2000, riding a Greyhound bus through Tallahassee, en route to the Keys, that I was going to be getting into politics. I awoke in a state of shock and dread.
Sloan

Received this from School Board Chairman John Dick yesterday:

Sloan,
Have you ever seen the attached document from the Florida Department of Education? Pay particular attention to page 8 and 10 of the report. Page 8 shows the change in teacher salary for all districts from 2006-07 to 2010-11. You can see how Monroe County far exceeds anyone else in advancing the teacher salary, and in fact you can see some of them went down. (I do however believe that the Broward County 2010-11 salary is a typo and should be a 5 instead of a 4 for the first number) Then of course you can see on page 10 how much higher Monroe County is then everyone else.
Thanks, John

I replied:

Hi, John.
I had heard of but not seen what you sent. There Monroe County sits on top of the heap in Florida school district average teacher salaries.
Until the recent school board meeting, I had no clue there was talk of raising teacher salaries if there was another school tax increase this year. Jesus [Jara] was talking about firing teachers to make up part of the $6.2 million budget short fall coming up.
As I wrote in the next-day’s post, no tax increase should go toward raising teacher’s salaries, and if that can’t be nailed down shut, putting another tax increase to the votes this year is out of bounds by any perspective, except perhaps the teachers union’s.
Sloan

Email yesterday from Larry Murray to Superintendent of Schools Jesus Jara:

Jesus:
According to the rumor mill, Ken Gentile has moved his office and is now the de facto, if not de jure, CFO. Any truth to that rumor?
Larry

My thoughts:

A good question. The school district does not need two CFO’s, does it? Especially, in such tight times.

Email from John Dick to Larry Murray, re Larry’s recent email to the school board members re operating rules for school board candidates at school board meetings:

Larry, I agree with much of what you wrote. We shall speak about it at the next board meeting. Actually I had already decided that I was going to stop the sitting behind us because of the talking going on during the meeting.
John

 
Reply from Larry to John and all school board members and superintendent of schools, copied to me
 
John:
Good to hear. I look forward to observing the Board’s discussion and decisions at your next workshop regarding candidate behavior and appearance at Board meetings. I trust that you and the Board will address all of the issues that I raised as well as any other that you deem important. Presumably, the discussion and decisions will result in some sort of Board policy on the subject of candidate behavior and appearance at Board meetings. Assuming that such policies are equitable for all candidates, you can be assured that I will strictly adhere to them.
I hope that at your workshop at CSHS, the Board, in addition to discussing standards for candidate behavior and appearance, will also discuss and establish standards for the Superintendent’s Search Committee. By that, I mean that I expect the School Board to provide the Search Committee with specific standards, criteria if you will, by which each member of the Committee and the Committee as a whole will evaluate and rank applicants.
As it stands, the School Board has provided precious little guidance, if any, as to how the Search Committee will go about its business. If the Board does not provide direction, the likelihood of chaos and confusion is great, witness the problems associated with the search for a City Manager in Key West and the Search Committee’s involvement.
A problem has already arisen, with which you are familiar, concerning the qualification statement that the District has used in its advertising and the “job description” for the Superintendent recently issued by the District. It appears to many, including me, that there is substantial conflict between the two documents and it is imperative that the Board quickly resolve that conflict. So long as there is a contradiction between the two documents, neither can be used as a standard for evaluation.
As lawyers would say, time is of the essence. It is time for the Board to act and to act swiftly. It is the Board and only the Board ‘s responsibility to provide clear and unambiguous instruction to the Search Committee. Failing that, the entire search is likely to collapse of its own weight.
Larry

I replied to all:

I do not think any politicking for office should be allowed at school board meetings. More specifically, I do not think citizen speakers should be allowed to say they are school board candidates, wear campaign buttons or hats or t-shirts; nor do I think the board should mention citizen speakers are candidates. I agree, no citizens should sit behind the school board members, or even near them, at board meetings. Consider the citizen seating model at KW City Commission and the Monroe County Commission meetings, and at Keys Energy Services and Florida Keys Aqueduct Authority Board meetings.
Hard for me to imagine changing the criteria for superintendent search in midstream, apparently without school board discussion and vote in the sunshine, is not somehow shady. I hope there is nothing to it, but not holding my breath.
Sloan

So far, the only school board candidate I have seen doing active politicking at school board meetings is Larry Murray. He begins his citizen comments by saying he is Dr. Larry Murray, fiscal watchdog and school board candidate.

From Tim Gratz to me, re school board member Robin Smith-Martin’s editorial in the last edition of the Keynoter, which I had not seen. The Keynoter is published bi-weekly and covers the entire Keys. The Key West Citizen’s coverage mostly is below Seven Mile Bridge, the lower half of the Keys.

Sloan
I will be interested in your response to Rob’s piece in the Keynoter. I thought it an interesting proposal.
Is it not close to what you are advocating?
Best
Tim

Schools need to go to school-based management
Fraud, nepotism, entitlement, poor planning, failed public communications, lack of accountability and an operating budget that has shrunk by $20 million due to the collapse of Florida’s housing market — we all know the story of where the Monroe County School District’s been. The question is where do we want to go and how do we get there. The district needs a plan.
We cannot ask property owners to invest more in our education system without presenting a plan for how the additional money would be allocated. Business as usual is a non-starter. We expect measurable returns from our public investments, with outcomes that clearly benefit our students and local communities regardless of state and federal mandates.
The path to restoring public confidence begins with addressing the district’s enduring weaknesses: Financial assurance and management accountability.
Despite how well we do in the classroom — thank you, teachers — the district’s unforeseen financial liabilities seem endless. From class-size requirements and legal bills to contract snafus and Marathon money pits, it would seem the district is hell-bent on insolvency. Thank God we haven’t had a hurricane during these recent trials and tribulations.
The district must move beyond firefighting and reactive decision making, put its finances on solid footing, and bring local communities into the allocation process — school-based management.
We need to take control of our financial future and solidify our current position. Without financial stability, we are unable to plan for the future and pull the district out of the ditch. At bare minimum, we should establish a 5 percent fund balance to protect the district from unforeseen liabilities and as a reserve for when — not if — we have our next hurricane.
In addition, the superintendent must provide the public with a minimum three-year operating pro forma — a projection of future funding and expenses — based on reasonable assumptions. This vital information would allow local communities to deliberate in advance and take active roles in the school planning, programming and allocation process.
Given the School District’s financial crisis, there are no sacred cows. Shared sacrifice will affect every program. But in the future, program prioritization should be made at the community and school level.
Achieving this community-based model requires a fundamental rethinking of the district’s organizational structure, shifting from a centralized planning approach to individual community/school-based management in which each school operates as its own entrepreneurial enterprise supported by the local community, with the tools and flexibility to compete with charter schools on a level playing field.
Before we can shift these enormous responsibilities to our individual schools, we must re-align job descriptions to support the new management structure, and we must have absolute determination to hire exceptional talent to lead our schools and departments.
As we transition from the current period of financial crisis to a sustainable operating environment, all non-teaching positions and compensation should be reviewed for reciprocating value and relevance to supporting district goals.
All non-teaching positions should be on six-month contracts with biannual reviews. At the beginning of each contract period, goals and expectations will be reviewed for each employee. If employees exceed expectations, creating added value for the district, they should receive a bonus — yes, we need to establish bonus pools for each school and department.
If an employee fails to meet expectations, a corrective plan must be submitted and achieved within six months. If an employee fails to achieve his or her corrective plan, it’s time to give someone else a shot at the job.
No more special treatment, special contracts. Everyone should have the same health insurance package. No more insiders and outsiders. We must level the playing field, hold each other accountable and work together as a community to put the School District back on the road to achieving our vision: A world-class district graduating responsible, well-informed global citizens who are college and/or career ready.
Money alone will not pull the district out of the ditch. It’s going to take wholesale realignment and a plan of action.
Robin-Smith Martin
Monroe County School Board, Key West

I replied to Tim:

First I heard Robin promote community schools, that’s been Ed Davidson’s mantra. However, Robin’s children attend the KW Montessori school, which is a community school, but small compared to the regular schools.I think Robin is right on the financial reckoning and restructuring of the offices. I don’t know about the 6-month contracts, reviews. Need to ponder that, perhaps talk to some people.
I still find making a 3-year projection iffy, when they really don’t know what they will get from local school tax revenues and from the state more than a few months ahead of doing each year’s budget. I think property values are still falling, which means local school tax revenues are still falling, and state help for schools is still falling.
I have been promoting that the school district go charter schools throughout. I think that would be even more decentralized than what Ed is suggesting, because, as I understand it, charter schools have their own board of directors and their principals answer to their school’s board and not to the school district administration. Also, as I understand it, charter schools get 95 percent of their allotted funding to spend as they see fit, and the school district gets the remaining 5 percent. If that is accurate, going charter throughout the school district could seriously down-size administrative personnel and costs, and seriously down-size the school board’s power and importance. It also might seriously downsize the teachers union’s influence, as the teachers and principals of the existing charter schools do not belong to the teachers union and work for less pay than the teachers and principals in the regular schools. My impression is, charter schools are all about education and their teachers are more focused on teaching to each child according to each child’s aptitude and interests? Charter school parents are deeply involved in their children’s school. Again, similar to what Ed Davidson has promoted, but more decentralized and more student-friendly. Robin Smith-Martin seems to agree, his children attend a charter school.
Sloan

Moving laterally, sometimes I am one of several recipients copied with a philosophy discourse from Jerry Wickey of Key West. Here was the latest, referring to a study which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, which led to some back and forth, with a brief guest appearance from Jim Hendrick:

 
From Jerry:
Despite the headline, what the study actually demonstrates is that people who do well in critical thinking exorcises are less likely to report reliance upon religious dogma. Well,… I coulda’ told them that.
But that isn’t the greatest deficiency in the media’s take on the study. The media story seems to suggest that irrational behavior is contained mainly within religion. If that were true, the world would already be in a lot better place.
 
The Atlantic – ?1 hour ago?

       
By Hans Villarica New research in Science shows that, unlike intuitive thinking, activating the analytical cognitive system promotes religious skepticism.
 
 
 
The truth is, it doesn’t stop with religion. The decisions we make in the voting booth, the decisions we make when selecting a job or a new car are all made in exactly the same way in which we choose or don’t choose to believe in a deity. The most interesting result and one which is not remarked in the media story at all is what portion of people employ critical thinking skills.
We don’t think rationally and most of us, even the educated, don’t even know the difference between a rational statement and an irrational. “That sounds logical” “I can’t find any logical error” –aren’t determinations of rationality.
One who enjoys some benefit from a correct result arrived at [sic] irrationally, becomes more likely to select irrational solutions. This is what the ancients call thinking with “flesh and bone” or “blood” (we might use the word biological) or “pathos” (similar to our word pathological, but without implying malignancy)
I find this very subject covered in the ancient documents I am currently reading. Amazing ! ! To investigate rationally, we must first remove the stigma of religion associated with some of these ancient documents.
Associating religious dogma with ancient documents is an example of a lack of critical thinking.
Incidentally:
I just confirmed that the word myth as in “???????????” (the stories of Zeus) meant the same thing as the modern word “mythology” means today complete with the connotation of implausibility at least as far back as 500BC. The ancients were not the dullards for which we far too often take them.
Disclosure. I don’t want any confusion on this matter.
I am persuaded that the man Jesus of Nazareth is who he claimed to be.
 
From Jim Hendrick:
I share your belief that Jesus is whom he claimed to be. Nowhere In the Gospels did Jesus claim to be God. Rather, he repeatedly refers to himself as the ‘Son of Man” (see, e.g., Matthew 16:13-17, Luke 22:48 and John 9:35-38).

From Sloan:

And, elsewhere in the Gospels, a fellow named Peter, who knew the man Jesus pretty well, in answer to Jesus’ question, “Who do men say I am?” said, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God!” And, as I read that passage, Jesus acknowledged it by telling Peter he had said it.
Way I read Jesus in the Gospels, everyone around him, including Peter and the disciples, thought what Jesus was saying and doing was irrational, and Jesus thought everything they were saying and doing was irrational.
Way I read Jesus in the Gospels, Christians today still think what Jesus said and did in the Gospels was irrational, because they seldom follow suit.
Way I read Jesus in the Gospels, he was trying to explain to people around him that they could be like, but not greater, than him – he told his disciples just that in another passage, and that wise men and kings would give all they had to have what he taught them in secret.
Maybe what people need to start doing is stop thinking like humans and start thinking like Jesus, maybe then humans would be rational and behave differently.

From Jerry:

Jesus was VERY careful about answering that question which was put to him on various occasions. That is exactly why I worded my statement of belief exactly as I did.
The question is this: What do I do tomorrow. Do I go to work? Do I buy a car? etc.
The answer to that question begins in this one.
Am I no more than a complex collection of molecules or am I more? Do I utterly and completely cease when my biology ceases or does some intractable component of me “live” on?
Just because that question seems difficult to answer, does not reduce its importance. We are tempted to discount that which we find difficult to understand. It makes our head hurt, so it must be unimportant.
Careful consideration reveals that ones answer to that question implies radical differences in ones behavior.
If one believes he is nothing more then chemistry, then going to work the next morning is not his better course. I can persuasively show such a man his better course which involves a simple immorally of theft from trusted friends he has already nurtured and what to do with the thing stolen. There is no better course of action for one believing such. Doing anything different is merely submitting to evolutionary behaviors and ignoring the rationalism which brought him to such a belief.
However, if one believes that somehow, in some unknown way, there is more to life than the laws of chemistry, his better course is far more complicated. It is keen to this course of action which I have devoted a great deal of careful consideration.
Jerry

From Sloan:

In Matthew, as I recall, Jesus told people to take no thought for tomorrow because each day has enough trouble of its own. That comment was tied into the comment about the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, and why worry about what you shall eat, or drink, or wear?

From Jerry:

Does this mean you are the former, the latter or you don’t know which you are?
Jerry

From Sloan:

I know, and the answer is neither. Your question diverts from what you said you believed, Jesus is who he said he is, which diversion I’m sure pleases the devil.

From Jerry:

If angels and devils both speak to you, how do you tell the difference?
Jerry

From Sloan:

Good question.
I was taught how to discern spirits. The training was horrific.
I receive ongoing spirit advice and correction when I go off course.
Generally, demons tell you what you want to hear and try to divert you away from what is really important. They are clever, tricky.
The angels who work with me cut me zero slack, I maybe get complimented once a year. Ongoing I am corrected. They convinced me I am entirely too stupid to get along on my own.
Far as I know, all human beings hear from angels and demons.

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

 

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hate crimes – Sanford, Mobile, Chicago, Key West tree Nazis

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

Fom Nashville yesterday:

RUN SLOAN RUN!!! If the School Board keeps on doing the same old things – they will get the same old results!
 
On the other subject we discussed the other day, just imagine what it is going to be like if the verdict is not guilty. Sharpton/Jackson and the MSM are getting the results they wanted.
 
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/26/suspect-attacked-white-teen-because-am-angry-about-trayvon/#ixzz1t7RoG81j
 
Disgusting!
 
CHICAGO – An black 18-year-old suspected of a violent attack on a white teen told Chicago police the beating was motivated by his anger over the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, MyFoxChicago reports.
Alton Hayes III was charged with a hate crime after he and a 15-year-old attacked the 19-year-old man at about 1:00 a.m. on April 17 in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.
Police say Hayes and his teenage partner, who has not been named since he is a juvenile, picked the man apparently at random and pinned his arms to the side.
Hayes allegedly then picked up a tree branch and demanded the victim give them his belongings, saying, “Empty your pockets, white boy.”
The suspects then rifled through the victim’s pockets, threw him to the ground and punched him numerous times in the head and back. Both suspects are black and the victim is white, according to police.
MyFoxChicago reports Hayes told police he decided to attack his victim because he is angry over the death of Trayvon Martin. Hayes said he chose his victim because he is white.
Hayes was charged with attempted robbery, aggravated battery and a hate crime, all felonies. His teenage comrade was referred to juvenile court.
Trayvon Martin, 17, is the unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot as he walked through a gated community in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26. George Zimmerman, who has been charged with second-degree murder, went into hiding Monday as he awaits trial.
Emotions have run high across the US over the incident, in large part because six weeks passed before Zimmerman was charged — leading many African-American community leaders to decry what they perceived as racism in the justice system.
On Saturday night, a white man was beaten by a throng of African-Americans in Mobile, Ala., after telling a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of a street — with one witness claiming she heard an assailant exclaim, “Now that’s justice for Trayvon,” WKRG -TV reported.
However, the Mobile Police Department said the assault on Matthew Owens, 40, was not being investigated as a hate crime.
 
I replied:
 
If I had a lick of sense, I would run for the state line and beyond. Patagonia keeps coming to mind.

Just opened the lovely Chicago Trayvon revenge crime report, saw at the end of it that the Mobile Police are not investigating the mob on white man down there as hate crime. Might have included it in today’s brighter side, if I’d seen it sooner.

Might anyway.

 
Nashville replied:
 
Stick around down there Sloan – at least you make them answer some questions and bring up some thoughts that others refuse to see. Sorry that my emailed articles and your comments got some of your readers panties in a wad over the Martin/Zimmerman stuff but………………… *hit happens!
 
I assume that you have seen the report about the Zimmerman Judge going to review Zimmerman’s bail amount because Zimmerman had received $200,000 from a website which was set up for donations for his defense. http://news.yahoo.com/judge-considers-adjusting-zimmermans-bond-142526472.html
Not sure why that should make any difference.
 
I still don’t know how the TREE POLICE get away with all the crap they pull in KW, seems they do whatever the hell they want to do and if they don’t follow the rules it is no problem. Guess they don’t remember how that worked out for them in the Ducks case!
 
Have a good weekend!
 
I replied:
 
I been raising questions down here since 2001, and I can’t see it has made any impact, but slave to the angels I am, I keep answering to the crack of their whip across my work mule hindquarters.

No, I didn’t know the judge was reviewing Zimmerman’s bail, can’t open the link you sent, nothing happens when I click on it.

Nashville replied

 
Try this:
 

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — A judge is considering whether to raise or revoke the bond for George Zimmerman after his lawyer told the judge a website raised $200,000 for the defense.

Mark O’Mara told the judge Friday that Zimmerman’s family hadn’t told him about the money before his client was given $150,000 bond.
Florida Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester says he wants to know more about the money before he decides whether to adjust the bond. The judge will make a decision on the bond at a later date.
Zimmerman is accused of second-degree murder for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed.
Zimmerman claims self-defense. The neighborhood watch volunteer wasn’t charged for more than six weeks, leading to nationwide protests.
 
I replied:
 
That works. If the judge believes Zimmerman lied about his financial status before the bail was set, I suppose the judge could revoke bail or adjust it upward. If the judge believes Zimmerman did not know of the money that had been raised for Zimmerman, I can’t see the judge revoking bail but he might raise the amount. But what if the money was raised to pay Zimmerman’s court-appointed lawyer, and the bail was raised in other ways. Another intriguing twist in this gruesome tragedy.
 
Re the KW Tree Police, I nearly included this in today’s harangue:

From Sandy Downs yesterday, which she told me on the phone is a fair warning notice to the City of Key West, prelude to civil litigation against the city in the state and federal courts, both of which venues are familiar to Sandy. I told her it was too long to share with my readers, and it contained no new news, and I did not think my readers would wade through it, but perhaps it was something that would have to be shown to a judge later.

 
April 26, 2012
To the City of Key West and all concerned
Dear City staff and officials,

INTERFERENCE IN UTILITY LINE CLEARANCE:

For 7 years, I have struggled to get the city of Key West and Keys Energy to comply with federal regulations regarding line clearance minimum standards, so that a tragic accident of someone being electrocuted can be avoided. For my efforts to keep the city, the citizens and visitors safe, I have been threatened, retaliated against, my company targeted and harassed……I have been discredited and the recipient of documented city blackballing, along with receiving frivolous violations and ridiculous fines. I have been the target of a lawsuit coerced against me, started and pursued by the Assistant City Attorney Ronald Ramsingh, and also I am a victim of discrimination by the head of the agency that oversees my line of work, the Tree Commission Chair Neils Weise. My ability to work in the city has been compromised and my income depleted by 80% , due to the city’s stalking and persecution of me and my company.

The former Urban Landscape Director Cynthia Snell, a.k.a. Domenech-Coogle is known to have interfered with line clearing, and threatening Asplundh employees if they attempted to clear the lines within the city of Key West because the city did not want electric lines in view of the tourists, nor did they want to incur the expense of clearing the lines as the city receives a dividend/gift every year of the profits from the city owned Keys Energy. Keys Energy disguises the affiliation with the City of Key West by an elected 5 member board which they say makes them a public utility void of federal and state oversight. The 5 member board apparently is impotent to govern itself, and defend itself against the City of Key West interference. And by all means, the city of Key West is controlling Keys Energy and their ability to clear the lines and meet the federal regulations. Evidently, Keys Energy is more willing to face $1,000,000 per day fines, than to challenge the city of Key West and demand it stop interfering in their ability to do their job as required by the US government. Does the City actually believe it has seceded from the Union? If so, the city is wrong; and in short time I am sure will find out indeed, the federal regulations apply to them.

If a tragedy happens, it will be the city of Key West officials’ fault, and individually each official who did nothing to stop this life and death “game” will be held accountable. The city officials have convinced me, tourist dollars are more important than lives. And as Mayor Cates stated to me, “Sue the city, we have lots of money.” No you don’t. You rape it from the citizens who have to pay the lawsuits. What type of government is this….to simply await for avoidable accidents and the following lawsuits, and then expect the citizens to pay for it? Do you believe this is governing? I believe it is official misconduct and apathy on your part and whoever is involved should be prosecuted for negligence and refusal to obey the federal law. Interference with utilities is a violation of the Patriot Act, and if an injury or death occurs, there is NO statute of limitations.

______________
 
Tree Commission, and other agencies within the City…R.I.C.O.

Not only that, but your former employee Cynthia Snell created her own job description. And for 10 years or more assumed the role of a code enforcement official, delivering violations and appearing as the code enforcement prosecutor at the Tree Commission hearings…when her duties involved none of what she was doing and you sat idly by as she delivered millions of dollars into the coffers of the city with illegally brought fines in a court of unconstitutional merit. Records of all of these fines are missing and names and numbers deleted. Tapes of hearings have been destroyed, and the city was involved in it all. You enabled this conduct; and condoned and encouraged it.

When she retired, you filled her position with another eager person willing to commit crimes in order to continue in your extortion game. Fines of $150.00 per inch are levied against private homeowners using landscape development regulations that are only to be used if someone is developing a property. The amount of $150.00 is made up and appears nowhere in writing, nor has it ever been approved by the city to use. It is illegal, and the way you take this money is by extortion. Again, the record of this money is missing.

The city spokesperson Alyson Crean, boldly told the newspaper that property owners may not trim their own gumbo limbo whitefly infested tree limbs that are over 3 ½ inches unless they get a permit from the Tree Commission. This was printed front page in an article in the Citizen, our main newspaper on Dec. 19th 2011. The city knows there is no such rule. When I asked the city to retract this statement and offer a correction, they refused to retract the statement and knowingly and willingly perpetuated this lie, because the city charges $150 per inch for a permit and the city used this article to capitalize on the white fly epidemic and charge homeowners who were distraught about the black sap on their property, animals, and homes to make money off of the infestation and plague.

The rules in the city ordinance 110-259 mandates a citizen must either treat or remove an infested tree. White fly cannot be successfully treated, and treatment is not a solution that is required. A citizen has a duty to remove OR treat the tree, whichever they prefer. There is no cost involved when trees meet criteria for removal EVEN under the LDRs. Yet the city has made it impossible and cost prohibitive for homeowners to remove these infested trees BY illegally charging the extortion rate of $150.00 per caliper inch of the tree at breast height to be paid to the city for a permit to remove the infested tree, when the city has no right to charge anything other than an administrative fee per State of Florida Land Development regulations. This fee would likely be $45 or $50 as it is in every other county in the State. The city of Key West makes a homeowner “buy their own trees back” from the city at $150.00 per caliper inch before the homeowner can trim or remove unwanted trees or limbs. This is unconstitutional and illegal.

The only legal requirement of homes and their landscaping requirements, according to the City LDR’s [Land Development Regulations], is that a home under development must meet minimum requirements of landscaping per square footage of green space. For a single family home on an average lot in Key West, this would be 1 tree, some bushes and some undergrowth. The homeowners in Key West are being forced to not only comply with LDR’s when they are NOT in the development process, but are being forced to keep many times this amount of landscaping on their property, unable to remove any of what they planted. So in Key West, if you plant a tree, you have to pay $150 per caliper inch to the City for permission to remove it. The Tree Commission mission statement was to encourage planting. Do you think this encourages planting? If a Hurricane wipes out the landscape, do you think ANYONE will replant? What will your city look like then? Have you thought it through what you are doing? Obviously you only see the dollars now and not the bigger picture.

Illegally, citizens are being forced to share an unfair portion of the burden of landscape and canopy within the City so that the city can present itself as a beautiful place, despite the city’s own landscaping being neglected and non-existent. As the city destroys it’s own major and grand trees throughout the city and destroys mangrove habitats without warning, permits or concern,….the city wields the whip onto private homeowners. The city profits by this as they now don’t have to maintain these trees.

While the city destroys its own canopy, homeowners are unable to even thin out their canopy that they planted and own, on properties they pay taxes on; because the city treats property owners as if they are imbeciles unable to govern their own properties or know what needs to be done to maintain their landscape. Yet, the city assumes no responsibility for landscape it demands and assumes control over. The city won’t allow a private homeowner to have control over his own trees and plants that he paid for unless he pays an extortion rate of $150 per caliper inch to the city for permission to maintain or remove their own trees. The city has made a living off requiring the homeowner to either pay the extortion or replant 2 or more trees when one is taken down which ensures at some point , the owners property will be unable to hold anymore trees, and unable to replant, and then will be FORCED to pay the extortion of $150 per inch. Also the newly planted trees guarantees more future income as the trees become mature and need to be trimmed, or at some point removed as the property is now so over planted, the homeowner has no yard left. In some instances the roots are uplifting foundations, insurance requires the removal of limbs over roofs, or utilities are compromised by the trees. Still, the city demands an extortion be paid to the city before the homeowner is ALLOWED to remedy the problem. The homeowner is forced to wait for a month to be put on a monthly agenda before the Tree commission and there he is required to beg for permission to be allowed to pay the extortion rate so that he can care for his property. If a homeowner remedies the problem in an emergency, he is fined $5000 or more, and the city levies fines against the property if the homeowner refuses to pay.

In the LDR’s a private homeowner is not mentioned until the duties of a homeowner are discussed or the city’s own trees are discussed. Only if the homeowner is undergoing development on their property are the LDR’s even applicable. A separate condition exists if a tree has been marked historic. The city has bastardized these rules. The city has bulldozed 60 feet of mangroves without a permit, and also taken down ancient trees with no public hearing which allowed input. The hearing was improperly noticed to avoid any concerned citizens knowledge of the time and place of the actual hearing. And then under police guard, the trees were destroyed. The same city that won’t allow a private citizen the ability to maintain their property and trees without paying the extortion, destroys it‘s own trees or leaves them neglected to interfere with properties, utilities, sidewalks and roads…or to die and be left on the side of the ride disintegrating and falling. These practices have left the city in a catastrophic situation should a hurricane come.
 
Homeowners are being forced to leave their trees in dangerous conditions. The city will NOT allow them to trim the trees and meet requirements of insurance companies and state and federal regulations. Even when a homeowner is able and willing to pay the extortion, the city has oft times refused to allow a homeowner to remove an unwanted tree or trees on their own property because the city says it likes the trees there. The city has no ownership of the private property of individual homeowners, nor can they require individual homeowners to keep unwanted trees. The city wants to eliminate it’s own canopy and the liability and responsibility of maintaining it, and shift the burden onto the citizens. It is illegal and unconstitutional and the city cannot escape liability for all the trees they have demanded a homeowner keep when the homeowner did not want them.
 
Should this tree fall, the city is liable. For the property the city has “taken” by way of refusing a homeowner the right to the enjoyment of that percentage of his property by forcing him to keep a tree there that he does not want or need, the city must pay the homeowner the value of that property…so says the constitution and the bill of rights. Takings are not legal without compensation. Liability cannot be escaped when one controls the property. The city is operating a criminal enterprise.
The city knows it is operating a criminal enterprise and that is why payers of the permit fees and fines are told to pay the check to the city itself instead of to the proper agency within the city, or mark the check as a donation instead of permit fee or fine. The city supplied a spreadsheet to a reporter showing fines of approximately $20,000 per year as being the only fines on record. The fines have no name attached to them in most instances, so there is no accountability there. In others where there are names, I have checked the accuracy of them, and concluded beyond a shadow of doubt, the city has willfully and knowingly submitted fraudulent information with made up names and fines IN EVERY RECORD I HAVE CHECKED. Again, I believe there is criminal intent.
 
This is not sloppy record keeping, this is a determined effort on the part of the city to hide the illegally gotten money in other accounts or in the pockets of officials and friends.

I have been told checks have been made to city employees themselves, and city employees have set their assets in trust funds in an attempt to secure them should they be caught.

What you are doing is with great consequence. Having been warned you have taken no action to correct it. I have made aware all these grave situations to the City Manager, City Attorney, City commissioners, City Planning, City Tree Commission, Keys Energy, City Clerk, City Risk Management, and Code Enforcement. The city has done everything imaginable to silence me, besides killing me.

I intend to see this through. You will be held accountable I assure you. I will find some authority who dares to disrupt your RICO enterprise….and bring the officials into accountability. You will not be left to terrorize the citizens and homeowners without a battle from me and others who will stand beside me. Whatever it takes, I will do it to bring you into accountability and to restore the guaranteed rights of our constitution that you trounce on as if you were Hitler. You are not above the law. You will not be able to take generations of blood shed for our freedoms in this country, and eliminate what they fought for from within without a battle from me. I am ashamed to say the country is being taken over from within. I have 6 generations that have shed blood for the US, and by their graves I stand to see that their blood was not in vain.

The citizens of Key West live in fear. Fear of their own city government. Fear of the illegal fines and coerced settlements, and liens and takings of properties. Fear of retaliation, fear of their jobs and businesses and children’s safety. You set idly by and wield your power and say, “Sue us, we are rich” . Well, the city is fed up and you will not get away with what you are doing. Some think our constitution is worth fighting for. I may lead the fight right now, but I assure you, many will follow.

Sincerely,
Sandra Downs/ owner of Tarzan Tree Care
22976 Bluegill Lane
Cudjoe Key, Fl 33042
305-304-9303
 
My opinion, the City of Key West should never have tangled with Sandy. They should have muzzled their rottweiler wannabe lawyer Ron Ramsingh, who seems to have gone totally off the reservation and just as totally insane. My opinion, Sandy has only just begun to tear the city and Ramsingh a new one.
 
Sloan
 
Nashville replied:
 
Thanks for sharing the Sandy Downs info: I did not have a hard time getting thru it but then I have the time to read it. I have no dog in the hunt but certainly hope that she pushes the matter and finds a lawyer with time and interest to take the case on contingency just to see how much money they really have. They certainly will not have near enough money if a child is killed due to the non-trimming. I really am not sure how the city sees what they are doing as being lawful or even in the best interest of the citizens. But, it really doesn’t appear that they give a rat’s behind what is good for the citizens. Am I wrong?
 
Thanks again,
J
 
I replied:

The city cares a lot more about having big pretty trees in power lines, than it cares for human beings killed by electricity running through those trees.

Sandy has a mainland lawyer she has known a while, which means he isn’t tied into the Key West legal intrigues and social circles. He’s been around the block a few times, doesn’t seem to still need to make a living at being a lawyer, and I think this last escapade with the Special Master making him drive all the way down to Key West to learn his motion to recuse the Special Master had been granted, because the Speical Master had finally read the attached transcript from the prior court hearing, might have been a seriously bad turn of events for the city re Sandy’s lawyer’s resolve to kick the city’s butt. Throwing more gasoline on the already big bonfire, Sandy told me this morning that Ramsingh called her lawyer giving him hell about Sandy talking with city employees about her case, and said she was not to talk with them again. Sandy had an appointment with a city manager this morning to discuss tree issues in Key West, so when she went in to see him, the first thing she asked him was it okay for him to meet with her/ He said he knew of Ramsingh’s position. He could not talk with her about her case against the city, but wanted to talk with her about tree issues the city needed to take a look at. She said they had a good meeting. If Sandy cannot talk with city employees, she cannot do her tree business in Key West, because anything having to do with a tree has to be run through the Tree Police. She said she and the assistant city manager talked about what happens if a hurricane comes in, knocks down a bunch of trees and power lines. Property owners not being able to deal with whitefly infestation because of the Tree Police. And one other thing, I think, which now escapes me.

 
Nashville replied:
 
I hope he has plenty of time and does kick the City’s butt! And, of course it will be lots of fun deposing all those city employees and taking up lots of city time in the discovery process – I mean since she can not talk to them now, that would be the only way she could gain the information needed for her suit or defense. A good time will be had by all.
J
 
I replied:
 
Not sure Sandy can depose the city employees, based on outcome in the Havlicek case, but she can subpoena them as witnesses to the Special Magiatrate hearing and question them under oath with a court reporter taking it all down. If she then does not like the Special Master’s ruling, she can appeal it de novo to the circuit court, and have real trial, hopefully. Or, perhaps the replacement Special Magistrate will give her a fair hearing and it will end there.
 
Won’t surprise me if, by the time it’s all said and done, Sandy has attracted enough media attention, and enough disgruntled Key West citizens into her camp, that a major class action lawsuit against the city over its Tree Police, as you call them, is not filed in federal court, where the city has zero sway.
 
A Key West man, once a US Attorney on the mainland, career prosecutor, Jewish, got very upset with me for calling the Tree Commission Tree Nazis. I didn’t invent that name for them. The people of Key West did that a good while ago.
 
Am left puzzled why the Moblile PD are not treating that attack as a race crime? Am having trouble seeing any difference between the Chicago and Mobile attacks, and what the KKK used to do. The KKK were Nazis, weren’t they? If you are from the Deep South, you know they still are.

Meanwhile, the media frenzy continues, in The Key West Citizen today:
 
Judge wrongly sealed Zimmerman case file

Now that a new circuit judge in Sanford has been assigned to hear the case of George Zimmerman involving the tragic shooting death of Miami Gardens teen Trayvon Martin, he seems to be on the right track to ensure that court documents in the case become a matter of public record, as they should be.

Circuit Court Judge Jessica Recksiedler rightly recused herself after a defense attorney raised conflict of interest questions. But before stepping down, she acted with unseemly haste in granting a motion to seal the file.

That brought this newspaper and other news organizations into court to ask for a reversal of that decision because Florida’s open records law, one of the broadest in the country, makes it clear that virtually all court records are public, along with most evidence.

The law establishes precise, narrow grounds for making exceptions, but Recksiedler not only failed to consider whether this case met the legal test for such an exception, she didn’t even give the news media a chance to be heard before making her ruling.

The judge granted a defense motion to seal the records because of extensive pre-trial publicity, and the state’s attorney did not object.

Not so fast.

The Florida Supreme Court has held that the party seeking closure must satisfy a three-prong test set out in a 1983 ruling, Miami Herald Publishing Co. vs. Lewis, that says closure is warranted under very explicit circumstances. These include a showing of a serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice, and that no alternative short of a change of venue is available to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial. The third test requires a showing that sealing the records would effectively protect the rights of the accused without being broader than necessary. Further, the law requires that anyone seeking closure cannot merely assert that this action is necessary — they must present evidence to support that finding.

In this case, there wasn’t even a hearing, much less evidence of any kind. Once such a hearing is held, attorneys for the news media should be able to show that this case does not meet the requisite tests. …

In comments from the bench, he said he would go through the file and provide the relevant material to all parties soon. That’s the right way to go to preserve the public’s right to know in this high-profile Florida case.

– The Miami Herald

Given how the media had inflamed this horrific case, I can’t argue with the judge and the defense and the prosecution agreeing the media needed to be checked. It’s not the media and the public whose child was killed, and it’s not the media and the public who are charged with second degree murder. Thanks to the media, the public have already tried and decided this case. Race crimes are being committed by blacks against whites, and the defendant is no more, nor less, a white man than is President Obama. I hope the new judge will be very careful about what he hands over to the press. Very careful.

 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Posted in Today's FlaKey Drivel | No Comments »

hate crimes, Sanford, Mobile, Chicago, Key West tree Nazis

Saturday, April 28th, 2012

From Nashville yesterday:
 
RUN SLOAN RUN!!! If the School Board keeps on doing the same old things – they will get the same old results!
 
On the other subject we discussed the other day, just imagine what it is going to be like if the verdict is not guilty. Sharpton/Jackson and the MSM are getting the results they wanted.
 
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/26/suspect-attacked-white-teen-because-am-angry-about-trayvon/#ixzz1t7RoG81j
 
Disgusting!
 
CHICAGO – An black 18-year-old suspected of a violent attack on a white teen told Chicago police the beating was motivated by his anger over the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, MyFoxChicago reports.
Alton Hayes III was charged with a hate crime after he and a 15-year-old attacked the 19-year-old man at about 1:00 a.m. on April 17 in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.
Police say Hayes and his teenage partner, who has not been named since he is a juvenile, picked the man apparently at random and pinned his arms to the side.
Hayes allegedly then picked up a tree branch and demanded the victim give them his belongings, saying, “Empty your pockets, white boy.”
The suspects then rifled through the victim’s pockets, threw him to the ground and punched him numerous times in the head and back. Both suspects are black and the victim is white, according to police.
MyFoxChicago reports Hayes told police he decided to attack his victim because he is angry over the death of Trayvon Martin. Hayes said he chose his victim because he is white.
Hayes was charged with attempted robbery, aggravated battery and a hate crime, all felonies. His teenage comrade was referred to juvenile court.
Trayvon Martin, 17, is the unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot as he walked through a gated community in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26. George Zimmerman, who has been charged with second-degree murder, went into hiding Monday as he awaits trial.
Emotions have run high across the US over the incident, in large part because six weeks passed before Zimmerman was charged — leading many African-American community leaders to decry what they perceived as racism in the justice system.
On Saturday night, a white man was beaten by a throng of African-Americans in Mobile, Ala., after telling a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of a street — with one witness claiming she heard an assailant exclaim, “Now that’s justice for Trayvon,” WKRG -TV reported.
However, the Mobile Police Department said the assault on Matthew Owens, 40, was not being investigated as a hate crime.
 
I replied:
 
If I had a lick of sense, I would run for the state line and beyond. Patagonia keeps coming to mind.

Just opened the lovely Chicago Trayvon revenge crime report, saw at the end of it that the Mobile Police are not investigating the mob on white man down there as hate crime. Might have included it in today’s brighter side, if I’d seen it sooner.

Might anyway.

 
Nashville replied:
 
Stick around down there Sloan – at least you make them answer some questions and bring up some thoughts that others refuse to see. Sorry that my emailed articles and your comments got some of your readers panties in a wad over the Martin/Zimmerman stuff but………………… *hit happens!
 
I assume that you have seen the report about the Zimmerman Judge going to review Zimmerman’s bail amount because Zimmerman had received $200,000 from a website which was set up for donations for his defense.

http://news.yahoo.com/judge-considers-adjusting-zimmermans-bond-142526472.html

Not sure why that should make any difference.

 
I still don’t know how the TREE POLICE get away with all the crap they pull in KW, seems they do whatever the hell they want to do and if they don’t follow the rules it is no problem. Guess they don’t remember how that worked out for them in the Ducks case!
 
Have a good weekend!
 
I replied:
 
I been raising questions down here since 2001, and I can’t see it has made any impact, but slave to the angels I am, I keep answering to the crack of their whip across my work mule hindquarters.

No, I didn’t didn’t know the judge was reviewing Zimmerman’s bail, can’t open the link you sent, nothing happens when I click on it.

Nashville replied
 
Try this:
 

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — A judge is considering whether to raise or revoke the bond for George Zimmerman after his lawyer told the judge a website raised $200,000 for the defense.

Mark O’Mara told the judge Friday that Zimmerman’s family hadn’t told him about the money before his client was given $150,000 bond.
Florida Circuit Judge Kenneth Lester says he wants to know more about the money before he decides whether to adjust the bond. The judge will make a decision on the bond at a later date.
Zimmerman is accused of second-degree murder for the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, who was unarmed.
Zimmerman claims self-defense. The neighborhood watch volunteer wasn’t charged for more than six weeks, leading to nationwide protests.
 
I replied:
 
That works. If the judge believes Zimmerman lied about his financial status before the bail was set, I suppose the judge could revoke bail or adjust it upward. If the judge believes Zimmerman did not know of the money that had been raised for Zimmerman, I can’t see the judge revoking bail but he might raise the amount. But what if the money was raised to pay Zimmerman’s court-appointed lawyer, and the bail was raised in other ways. Another intriguing twist in this gruesome tragedy.
 
Re the KW Tree Police, I nearly included this in today’s harangue:

From Sandy Downs yesterday, which she told me on the phone is a fair warning notice to the City of Key West, prelude to civil litigation against the city in the state and federal courts, both of which venues are familiar to Sandy. I told her it was too long to share with my readers, and it contained no new news, and I did not think my readers would wade through it, but perhaps it was something that would have to be shown to a judge later.
 
April 26, 2012
To the City of Key West and all concerned
Dear City staff and officials,

INTERFERENCE IN UTILITY LINE CLEARANCE:

For 7 years, I have struggled to get the city of Key West and Keys Energy to comply with federal regulations regarding line clearance minimum standards, so that a tragic accident of someone being electrocuted can be avoided. For my efforts to keep the city, the citizens and visitors safe, I have been threatened, retaliated against, my company targeted and harassed……I have been discredited and the recipient of documented city blackballing, along with receiving frivolous violations and ridiculous fines. I have been the target of a lawsuit coerced against me, started and pursued by the Assistant City Attorney Ronald Ramsingh, and also I am a victim of discrimination by the head of the agency that oversees my line of work, the Tree Commission Chair Neils Weise. My ability to work in the city has been compromised and my income depleted by 80% , due to the city’s stalking and persecution of me and my company.

The former Urban Landscape Director Cynthia Snell, a.k.a. Domenech-Coogle is known to have interfered with line clearing, and threatening Asplundh employees if they attempted to clear the lines within the city of Key West because the city did not want electric lines in view of the tourists, nor did they want to incur the expense of clearing the lines as the city receives a dividend/gift every year of the profits from the city owned Keys Energy. Keys Energy disguises the affiliation with the City of Key West by an elected 5 member board which they say makes them a public utility void of federal and state oversight. The 5 member board apparently is impotent to govern itself, and defend itself against the City of Key West interference. And by all means, the city of Key West is controlling Keys Energy and their ability to clear the lines and meet the federal regulations. Evidently, Keys Energy is more willing to face $1,000,000 per day fines, than to challenge the city of Key West and demand it stop interfering in their ability to do their job as required by the US government. Does the City actually believe it has seceded from the Union? If so, the city is wrong; and in short time I am sure will find out indeed, the federal regulations apply to them.

If a tragedy happens, it will be the city of Key West officials’ fault, and individually each official who did nothing to stop this life and death “game” will be held accountable. The city officials have convinced me, tourist dollars are more important than lives. And as Mayor Cates stated to me, “Sue the city, we have lots of money.” No you don’t. You rape it from the citizens who have to pay the lawsuits. What type of government is this….to simply await for avoidable accidents and the following lawsuits, and then expect the citizens to pay for it? Do you believe this is governing? I believe it is official misconduct and apathy on your part and whoever is involved should be prosecuted for negligence and refusal to obey the federal law.

Interference with utilities is a violation of the Patriot Act, and if an injury or death occurs, there is NO statute of limitations.

______________
 

Tree Commission, and other agencies within the City…R.I.C.O.

Not only that, but your former employee Cynthia Snell created her own job description. And for 10 years or more assumed the role of a code enforcement official, delivering violations and appearing as the code enforcement prosecutor at the Tree Commission hearings…when her duties involved none of what she was doing and you sat idly by as she delivered millions of dollars into the coffers of the city with illegally brought fines in a court of unconstitutional merit. Records of all of these fines are missing and names and numbers deleted. Tapes of hearings have been destroyed, and the city was involved in it all. You enabled this conduct; and condoned and encouraged it.

When she retired, you filled her position with another eager person willing to commit crimes in order to continue in your extortion game. Fines of $150.00 per inch are levied against private homeowners using landscape development regulations that are only to be used if someone is developing a property. The amount of $150.00 is made up and appears nowhere in writing, nor has it ever been approved by the city to use. It is illegal, and the way you take this money is by extortion. Again, the record of this money is missing.

The city spokesperson Alyson Crean, boldly told the newspaper that property owners may not trim their own gumbo limbo whitefly infested tree limbs that are over 3 ½ inches unless they get a permit from the Tree Commission. This was printed front page in an article in the Citizen, our main newspaper on Dec. 19th 2011. The city knows there is no such rule. When I asked the city to retract this statement and offer a correction, they refused to retract the statement and knowingly and willingly perpetuated this lie, because the city charges $150 per inch for a permit and the city used this article to capitalize on the white fly epidemic and charge homeowners who were distraught about the black sap on their property, animals, and homes to make money off of the infestation and plague.

The rules in the city ordinance 110-259 mandates a citizen must either treat or remove an infested tree. White fly cannot be successfully treated, and treatment is not a solution that is required. A citizen has a duty to remove OR treat the tree, whichever they prefer. There is no cost involved when trees meet criteria for removal EVEN under the LDRs. [Land Development Regulations] Yet the city has made it impossible and cost prohibitive for homeowners to remove these infested trees BY illegally charging the extortion rate of $150.00 per caliper inch of the tree at breast height to be paid to the city for a permit to remove the infested tree, when the city has no right to charge anything other than an administrative fee per State of Florida Land Development regulations. This fee would likely be $45 or $50 as it is in every other county in the State. The city of Key West makes a homeowner “buy their own trees back” from the city at $150.00 per caliper inch before the homeowner can trim or remove unwanted trees or limbs. This is unconstitutional and illegal.

The only legal requirement of homes and their landscaping requirements, according to the City LDR’s is that a home under development must meet minimum requirements of landscaping per square footage of green space. For a single family home on an average lot in Key West, this would be 1 tree, some bushes and some undergrowth. The homeowners in Key West are being forced to not only comply with LDR’s when they are NOT in the development process, but are being forced to keep many times this amount of landscaping on their property, unable to remove any of what they planted. So in Key West, if you plant a tree, you have to pay $150 per caliper inch to the City for permission to remove it. The Tree Commission mission statement was to encourage planting. Do you think this encourages planting? If a Hurricane wipes out the landscape, do you think ANYONE will replant? What will your city look like then? Have you thought it through what you are doing? Obviously you only see the dollars now and not the bigger picture.
Illegally, citizens are being forced to share an unfair portion of the burden of landscape and canopy within the City so that the city can present itself as a beautiful place, despite the city’s own landscaping being neglected and non-existent. As the city destroys it’s own major and grand trees throughout the city and destroys mangrove habitats without warning, permits or concern,….the city wields the whip onto private homeowners. The city profits by this as they now don’t have to maintain these trees.

While the city destroys its own canopy, homeowners are unable to even thin out their canopy that they planted and own, on properties they pay taxes on; because the city treats property owners as if they are imbeciles unable to govern their own properties or know what needs to be done to maintain their landscape. Yet, the city assumes no responsibility for landscape it demands and assumes control over. The city won’t allow a private homeowner to have control over his own trees and plants that he paid for unless he pays an extortion rate of $150 per caliper inch to the city for permission to maintain or remove their own trees. The city has made a living off requiring the homeowner to either pay the extortion or replant 2 or more trees when one is taken down which ensures at some point , the owners property will be unable to hold anymore trees, and unable to replant, and then will be FORCED to pay the extortion of $150 per inch. Also the newly planted trees guarantees more future income as the trees become mature and need to be trimmed, or at some point removed as the property is now so over planted, the homeowner has no yard left. In some instances the roots are uplifting foundations, insurance requires the removal of limbs over roofs, or utilities are compromised by the trees. Still, the city demands an extortion be paid to the city before the homeowner is ALLOWED to remedy the problem. The homeowner is forced to wait for a month to be put on a monthly agenda before the Tree commission and there he is required to beg for permission to be allowed to pay the extortion rate so that he can care for his property. If a homeowner remedies the problem in an emergency, he is fined $5000 or more, and the city levies fines against the property if the homeowner refuses to pay.

In the LDR’s a private homeowner is not mentioned until the duties of a homeowner are discussed or the city’s own trees are discussed. Only if the homeowner is undergoing development on their property are the LDR’s even applicable. A separate condition exists if a tree has been marked historic. The city has bastardized these rules. The city has bulldozed 60 feet of mangroves without a permit, and also taken down ancient trees with no public hearing which allowed input. The hearing was improperly noticed to avoid any concerned citizens knowledge of the time and place of the actual hearing. And then under police guard, the trees were destroyed. The same city that won’t allow a private citizen the ability to maintain their property and trees without paying the extortion, destroys it‘s own trees or leaves them neglected to interfere with properties, utilities, sidewalks and roads…or to die and be left on the side of the ride disintegrating and falling. These practices have left the city in a catastrophic situation should a hurricane come.
 
Homeowners are being forced to leave their trees in dangerous conditions. The city will NOT allow them to trim the trees and meet requirements of insurance companies and state and federal regulations. Even when a homeowner is able and willing to pay the extortion, the city has oft times refused to allow a homeowner to remove an unwanted tree or trees on their own property because the city says it likes the trees there. The city has no ownership of the private property of individual homeowners, nor can they require individual homeowners to keep unwanted trees. The city wants to eliminate it’s own canopy and the liability and responsibility of maintaining it, and shift the burden onto the citizens. It is illegal and unconstitutional and the city cannot escape liability for all the trees they have demanded a homeowner keep when the homeowner did not want them.
 
Should this tree fall, the city is liable. For the property the city has “taken” by way of refusing a homeowner the right to the enjoyment of that percentage of his property by forcing him to keep a tree there that he does not want or need, the city must pay the homeowner the value of that property…so says the constitution and the bill of rights. Takings are not legal without compensation. Liability cannot be escaped when one controls the property. The city is operating a criminal enterprise.
The city knows it is operating a criminal enterprise and that is why payers of the permit fees and fines are told to pay the check to the city itself instead of to the proper agency within the city, or mark the check as a donation instead of permit fee or fine. The city supplied a spreadsheet to a reporter showing fines of approximately $20,000 per year as being the only fines on record. The fines have no name attached to them in most instances, so there is no accountability there. In others where there are names, I have checked the accuracy of them, and concluded beyond a shadow of doubt, the city has willfully and knowingly submitted fraudulent information with made up names and fines IN EVERY RECORD I HAVE CHECKED. Again, I believe there is criminal intent.
 
This is not sloppy record keeping, this is a determined effort on the part of the city to hide the illegally gotten money in other accounts or in the pockets of officials and friends.

I have been told checks have been made to city employees themselves, and city employees have set their assets in trust funds in an attempt to secure them should they be caught.

What you are doing is with great consequence. Having been warned you have taken no action to correct it. I have made aware all these grave situations to the City Manager, City Attorney, City commissioners, City Planning, City Tree Commission, Keys Energy, City Clerk, City Risk Management, and Code Enforcement. The city has done everything imaginable to silence me, besides killing me.

I intend to see this through. You will be held accountable I assure you. I will find some authority who dares to disrupt your RICO enterprise….and bring the officials into accountability. You will not be left to terrorize the citizens and homeowners without a battle from me and others who will stand beside me. Whatever it takes, I will do it to bring you into accountability and to restore the guaranteed rights of our constitution that you trounce on as if you were Hitler. You are not above the law. You will not be able to take generations of blood shed for our freedoms in this country, and eliminate what they fought for from within without a battle from me. I am ashamed to say the country is being taken over from within. I have 6 generations that have shed blood for the US, and by their graves I stand to see that their blood was not in vain.

The citizens of Key West live in fear. Fear of their own city government. Fear of the illegal fines and coerced settlements, and liens and takings of properties. Fear of retaliation, fear of their jobs and businesses and children’s safety. You set idly by and wield your power and say, “Sue us, we are rich” . Well, the city is fed up and you will not get away with what you are doing. Some think our constitution is worth fighting for. I may lead the fight right now, but I assure you, many will follow.

Sincerely,
Sandra Downs/ owner of Tarzan Tree Care
22976 Bluegill Lane
Cudjoe Key, Fl 33042
305-304-9303
 
My opinion, the City of Key West should never have tangled with Sandy. They should have muzzled their rottweiler wannabe lawyer Ron Ramsingh, who seems to have gone totally off the reservation and just as totally insane. My opinion, Sandy has only just begun to tear the city and Ramsingh a new one.
 
Sloan
 
Nashville replied:
 
Thanks for sharing the Sandy Downs info: I did not have a hard time getting thru it but then I have the time to read it. I have no dog in the hunt but certainly hope that she pushes the matter and finds a lawyer with time and interest to take the case on contingency just to see how much money they really have. They certainly will not have near enough money if a child is killed due to the non-trimming. I really am not sure how the city sees what they are doing as being lawful or even in the best interest of the citizens. But, it really doesn’t appear that they give a rat’s behind what is good for the citizens. Am I wrong?
 
Thanks again,
J
 
I replied:

The city cares a lot more about having big pretty trees in power lines, than it cares for human beings killed by electricity running through those trees.

Sandy has a mainland lawyer she has known a while, which means he isn’t tied into the Key West legal intrigues and social circles. He’s been around the block a few times, doesn’t seem to still need to make a living at being a lawyer, and I think this last escapade with the Special Master making him drive all the way down to Key West to learn his motion to recuse the Special Master had been granted, because the Special Master had finally read the attached transcript from the prior court hearing, might have been a seriously bad turn of events for the city re Sandy’s lawyer’s resolve to kick the city’s butt. Throwing more gasoline on the already big bonfire, Sandy told me this morning that Ramsingh called her lawyer giving him hell about Sandy talking with city employees about her case, and said she was not to talk with them again. Sandy had an appointment with a city manager this morning to discuss tree issues in Key West, so when she went in to see him, the first thing she asked him was it okay for him to meet with her/ He said he knew of Ramsingh’s position. He could not talk with her about her case against the city, but wanted to talk with her about tree issues the city needed to take a look at. She said they had a good meeting. If Sandy cannot talk with city employees, she cannot do her tree business in Key West, because anything having to do with a tree has to be run through the Tree Police. She said she and the assistant city manager talked about what happens if a hurricane comes in, knocks down a bunch of trees and power lines. Property owners not being able to deal with whitefly infestation because of the Tree Police. And one other thing, I think, which now escapes me.

 
Nashville replied:
 
I hope he has plenty of time and does kick the City’s butt! And, of course it will be lots of fun deposing all those city employees and taking up lots of city time in the discovery process – I mean since she can not talk to them now, that would be the only way she could gain the information needed for her suit or defense. A good time will be had by all.
J
 
I replied:
 
Not sure Sandy can depose the city employees, based on outcome in the Havlicek case, but she can subpoena them as witnesses to the Special Magistrate hearing and question them under oath with a court reporter taking it all down. If she then does not like the Special Master’s ruling, she can appeal it de novo to the circuit court, and have real trial, hopefully. Or, perhaps the replacement Special Magistrate will give her a fair hearing and it will end there.
 
Won’t surprise me if, by the time it’s all said and done, Sandy has attracted enough media attention, and enough disgruntled Key West citizens into her camp, that a major class action lawsuit against the city over its Tree Police, as you call them, is not filed in federal court, where the city has zero sway.
 
A Key West man, once a US Attorney on the mainland, career prosecutor, Jewish, got very upset with me for calling the Tree Commission Tree Nazis. I didn’t invent that name for them. The people of Key West did that a good while ago.
 
Am left puzzled why the Mobile PD are not treating that attack as a race crime? Am having trouble seeing any difference between the Chicago and Mobile attacks, and what the KKK used to do. The KKK were Nazis, weren’t they? If you are from the Deep South, you know they still are.


Meanwhile, the media frenzy continues, in The Key West Citizen today:

 
Judge wrongly sealed Zimmerman case file

Now that a new circuit judge in Sanford has been assigned to hear the case of George Zimmerman involving the tragic shooting death of Miami Gardens teen Trayvon Martin, he seems to be on the right track to ensure that court documents in the case become a matter of public record, as they should be.

Circuit Court Judge Jessica Recksiedler rightly recused herself after a defense attorney raised conflict of interest questions. But before stepping down, she acted with unseemly haste in granting a motion to seal the file.

That brought this newspaper and other news organizations into court to ask for a reversal of that decision because Florida’s open records law, one of the broadest in the country, makes it clear that virtually all court records are public, along with most evidence.

The law establishes precise, narrow grounds for making exceptions, but Recksiedler not only failed to consider whether this case met the legal test for such an exception, she didn’t even give the news media a chance to be heard before making her ruling.

The judge granted a defense motion to seal the records because of extensive pre-trial publicity, and the state’s attorney did not object.

Not so fast.

The Florida Supreme Court has held that the party seeking closure must satisfy a three-prong test set out in a 1983 ruling, Miami Herald Publishing Co. vs. Lewis, that says closure is warranted under very explicit circumstances. These include a showing of a serious and imminent threat to the administration of justice, and that no alternative short of a change of venue is available to protect a defendant’s right to a fair trial. The third test requires a showing that sealing the records would effectively protect the rights of the accused without being broader than necessary. Further, the law requires that anyone seeking closure cannot merely assert that this action is necessary — they must present evidence to support that finding.

In this case, there wasn’t even a hearing, much less evidence of any kind. Once such a hearing is held, attorneys for the news media should be able to show that this case does not meet the requisite tests. …

In comments from the bench, he said he would go through the file and provide the relevant material to all parties soon. That’s the right way to go to preserve the public’s right to know in this high-profile Florida case.

– The Miami Herald

Given how the media had inflamed this horrific case, I can’t argue with the judge and the defense and the prosecution agreeing the media needed to be checked. It’s not the media and the public whose child was killed, and it’s not the media and the public who is charged with second degree murder. Thanks to the media, the public has already tried and decided this case. Race crimes are being committed by blacks against whites, and the defendant is no more, nor less, a white man than is President Obama. I hope the new judge will be very careful about what he hands over to the press. Very careful.

 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Posted in Today's FlaKey Drivel | No Comments »

I was told in a dream to start looking on the brighter side

Friday, April 27th, 2012

I wrote yesterday of being told in a dream night before last by my editor, a woman I did not know, to write a new book. She was back in a dream before dawn today, telling me, as I understood her on waking, to be more bright in my outlook, as I said the two I know are Jesus and the Cross. I lay in bed pondering her words, pondering how horrible I felt. I told the angels it will be nice to have experiences that cause me to feel more bright in my outlook, including feeling better physically and seeing bright experiences unfolding in the world around me. Short version of longer, less cheerful diatribe sent the angels’ way.

Not having anything particularly sunny in mind to say today, I give you instead more on Sancho Panza’s displeasure with Don Quixote’s ravings on the Sanford, Florida tragedy and its fallout, more from The Key West Citizen on the systemically dysfunctionally insane FlaKey school district, another slam of the school board by school board candidate Larry Murray, and a report of School Board Chairman John Dick’s favorable response on US 1 Radio this morning, and a few of my own grumblings and skepticizings. Perhaps the tenth draft of something that started out a heap lest brighter side.
 
You can scroll down past anything that doesn’t interest you.
 
From Sancho Panza, his remarks in italics:
 
Since you insist:On 4/25/2012 9:06 PM, sloan bashinsky wrote:

Get a grip, Sancho. You write shit all the time that is purely to get a reaction.
But I thought you were above all that… guess not!
 
You don’t like what I’m writing about Martin-Zimmerman because it does not agree with your viewpoint. Zimmerman backers don’t like what I’m writing about it, either, if any read what I’m writing about it.
 
Wrong, who says I don’t like it? I don’t care for the way you play foot loose with the fact of the case! I don’t have a viewpoint other than to say that Zimmerman should have staid in the car and let the authorities handle it… there was no imminent danger to anybody! Since when is walking to the store to buy candy and heading back home constitutes suspicious behavior? Answer that, please? Do you think that it could possibly have something to do with that person being a young black man, wearing a hoodie? When Zimmerman decided to get out of his car to do his vigilante thing(telling the police on the phone that “They always seen to get away with it”), he took upon himself everything that happened after that… yes, of course race had a lot to do with why and how this whole incident unfolded, to deny that is seriously stupid!
 
Like I, or the angels, give a shit what people like, or don’t like. I never got the impression you gave a shit what people like, or don’t like, about what you write.
You do seem to tailor your writing so as to show an impartiality that to me seems contrived, maybe even phony… you don’t do this in everything you write about but you do it when it comes to politics… by your core values, you should be a flaming liberal… but your stupid comments about Karma on this topic, makes you seem more like a joke(at best) or a joker(at worst)! I know that you know better!
 
If you think I am shape-shifting, you have been sound asleep since you first started corresponding with me. I take no prisoners. The angels running me take no prisoners, starting with me.
You just made my point, counselor… you go into battle so as to “take no prisoners”… that means you and your Angels against the establishment… that means, you are Don Quixote and will use any weapon available to you(even shape shifting reality) to defeat your foes… and who are your opponents? Why, we all are… anybody who speaks up on an issue for any reason other than to kiss your celestial tush! LOL

They rattle me, they have me rattle other people, because only when people are rattled is there a chance for them to change. When people feel safe, secure in their hardened bunkers or ivory towers, they do not change.
Well, how is that coming alone? Have you had a lot of people change their evil ways after one of your spankings? Have you? Seems to me that with all that Angelic rattling you should be as close to perfection as any human can possibly hope to be… while on this World! How is all that painful rattling and correcting helping you nourish the feminine aspect of your self that you think is so lacking in this male dominated World?!

It may well be President Obama comes to wish he had never made a peep about Trayvon Martin’s shooting. It may well be Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton come to wish they had kept their mouths shut.

 
These people make a living in exploiting controversy and human pathos… you do it for the fun of it… or by divine decree! Are you sorry that you started taking sides and predicting Karmic consequences because of the Trayvon Martin’s shooting and everything that has transpired since that tragic night in Sanford? I didn’t think you would! 

It may be the special prosecutor may come to wish she had declined to take Zimmerman case.Take a gander at this link, which J in Nashville sent a little while ago.

Sloan:

 
You might find this of interest concerning the Zimmerman Affidavit. With your law background, you would understand his claims better than I.
 
Dershowitz: Zimmerman Affidavit Is A Crime
Yeah, well they are coming out of the Woodwork to get their spot in the limelight… I am sure somebody is already writing the script for the movie and the Book cannot be too far behind! Yep, the Martin family and maybe George Zimmerman himself, are gonna make a barrel of money out of this. Hell, according to your version of spiritual manipulation, maybe even Trayvon Martin is going to get his reward up in Heaven for sacrificing his young life so that the Great State of Florida get to repeal this wonderful, take-no-prisoner, fuck-self-defense law. Who knows, maybe God will grant as his reward that Trayvon Martin’s next reincarnation be as a Rich White Mormon! :-D

Peace! Not!
 
“Perhaps Sancho, not being from the Deep South, cannot fathom that some whites are entirely capable of doing to black people what that black mob did to what white man in Mobile, Alabama. Perhaps Sancho, being from the Dominican Republic, cannot see beyond his color line.”

Ah, thanks Sloan! You are just another creepy crawler after all… too bad! All those places you visited, until your credit card ran out, didn’t seem to have widen the scope of your vision at all… not much to see here, people… just move it alone! :-[
As a human being, I mostly agree with Sancho.
 
All those places I visited, until the credit cards ran out, affected the scope of my vision in ways no one can possibly imagine, who was not there. Same for every day of my life, since the angels abducted me in early 1987. I say angels, one was Jesus, the other was Archangel Michael. But it was years before I knew their identities. They, and some of their confederates, whom they unleased on me, taught-made me to stop thinking like a human, which caused me a lot of trouble in my human relations and broadened my perspective. Years ago, Sancho dubbed me Don Quixote. Years ago, I told him I no longer thought like a human, even though I still felt like one most of the time.
 
A foward from The Key West Citizen's blog, re the schools' Internal Auditor Ken Gentile:

Gentile

Submitted on Wed, 04/25/2012 - 9:46pm by johndoetip
Gentile. He says that he is a CPA. There has never been any record of him being a CPA in Florida. That is a misdemeanor. You are not allowed to say you are a CPA unless licensed in FL. Even if you have CPA credentials in another state, which I can not find either. It is a misdemeanor. Why does no one look into this, what else does he mislead us about?
 
Ken Gentile receives my ravings from the State Mental. This needs to be cleared up.
 
From today's Key West Citizen:
Boys, girls to stay separate
'At-risk' schools share resources
BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com
Girls from Keys Center Academy will not share a classroom this fall with boys from the district's second alternative school for at-risk kids, Superintendent Jesus Jara said Thursday at a town hall meeting.But resources must be combined for the two programs he says cannot remain separate in this painful budget season.

"The staff will have to be shared; we have to do that," Jara told a crowd of about 50 people at Key West High School's auditorium.

The future location for the 4-year-old Keys Center Academy, which was on the community college campus, and other details remain unresolved.

The alternative, mostly male school is Academic Connections for Excellence (ACE).

In a year that the district must cut $6.2 million to balance a budget of $78.5 million, Jara said spending $1 million on 50 kids in the alternative schools can't continue.

The per-student cost at the girls school, however, is about $14,000, Jara said Thursday, a far cry from the $29,000 per-student rate that administrator Jeff Arnott offered last month at a Keys Center Academy advisory council meeting.

Jara, who scheduled Thursday's meeting and hosted the discussion that was largely critical of him, said that merging the two programs could save more than $700,000.

"We just can't continue to offer the same services when the resources aren't there," Jara said. "We are limiting some of the opportunities across the board. I know this isn't popular."

Not in front of this crowd, which comprised a collection of parents, students and staff at Keys Center Academy, and a few local health care professionals.

Kim Romano, who runs Womankind, warned that the district cannot put a price on the girls school, which offers one-on-one counseling that includes teen pregnancy prevention.

Edward Pitts, a family therapist who volunteers his expertise at the girls school, stormed out of the meeting after telling Jara that dismantling Keys Center Academy would be a grave mistake.

"What we have here is a successful program being merged with a horrible program," said Pitts. "And we ought to get a fairly horrible program out of it."

Pitts said that ACE has no structure, while the girls school has a carefully plotted-out curriculum of counseling and education for kids growing up in many cases without parents or safe homes.

"When I go over to ACE, I'm going into a loony bin," said Pitts.

"I had to break up a fistfight on the floor two weeks ago. I've seen two teachers run off weeping. One teacher is now on disability -- it drove her completely over the line."

Cathy Sembert, who has taught at the girls academy since its inception, said the staff has worked nonstop for four years on crafting the alternative program.

"It didn't just happen," said Sembert.

This year, Sembert started teaching classes at ACE as part of Jara's effort to share the staff and save money.

"I was really abused today," Sembert told the room of the ACE class she had taught that day. "It's not my first rodeo -- being told to '[expletive] off’ — and I can take it most of the time. But I can’t take it when I feel there is no future.”

Three students at the girls school said that if it wasn’t for the Keys Center Academy, and full-time counselor Heather Jennings, they couldn’t imagine where they would be at age 18.

“This is not a school for me; it is a family,” said 18-year-old Claudia Valladares, a senior at the academy who lives on her own and pays her own rent. “I have never felt so at home.”

Originally from Honduras, Valladares said the counseling and small class size at the alternative school saved her from dropping out.

She aced the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test — in English, her second language — after many Sunday tutoring sessions with academy staff.

Although she is graduating this year, Valladares told Jara that simply merging the Keys Center Academy with the ACE program at the May Sands school is a waste of money that endangers students’ futures.

“If I had a wish, it’s that you would be in my shoes for at least five minutes,” she said.

For months now, the girls school’s teachers have been splitting their time between Keys Center Academy and ACE.

Jenna Albano, 18, a senior at the academy, said that she immediately noticed the stress that staff-sharing has inflicted on her teachers.

“It’s not going to be successful,” Albano said.

It was an at-times emotional discussion over the future of the girls program, now housed on the campus of Florida Keys Community College.

Former Key West High Principal John Welsh, who is running for School Board District 3, asked Jara to commit to keeping the girls and boys separate.

Sonny Knowles fought back tears as he told Jara about his daughter graduating from Keys Center Academy.

“She would have never made it at all,” Knowles said. “God bless Heather Jennings.”


From School Board candidate Larry Murray yesterday, aimed directly at School Board candidate Ed Davidson, or Marathon:

Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2012 06:57:34 -0700
From: citizenlarry007@yahoo.com
Subject: Candidate Fairness
To: andy@fishandy.com; duncan.mathewson@keysschools.com; John.Dick@KeysSchools.com; robin.smith-martin@keysschools.com; ron.martinsb@keysschools.com
CC: jesus.jara@keysschools.com; Ken.Gentile@KeysSchools.com; dsmits@florida-law.com

John:
 
Prior to election season, how the School Board conducted its meetings was not a particular interest to me. However, now that we have eight candidates for two School Board seats, I believe that it is imperative that the School Board treat all candidates equally. Specifically:
 
1. Seats at School Board meetings be provided for all candidates, not just one, behind the Board so that all may appear on television when the camera is on the Board.
 
2. All candidates, not just one, be permitted to attend and speak at School Board meetings while wearing campaign garments, e.g. hats, pins, shirts and so on.
 
3. All candidates, not just one, be permitted to approach School Board members from the rear during meetings and whisper in their ear.
 
4. All candidates, not just one, be introduced using whatever title they may espouse, e.g. Captain, Dr., and so on.
 
5. All candidates, not just one, have the opportunity, on a rotating basis, to be the last speaker in the “Public Comment” section.
 
Conversely, equality and fairness can be achieved by discontinuing the preferential treatment afforded one candidate. That is:
 
1. No candidates sit behind the School Board so as to be on television.
 
2. No candidate be permitted to wear campaign garments to School Board meetings.
 
3. No candidate be permitted to approach a School Board member to speak privately during a meeting.
 
4. No candidate be introduced with a title as is the policy of the press in Monroe County.
 
5. All candidates speaking in the “Public Comment” section do so on a “first come, first served” basis.
 
I am sure that you share my concerns and that the School Board desires to treat all candidates equally and that appropriate policies will be instituted prior to the next meeting.
 
Larry
 
Dr. Larry Murray
Fiscal Watchdog and Citizen Advocate
Candidate
Monroe County School Board
District 3
(305) 872-3087
 
 
The only thing that really bothers me is I was not allowed to speak for 5 minutes at the last school board meeting after saying I, too, represented an organization, The State Mental (which is far larger in population than the organization Ed Davidson represents, which gives him 5 minutes during citizen comments.)
 
Larry sat beside Ed at the last school board meeting, and Larry tried to interrupt school board members and was not allowed to do that. School Board Chariman John Dick said on US 1 Radio this a.m. that candidate seating and input at board meetings would be straightened out.
 
John also said, reports that Jesus Jara had said music and band would be eliminated wasn’t going to happen. And there wasn’t going to be a new tax increase requested so teachers could be paid higher salaries, when they already were considerably higher paid than teachers elsewhere in Florida.
 
When Larry introduces himself during citizen comments at school board meetings, he says he is Dr. Larry Murray, citizen fiscal watchdog and school board candidate. No other school board candidates who speak during citizen comments mentioned they were a school board candidate at school board meetings I attended.
 
I imagine Ed had school board meetings pretty much to himself, until this election season approached. Maybe Ed and the Board had informal give and take, like school board workshops go.
 
I doubt I have attended as many local government meetings as Ed, but I have attended a good many of them. I have spoken to a lot of agenda items. I can’t said it made a tinker’s damn that I spoke, based on how things went afterward. I have yet to see any of Ed’s suggestions made at school board meetings taken to heart.
 
I was told School Board member Robin Smith-Martin’s children attend the Montessori charter school in Key West, and Board member Duncan Matthewson’s children attended a charter school in the upper Keys before his wife and children moved to New England.
 
Duncan is vacating the school board seat in District 3, which has five filed candidates and possiby me in it as a write-in. Ed Davidson and Larry Murray are 2 of the filed candidates. Of all the school board candidates in both races, I have only heard Ed and I promote de-centralization and community/charter schools throughout this school district.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
 

Received this cheery news report on Trayvon revenge race crime in Chicago …

A black 18-year-old suspected of a violent attack on a white teen told Chicago police the beating was motivated by his anger over the Trayvon Martin case in Florida, MyFoxChicago reports.

Alton Hayes III was charged with a hate crime after he and a 15-year-old attacked the 19-year-old man at about 1:00 a.m. on April 17 in Oak Park, a Chicago suburb.

Police say Hayes and his teenage partner, who has not been named since he is a juvenile, picked the man apparently at random and pinned his arms to the side.

Hayes allegedly then picked up a tree branch and demanded the victim give them his belongings, saying, “Empty your pockets, white boy.”

The suspects then rifled through the victim’s pockets, threw him to the ground and punched him numerous times in the head and back. Both suspects are black and the victim is white, according to police.

MyFoxChicago reports Hayes told police he decided to attack his victim because he is angry over the death of Trayvon Martin. Hayes said he chose his victim because he is white.

Hayes was charged with attempted robbery, aggravated battery and a hate crime, all felonies. His teenage comrade was referred to juvenile court.

Trayvon Martin, 17, is the unarmed black teenager who was fatally shot as he walked through a gated community in Sanford, Fla. on Feb. 26. George Zimmerman, who has been charged with second-degree murder, went into hiding Monday as he awaits trial.

Emotions have run high across the US over the incident, in large part because six weeks passed before Zimmerman was charged — leading many African-American community leaders to decry what they perceived as racism in the justice system.

On Saturday night, a white man was beaten by a throng of African-Americans in Mobile, Ala., after telling a group of children to stop playing basketball in the middle of a street — with one witness claiming she heard an assailant exclaim, “Now that’s justice for Trayvon,” WKRG -TV reported.

However, the Mobile Police Department said the assault on Matthew Owens, 40, was not being investigated as a hate crime.

———————–

??? Found myself wondering yesterday if hate crimes are limited to whites against blacks …

Posted in Today's FlaKey Drivel | No Comments »

No prisoners – FlaKey school district, Key West tree Nazis, Special Master Jeff Overby, Sheriff and State Attorney races, apologies to anyone I left out

Thursday, April 26th, 2012

 

Today brings what I hope is the last intallment from my neck of the woods in the Trayvon Martin shooting, which you can read all about at this link: no prisoners – Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman chronicles, which is supposed to take you to Today’s Vulcanite at goodmorningbirmingham.com, where that post formatted best. Lots of new ground plowed there with assistance from Sancho Panza, J in Nashville via legal legend Alan Dershowitz who sez the special prosecutor in the Zimmerman case needs to hire a lawyer to defend her from illegal prosecution tactics, ex-lawyer Tim, Cuban ex-pats, Al Gore and George W. Bush, Mormonism, the Norse God Loki, the Baptists, Adam and Eve, and ex-lawyer me, apologies to others not named here.

Meanwhile, yesterday’s new FlaKey school taxand other budget blues post did not purge all the nice snakes I had absorbed at Tuesday’s School Board meeting.

Before citizen comments, it was revealed that the school district is not accruing some of its contingent liabilities in its budget-planning, which leaves them lurking in the weeks like big snakes waiting to strike and take the reserve fund balance down.

Such a big snake struck a few weeks ago, when FEMA demanded a big refund from what it had given to the school district after Hurricane Wilma. A big snake everyone knew about, who should have known about it, but they had made no provision for it, according to the newspaper reports.

Fortunately, Sunny Booker told Internal Auditor Ken Gentile about the school district’s disaster fund, and $1.5 million was found, more than plenty to take care of the FEMA refund. The remainder, School Board member Andy Griffiths wanted to use to shore up the reserve fund balance, as if there would never be another hurricane.

Andy has consistently tried to get the School Board to keep the reserve fund balance at 3 percent, even though he knows, having been on the Board 20 years, that snakes not taken into account in the budgeting process keep coming along and gobbling reserve funds and dragging the reserve fund down below the state-required 3 percent.

Before Citizen comments, Audit & Finance Committee Chairman Stuart Kessler reported again the AFC’s recommendation that the reserve fund be kept at 6 percent, for the very reasons stated above. He left out a bit, though.

When I spoke during citizen comments, I again commended Board Chaiman Dick for insisting on a reserve fund balance of 5 percent, large enough to absorb the snakes we had only just heard described generally. John had insisted on the same reserve balance during the previous board meeting, after Griffiths had tried to get the board members to go along with a 3 percent reserve fund balance.

I said I had attended that AFC meeting, where the committee had voted to recommend a 6 percent reserve fund balance, but Stuart Kessler seemed not to want that, or even a 5 percent fund balance. I said at the next School Board meeting, Stuart told the Board what the AFC had recommended, and then he said a 5 percent balance would suffice. I said Stuart had no authority from the AFC to say that, and it seemed there was only one person on the AFC. I nearly said, then bit my tongue, Stuart is running for the County Clerk’s job, and if he is elected, will he run it like he runs the AFC?

Later in the meeting, Internal Auditor Ken Gentile told the Board about a snake that was not being accrued, Workman’s Compensation. When Ken did not tell them how big that snake was, I went from my chair to where he sat and asked in a whisper, how much was the workman’s compensation liability? $900,000, he said loud enough for everyone there to hear. I wondered why I had to ask him how much? Why didn’t he just say how much?

By yesterday, I was wondering why the Board and the school administration never say how big any of the snakes they keep talking about are? I decided to ask them to tell us how big all those snakes are, so we all will know.

 
I am asking them in this post, which all of the board members but Robin Smith-Martin will receive, because Robin asked me last year to remove him from my email list after I worked him over pretty good for giving voters the idea that if they voted against the .5 mil referendum, they might get a tax decrease in the amount of what that referendum represented.

Ken Gentile also will get this post, as he receives all of my posts. As Internal Auditor, he is like Internal Affiars in a police department. His job is to keep everyone on the steep and narrow, and to do that, he has to lead the way.

We, the people, want to know all about those sakes, Ken, and how big they are. This is a Freedom of Information Act request.

Also yesterday, I found myself stewing over the fact that Superintendent of Schools Jesus Jara had told the press and the School Board and citizens at his five town hall meetings that 40 teacher jobs would have to be dispensed with in order to pay for the $6.2 million budget shortfall this year. This really upset people to hear. It really upset me.

Then, I learn from John Dick at Tuesday’s school board meeting that they will eliminate the 40 teacher jobs mostly by attrition, and by dismissing a few bad teachers, as they do every year.

I wonder why Jara did not explain it that way to begin with? Why did he make it out like 40 teachers had to be let go? As in, fired.

I couldn’t get an answer until someone I shared my puzzlement with said this school district likes to use scare tactics to get what it wants. Did I think Jesus said 40 teachers had to be let go because he wanted the School Board to try to raise school taxes again this year, which would make his job a lot easier?

Moving laterally, Ed Davidson spent 5 minutes during citizen comments offering a cure, which is to return to the school district’s official policy: decentralized schools. Ed said Jesus Jara had rejected that approach, so he could not possibly be a candidate in the superintendent search, since he did not agree with the official policy.

Ed said parents get involved in neighborhood schools which have their own autonomy. He said that’s what makes schools work. It was what made Keys schools work before, when they were decentralized.

 
Alas, the decentralized schools were not monitored well, some of the principals went off the reservation, and the result was what we have today: all of the schools run from the Henriques Building in Key West, micro-management, seriously stressed out teachers and principals.

Ed said the district has to return to neighborhood schools, which are like charter schools, but the administration has to stay on top of the principals.

As if to second that, Robin Smith-Martin said as some point, if the school district doesn’t get straightened out, the charter schools will each the school district’s lunch.

 
Parents are not stupid. They know what is working. They want their children to get the best education possible. They do not want the hell this school district is putting them, their children and their children’s teachers through.

When I left Tuesdays school board meeting, I remained convinced this school district cannot be fixed by electing new board members or by hiring a new superintendent. I remained convinced it can only be fixed by going charter throughout, by privatization (businesses accrue continent liabilities), or by state take-over.

 
Moving latteraly, this from a woman who has had five children attend school in the Keys:
 
Sloan, just a thought….what does it cost to teach to the FCAT? (Florida’s “standard achievment test” given to kids from mid-grammar school through high school)
5 months of teachers pay for each teacher per year
on line courses at the schools expense for students who didn’t get taught in school what they needed to learn due to FCAT cramming
kids who fail because of the FCAT and the extra years they are in school, each year at what expense
summer school and tutors to replace what wasn’t taught in the school year
the FCAT material Jeb Bush makes a profit on
stress related illnesses in kids scared to take the FCAT’s for fear they will then fail the grade if they don’t pass
stress related illnesses in teachers whose jobs depend on their students’ FCAT scores
What would happen if we didn’t teach and make kids take FCAT?
The teacher would be free to teach their class relevant information that can be used in life
The teachers could be more creative in their teaching
5 extra months per year to teach the students real stuff
Extra teachers to help students not to fail; instead of teachers repeat teaching the students who failed
Kids would want to come to school
Teachers would want to teach
President Obama did away with the requirement for Florida to test students with FCAT
Why oh why oh why dear Lord, are we teaching the FCAT and making our students ignorant of real information they need to survive in the global economy?
Is the FCAT a way to make us all servants? Ensuring we have no education or skills to do anything other than menial labor?
Citizens not Serfs…….STUDENTS AND TEACHERS NOT SERFS!!!!!! Hail Mary, look what the schools are doing to our children!
Rise up and assist us please to save them! And it wouldn’t be a bad idea to bring your SON with you. Thank you
 
Sandra Downs

PS I think I will announce I will be a write in candidate for Sheriff….is there still time to do that? If so, then I am in.

 
June 4 is the filing deadline, Sandy.
 
Re an entirely different State Mental ward, Sandy reported a seriously bizarre tree Nazi happening yesterday in Key West:
 
Oh why must I relive this?
 
Because I told her to write me a letter about it.

I appealed my Tree Commission violations. One for taking a tree down that had landed between two houses as a seed, and because of the sale of the homes, the new homeowners each thought the other owned the tree. The tree had no water supply, found a leak in a pipe under the home and thread it’s roots into the pipe causing the pipe to break and 251,000 gallons of water washed away day by day because the homeowners were out of town. They received a $2600 water bill, were astonished and sought to find out why. A plumber fixed the pipe and said the tree had to go. After investigation the homeowner found the neighbor thought the tree was his, and he thought the tree was his neighbors. So the tree had to go both agreed. WE applied for a permit. No one was there to sign the permit, but the coordinator said it was an emergency and the permit would be signed. An after the fact permit could be signed later if we took the tree down prior to the “emergency signers” getting back into the office 3 days later. What kind of an “emergency” program does the city have?……”We’ll get to it when we can evidently.” So we took the tree down after we were told the permit would be signed and ready for pick up on a Monday. No one showed up on Monday. No one called to say the permit would not be signed. After repeated efforts to find an “emergency person” to give us the permit which awaited, we took the tree down.

 
The city then threw the permit application away, hauled me in on a violation and refused to allow me to defend myself with witnesses and evidence. I was fined $5000, the max allowed.
 
I waited 10 days for the Decision to be sent to me, the deadline the city imposed on itself in the ordinances. No Decision came. In the meantime the city destroyed the tape of the hearing because of the damning evidence of violation of due process and rights. On the 11th day, 1 day after the deadline for the city to issue it’s Decision, I received a fax with a date of the day prior. The city trying to meet its deadline by signing a fraudulent date. The mailed version also confirmed the Decision was sent a day late.
 
I appealed the next business day. The city clerk said they would not accept my appeal. I threatened to call the police. They took my appeal.
 
They had said I could not file my appeal with the city commission as their ordinance said I must. I had refused this. They then told me to pay them $1000 and they would allow my appeal to be heard before the proper authority, the city commission. Sloan paid the $1000 for me and we filed the appeal. Sloan’s money was sent back the next day…the city changed its mind and would not allow me to appeal to the authority the ordinance stated I must appeal. With a smirk on their face, the city sent me to General Magistrate Jeff Overby.
 
I hired a Miami attorney. I asked that Magistrate Overby recuse himself because of past dealings with him in a court hearing where he called me a liar. I submitted the transcript where he did this. He denied the recusal.
 
My hearing was special set…meaning it wouldn’t be televised. It was set at 10:00 am instead of 1:30 with the rest of the accused crowd of Code Violators.
 
My expert witness showed up and the Court reporter. My attorney drove from Miami and spent the night in Key West. My three company staff and arborist came.
 
Magistrate Overby showed up 45 minutes late, apologized for the delay……his dog had surgery. Then he recused himself from the case.
 
How thoughtful.
–
Sandy Downs
 
I told Sandy that she had gotten rid of the city’s whore, and now maybe a real trial could occur before a real Special Master, if such exists in Key West.
 
The other day, I wrote this to Sandy, not knowing what she and her lawyer were up to, or that the hearing before Overby was scheduled Monday.
 
… I wish you had filed grievances with the State Bar against the Assistant City Attorney Ron Ramsingh and City Attorney Shawn Smith. It might have given you some leverage.

… I still think you need to argue the city waited too long to notice you of the Tree Commission findings, and there is nothing for the Special Master to hear therefore.

I still think you should try to get Overby recused. He is biased against you. He is used by the Tree Commission and city as a threat to get people to agree to settlement agreements with the Tree Commission. Knock him out of the case, get a replacement Special Magistrate who is not married, hopefully, to the city and Tree Commission. I would threaten Overby with grievances before the Florida Bar and Florida Judiciary Commission, if he does not recuse. You have the transcript of the old case, wave it in his face, tell him where it’s going if he doesn’t recuse. The newspapers, as well as the Bar and Judiciary Commission.

Thanks to the Havlicek case, you get a trial de novo before the Special Paster. It starts all over. Nothing the Tree Commission did is relevant. Subpoena Mayor Cates, Jim Scholl [city manager], Shawn Smith, Ron Ramsingh, Paul Williams (Planning Department), Don Craig (recently in dutch with the law, Planning Director), the Tree Commissioners, the Tree Commission employees. Don’t let them be on call. Make them come and wait. Wear them out. Cross-examine them under oath, as adverse defense witnesses. Make them sit out in the hall, so they can’t hear each other’s testimony. Use that as your discovery process for the appeal to circuit court, if you don’t like the Special Master’s decision. You get trial de novo in the circuit court, too, but I think only on what was raised before the Special Master? So raise everything before the Special Master. It will make The Citizen, I imagine.

Sloan

For newcomers to my ravings from The State Mental, the prissy prima donna (Jeff Overby) was a lead prosecutor under Republican State Attorney Mark Kohl, who was ousted by our current Democrat State Attorney Dennis Ward in 2008. Sandy and I both campaigned hard for Dennis, even as Sandy campaigned for sheriff and I campaigned hard for her sheriff bid and for myself for the county commission seat held by Sonny McCoy.

Dennis promised during his campaign that, if elected, he would get rid of Jeff Overby, and he delivered on that promise.

Dennis promised during his campaign, if elected, he was going to cut high salaries in the State Attorney’s office, and when another lead prosecutor, Cathy Vogel, learned that included her high salary, she quit. It wasn’t just the school district that was facing falling revenues and funding. Every government agency in the Keys was facing it.

Now, Mark Kohl is running again as the Republicans’ whore against Dennis, and Cathy Vogel is running as a Democrat against Dennis. We already know her profession, all left is to determine her fee.

What I am waiting to see is, will Dennis prosecute the city and its tree Nazis? His main campaign pledge in 2008 was he would go after public corruption.

Sloan Bashinsky

keysmyhome@hotmail.com

Posted in Today's FlaKey Drivel | No Comments »

no prisoners – Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman chronicles

Thursday, April 26th, 2012
 
“Will white vigilantes take to the streets of Mobile, Memphis, Little Rock, looking for blacks to bludgeon like blacks bludgeoned Matthew Owens?”

WHAAAAAT!?!?!?! I think that you are seriously losing it, because I KNOW that YOU KNOW better than that! Karma between Europeans and Negros didn’t start where your conveniently selective memory says it does!

Also, you’ve pretty much become Barack Obama… shape-shifting all over the place… except that in your case, it’s precisely for the opposite reason: You want to piss off everybody at the same time! Well, Señor De Cayo Hueso… you’ve done the deed! Even Sancho is taking his Burro and slowly backing away from you! :-D

I can’t believe that a smart guy like you hasn’t figured out yet that reality is something people consume… like beer or fried chicken… the nuances of Mormon’s Theology, Catechism… Pantheon, are beyond the span of attention of the average voter… Obama’s campaign knows this!

I told you to let this one go until the dust settles… but you keep going like a wild horse w/o a rider… where are your riders(writers)?

I replied:

 
Get a grip, Sancho. You write shit all the time that is purely to get a reaction.

You don’t like what I’m writing about Martin-Zimmerman because it does not agree with your viewpoint. Zimmerman backers don’t like what I’m writing about it, either, if any read what I’m writing about it.


Like I, or the angels, give a shit what people like, or don’t like. I never got the impression you gave a shit what people like, or don’t like, about what you write.

If you think I am shape-shifting, you have been sound asleep since you first started corresponding with me. I take no prisoners. The angels running me take no prisoners, starting with me.

They rattle me, they have me rattle other people, because only when people are rattled is there a chance for them to change. When people feel safe, secure in their hardened bunkers or ivory towers, they do not change.

It may well be President Obama comes to wish he had never made a peep about Trayvon Martin’s shooting. It may well be Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton come to wish they had kept their mouths shut.

It may be the special prosecutor may come to wish she had declined to take Zimmerman case.

Take a gander at this link, which J in Nashville sent a little while ago.

 
Sloan:

 
You might find this of interest concerning the Zimmerman Affidavit. With your law background, you would understand his claims better than I.
 
Dershowitz: Zimmerman Affidavit Is A Crime
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/04/25/dershowitz-trayvon-prosecutor-overreached-with-murder-charge/
Regards,
J

Legal legend Alan Dershowitz blasted the special prosecutor in the Trayvon Martin case, accusing her of hiding evidence favorable to defendant George Zimmerman and committing perjury.

“If I were this prosecutor, I’d be hiring a lawyer at this point,” Dershowitz said of Angela Cory, the Florida state attorney and special prosecutor who Gov. Rick Scott appointed to handle the case.

Dershowitz leveled his bombshell charges in an interview Wednesday with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly. The Harvard law professor, noted for winning an acquittal of Claus Von Bulow in the case that inspired the film “Reversal of Fortune,” said Cory overreached by charging Zimmerman with second-degree murder. And he said the affidavit she filed in support of the charges was illegal because it did not include evidence favorable to Zimmerman.

“If there are riots, it will be the prosecutor’s fault because she overcharged, raised expectations.”
- Alan Dershowitz, Harvard Law professor

“This affidavit submitted by the prosecutor in the Florida case is a crime,” Dershowitz said. “It’s a crime.”

Zimmerman, 28, is a neighborhood watch captain who admits shooting the unarmed 17-year-old Martin on Feb. 26 after a confrontation in the gated community where he lives, but Zimmerman claims he acted in self-defense.

ABC News recently aired a photo purportedly taken minutes after the shooting that shows a bloody wound on the back of Zimmerman’s head. That photo appears to support Zimmerman’s contention that he was being beaten by the teen when he shot him.

But Cory made no mention of Zimmerman’s wounds or photos that might substantiate them when announcing the charge on April 11. Dershowitz said she was obligated to include any and all pertinent evidence.

“If she in fact knew about ABC News’ pictures of the bloody head of Zimmerman and failed to include that in the affidavit, this affidavit is not the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth,” Dershowitz said. “It’s a perjurious affidavit.”

Even worse, Dershowitz warned that by overcharging Zimmerman, Cory may have planted the seed for riots if he is acquitted, as Dershowitz predicted will happen.

“If there are riots, it will be the prosecutor’s fault because she overcharged, raised expectations,” Dershowitz said. “This prosecutor not only may have suborned perjury, she may be responsible, if there are going to be riots here, for raising expectations to unreasonable levels.”

He said it is quite possible Zimmerman was guilty of a lesser charge, but the affidavit does not support a second-degree murder charge.

“There’s nothing in this affidavit that suggests second-degree murder. The elements of second-degree murder aren’t here.”

Dershowitz is not the first legal expert to question the second-degree murder charge. The Florida statute requires proof that the defendant acted in a manner that was “evincing a depraved mind.” Prominent Miami criminal defense attorney John Priovolos told The Associated Press the charge was a “huge overreach” and said Corey will be hard-pressed to show Zimmerman had the “ill will, spite, malice or hatred” needed to prove a “depraved mind.”

If convicted of the second-degree charge, Zimmerman could face a maximum sentence of life in prison. Cory could still add charges, and a jury could eventually convict him of a “lesser included” charge, such as reckless manslaughter.

When announcing the charge, Cory expressed confidence in her team’s case.

“We have to have a reasonable certainty of conviction before filing charges,” Cory said.

But Dershowitz said Cory is the one who should be facing charges, arguing that her prosecution of the case has already taken a political turn.

“She was appointed to get Zimmerman,” Dershowitz said.

 
_____________________________
 
 
Perhaps Sancho, not being from the Deep South, cannot fathom that some whites are entirely capable of doing to black people what that black mob did to what white man in Mobile, Alabama. Perhaps Sancho, being from the Dominican Republic, cannot see beyond his color line.
 
I wrote back to J:
 
Thanks for sending this, I had not seen it. Missed the evening news last night, maybe it was reported then.
 
I agree, if the special prosecutor over-reached charging Zimmerman with murder, if she doesn’t get a murder conviction, the fall out is on her head.
 
My understanding is, prosecutors are required by law and legal ethics to disclose to the defense anything prosecutors have that might exonerate a defendant. Failure of a prosecutor to do that is grounds for mistrial and/or dismissal of charges. Failure to do that is a grounds for disbarment and criminal prosecution of the prosecutor.
 
Also, the prosecutor can be sued civilly for damages, probably punitive damages.
 
If the special prosecutor withheld exonerating evidence in the Zimmerman case, the State of Florida could be sued, too, since Governor Scott appointed the special prosecutor. However, I don’t know whether the State of Florida has sovereign immunity from civil damage suits, and I don’t know if punitive damages can be assessed against the State of Florida.

If I were the judge at the Zimmerman preliminary hearing and the special prosecutor did not show me the photo of the back of George Zimmerman’s bloody head, and I later learned of it, say, on CNN, I would have had the special prosecutor’s head.

Perhaps the judge was shown that photo at the preliminary. If so, in his shoes I would have been scratching my head over going along with a second-degree murder charge. I would have told counsel to meet me in chambers.

I would have asked the special prosecutor what in the hell was going on?!!!

 
I would have asked her what in the hell did she think she was doing praying with the Martin family, and then telling the public about it on CNN? I would have told her she was off the case, and I was not doing anything until a new prosecutor had the case.

Yeah, I know the judge was thinking what might happen to him and his family if he did that. I know he was thinking about not being elected the next time his term came up. I know he was thinking about his social life. I know he was thinking about what the media would do to him. Real judges don’t let any of that sway them. Real judges do what the law requires them to do.

I don’t know if the special prosecutor was appointed by Governor Scott to get Zimmerman. For sure, she was appointed because she was black and was a State Attorney (prosecutor) with a good reputation. For all I know, Governor Scott didn’t care which way the special prosecutor went. It would be on her and the judge and jury after he had appointed her. He would be Scott-free.


Sloan

 
 
Very interesting political analysis that the [Zimmerman] case may influence the federal election. Another case had that effect. I am sure you remember the Eliian Gonzales that so incited the Cuban community against the Clinton/Gore Administration. I agree with you that the injection of the race card is unfortunate since there seems to be no evidence of racial hatred in Zimmerman. The problem is that the media plays it as “White Vigilante Kills Unarmed Black Teenager” Martin may not in fact have started the fight but there are no witnesses to dispute Zimmerman’s version of what happened.
 
Re Romney and your interesting perspective on the Mormon attitude toward blacks. Ironically, after reading your e-mail I ran in to an article by Frank Rich about Romney’s attachment to Mormon religion. (In “New York” magazine.) I am sure you know about the controversy over Mormons baptizing the dead, a strange ritual that has offended many Jewish people.

Re the strange beliefs of Mormonism it was a very enlightening summary and it certainly shows why many conventional Christians would not consider Mormons to be Christians.
 
That being said, I am not sure that the Presidency should not be open to a follower of a religion with beliefs many (most) would consider bizarre, unless the beliefs would somehow impact the presidency.
 
But it certainly shows why blacks would be particularly concerned about Romney when his church apparently considered blacks inferior to whites until as late as 1978.
 
I am certain the Obama campaign could not use such an attack against Romney but it would certainly make an interesting question for a debate moderator.
 
I do not think the Presidency should be limited to Catholics and Protestants and depending on their respective qualifications and issues I’d vote for a Jewish person over a Christian.
 
Look forward to the read tomorrow.
 
Best
 
Tim


I sent back what J had sent to me and my reply to Jay, not included again here. Then, I said:

 
On Mitt Romney’s Mormonism, I wrote today that the Book of Mormon is the Mormon bible, just like the Bible is Christendom’s bible. Can you imagine the Baptists, for example, just up and tossing away a core part of the Bible simply because it is politically or socially unpopular?
 
I think I recall the Mormons gave up polygamy so Utah could be granted statehood. Outwardly, they gave it up. Over time, many of them did give it up, but others did not. Over time, the Jews gave up polygamy, but their Arab Abraham siblings did not.
 
Polygamy is not on the level of Sin of Cain doctrine, no where near. My foggy recollection is, the Dutch used the Sin of Cain argument in South Africa to justify apartheid. That was, after they concluded the aborigines were human beings. Ref: James Mitchner, The Covenant.
 
I know Christians who have loosened up some about just how factual the Bible really is. There are two creation stories, for example. In one, there are gods, not just God, who were alarmed that Adam and Eve deigned to be gods like them (the gods).
 
I know Christians who have loosened up some with ignoring what today seem to the like wrong or ridiculous parts of the Bible, especially in the Old Testament. Homosexuality is an abomination. Eating shell fish, pork, is a abomination. For example. It’s not okay to kill, but it’s okay for God to have Moses send Joshua into the land of Canaan and kill every man, woman and child, and their animals, and salt that land so nothing will ever grow there again.
 
So far, Romney strikes me as a moderate with a pretty good amount of business savvy, which I found most Mormons to be and have. Like devout Muslims, devout Mormons do not drink alcohol or use tobacco.
 
Perhaps Romney is a not a Mormon fundamentalist in disguise. I surely hope not, because little disturbs me more than spending time with Bible literalists who say every word in it is God’s spoken Word, even though the disciple John described Jesus as the Word before there even was a Bible.
 
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
 
As I got today’s post together, I vaguely remembered reading The Sin of Cain apartheid in the Book of Mormon in 1970, which I read because the manager of the Liberty Supermarket in Kosiusko, Mississippi was a devout Mormon, and I wanted to get his business for my father’s Golden Flake potato chips and other snack foods. I remembered thinking to myself as I read it, that the Mormons who wrote it might have gotten along pretty well with the Mississippi KKK.
 
What’s Romney going to say: That part of the Mormon bible is mistaken? If that part is mistaken, what other parts are mistaken?
 
I am astounded the national media and blacks and white liberals and/or Democrats have not spread The Curse of Cain all over the Internet. I can only ass-u-me they don’t know about it, or they are saving it for more opportune time.
 
Sure, any American citizen can run for president, even a Grand Klaxon in the KKK, even a Nazi, even a Communist, even an atheist, even a Satanist. That’s not at issue here. What’s at issue is Mormon teachings and doctrine are deeply instilled in Mormon children starting early on. They are raised to be Mormon priests, according to a young Mormon ex-pat who went by the name Loki, after the Norse trickster God.
 
I met Loki on Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado, in 1993. He was homeless, on purpose. His southern California parents had had very high hopes for his elevation in the Mormon priesthood. He would become a Stake, as they call a very high priest level. He rebelled against it all. Started using LSD, peyote, booze, tobacco, etc. Like devout Muslims, devout Mormons don’t use such substances.
 
Loki was very psychic, and could make things happen by willing them. He looked inside of me once, at my request, told me what he saw, and it changed the way I was going about something, and that changed my life with the spirit realms. He knew the Christian bible better than I knew it.
 
Anyway, I can only wonder what kind of early and adolescent and teen Mormon training Mitt Romney had. Loki would have killed himself before he would have swallowed The Curse of Cain doctrine. Perhaps he did swallow it for a while. He viewed Mormons as a cult.
 
Eventually, Loki went back to living mainstream, got a job with a computer company, and was smoking lots of pot and probably had a gentile girlfriend last time he and I talked, which was in the fall of 1999. He was living in Tuscon, Arizona.
 
When he lived on the street in Boulder, Loki used the Bible on zealot Christians who tried to save him, to get them to buy him a meal: “I was hungry and you fed me not.” He did not say the words, but cited the book, chapter and verse numbers. Hearing that, they surrendered.
 
Loki was a great name for him. We were very close friends, even though I was more than twice his age. There were very few people I could tell my stories, who did not look at me like I was crazy or the devil. I could tell Loki anything. Maybe in a prior life he was the disciple John, who had some seriously bizarre spiritual experiences of his own, as reported in Revelation.
 
It was Loki who told me that Jesus actually did deliver the Jews in that time from their enemies, the Romans, which was those Jews’ requirement for their Messiah. Loki said the way Jesus did that was through is followers, who spread throughout the Roman Empire, which eventually adopted Christianity as the state religion. After that, the Romans laid off leaning on the Jews, because in the Christian belief and evolving scriptures the Jews were God’s chosen people and Jesus himself was a Jew. So obvious, but it took Loki to show it to me.
 
I imagine Loki would agree, if blacks go off the reservation over Travyon Martin’s death, whites will flock to Romney in November and that will the the end of Barack Obama as president, which might not be a bad thing, given how he has gone about things so far.
 
I imagine Loki would agree, Obama’s economic policy is not the problem; hell, he inherited a national economy on the skids. It’s Obama’s foreign policy and accepting the Nobel Peace Prize he got awarded because he was half African that calls for is ouster, which is the problem. That, and he promised change, hope, and delivered terrible change without any hope.
 
I imagine Loki would agree, in his own way, Obama is as bad, or worse, than Geoge W. Bush and his gang. Spiritually bad.
 
I can’t pull the lever for Romney, either. I don’t trust his early Mormon indoctrination to not still be running him. He is no Loki.
 
And, I don’t know Romney’s foreign outlook; specifically, I don’t know his military outlook, because there was very little said about that in the CNN news reports on the Republican primaries, which strikes me as odd, since over 1/2 of US Government spending is on its military and retired military personnel. Loki was flat against US military adventurism.
 
I have no dog in the presidential fight, since Ron Paul has no chance of being elected.
 
As for the young Cuban refugee …
 
Pulled this from Wikipedia – I remembered the case vaguely.

The custody and immigration status of a young Cuban boy, Elián González (born December 7, 1993), was at the center of a heated 2000 controversy involving the governments of Cuba and the United States, González’s father, Juan Miguel González Quintana, González’s other relatives in Miami, Florida, and in Cuba, and Miami’s Cuban American community.

González’s mother had drowned in November 1999 while attempting to leave Cuba with her son and her boyfriend to the United States.[1][2] The U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) initially placed González with paternal relatives in Miami, who sought to keep him in the United States against his father’s demands that González be returned to Cuba. A federal district court‘s ruling that only González’s father, and not his extended relatives, could petition for asylum on the boy’s behalf was upheld by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals. After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case, federal agents seized González from his relatives and returned him to Cuba in June 2000.

My now foggy remembrance of domestic relations law in Alabama is, absent proof of a surviving parent being a very bad terrible horrible no good criminal and/or immoral person, or legally insane, the surviving parent of a minor child is entitled to legal custody of that child. My more recent foggy recollection is, Cuban boat refugees who make it to American shoreline are allowed to stay, those intercepted at sea by US Authorities are sent back to Cuba. Did Elian make to to American shoreline, or was he brought there by US authorities?

 
Checking Wikipedia again:
 
Cubans who make it to U.S. soil are generally allowed to remain in the country. After a year, the Cuban Adjustment Act allows them to apply for U.S. residency. This differs from U.S. immigration policy applied to refugees of other Caribbean nations, notably Haitians.[3] To monitor whether the returned Cubans are subjected to persecution, the U.S. Interest Section in Havana, in cooperation with international organizations, maintains follow-up contact with the returned Cubans. The result of this monitoring has been a conclusion that there is no systematic legal policy of the Cuban government to persecute those Cubans who have been returned.[4]
 
In November 1999, González, his mother, and twelve others left Cuba on a small aluminum boat with a faulty engine; González’s mother and ten others died in the crossing. González and the other two survivors floated at sea until they were rescued by two fishermen, who turned him over to the U.S. Coast Guard.
 
Based on that, and what I am pretty sure is American domestic relations law generally, perhaps Cuban domestic relations law is similar, I cannot argue against Eliian being returned to his father in Cuba, Cuban ex-pat relatives’ sentiments to the contrary notwithstanding.
 
Maybe I should say, WHO IN THE HELL DID THEY THINK THEY WERE TRYING TO TAKE THAT BOY AWAY FROM HIS FATHER, IF HIS FATHER WAS NOT IN ON THE ATTEMPTED FLIGHT TO AMERICA AND WANTED HIS SON BACK?!!!
 
Maybe my perspective is colored by having handled and seen very nasty child custody cases when I practiced law, and by my own personal experiences with my first wife over her and my children.
 
If President Obama had any spine, he would tell the Cuban ex-pats it is time for them to get over their, or their parents or grandparents, not wanting to stay in Cuba and fight Castro; it’s time for them to give thanks to God that they were able to come to America and start a new life.
 
If President Obama had any spine, he would tell the Cuban ex-pats is time for the US Government to establish full relations with Cuba, if Cuba is receptive.
 
And it is time President Obama tell the the Cuban ex-pats, and all Americans, what they do not wish to hear.
 
My foggy recollection is, Cuba under Batista, the Cuban ex-pats pole star, wasn’t particularly citizen-oriented, but was a de facto American CEO of a cheap farm labor business colony and Mafia hangout.
 
My foggy recollection is, America, pressed by Cuban ex-pats who had not chosen to stay and fight, tried to invade Cuba and chickened out – Bay of Pigs.
 
My recollection is, Fidel Castro then invited the Russians in with ballistic missiles – Cuban missile crises.
 
My foggy recollection is, JFK then tried to have Fidel Castro killed and that failed, and Fidel then had JFK killed, yes?
 
It’s long past time for America to stop acting as if it is the boss of this world and can tell everyone else what to do and how to live. What’s the difference between that and religion? I can’t see any difference.
 
Separation of church and state was a good idea, as was avoiding foreign entanglements. Alas, they were not ready to abolish slavery and prove all men were created equal (women and Native Americans excluded, and later Spanish Americans/Mexicans excluded), and now here we sit wallowing in that very bad horrible awful terrible karma.
 
Sloan
 
Tim replied:
 
Lots of stuff here.

 
Thanks for the Dershowitz interview. I listened to it. He states that there is insufficient info in the affidavit to support even a manslaughter charge. He states (you and I agree) that given the evidence of which we are aware, no reasonable jury would convict. And as you know even if there is only one reasonable juror there can be no conviction.
 
I do not know the standard whether a prosecutor must present exculpatory evidence in such an affidavit but I assume AD knows that law and the bloody head is certainly exculpatory. What was the SP doing? I would not go so far as AD and charge her with a crime in submitting an incomplete affidavit. Again, it is always possible the SP has evidence against GM not yet made public but hard to imagine what it could be with no witnesses
 
AD says that if indeed GZ “stalked” TM and confronted him, he probably loses the benefit of stand your ground but not traditional self defense, a very good point.
Query, what if GZ provoked Martin by throwing a punch at him, or, say, grabbing him and that’s when TM somehow got GZ to the ground. But there is no evidence to show that he did.
 
And even if: let’s assume you confront me, even grab my arm, even squeeze it, but I overpower you and start banging your head in to the ground with such force you think it might kill you (which it might indeed) then I think the law of self defense gives you the right of deadly force, even if I was the first to touch you.

Your analysis was so correct and acute: the SP being black could have defused the entire matter by declining to charge.
 
Did you remember that AD was deeply involved in the defense of OJ Simpson?
 
I also loved what you wrote re how the judge should have treated the SP for not disclosing all of the evidence.
 
AD also made an interesting point that in other countries prosecutors are not elected.
 

Re Elian Gonzalez case

I assert the Gonzalez case decided the 2000 election.

You remember how close the election was, ultimately decided by the U S Supreme Court.

But it was that close only because GB carried Florida.

And he carried it only by (if I recall correctly) 498 votes or so, his best case.

The Gonzalez case just inflamed the Cuban community in South Florida against the Clinton/Gore administration.

Elian’s mother tried to escape to the US with her son but she drowned.

Cuban community strongly wanted to keep Elian with his mother’s relatives in the US.

Ultimately fed agents swooped down on the house where young Elian was abd removed him at gunpoint. There is a famous photo (believe it was on cover of Time or Newsweek) of young Elian in a federal agent’s arms, looking just terrified.

Agree with you that father had rights even if one could say that in the long run Elian would have been better off being raised in the U.S.

The Gonzalez story so enraged the Cuban community (again the merits are not relevant) that they voted overwhelmingly for GB. It drove them to the polls.

Quite a good argument that Cubans would not have turned out as they did but for the Gonzales case and without that turn-out GB would have lost Florida and the election would not have gone to the Supremes.

So in that sense the Gonzalez case “decided”the 2000 election.

Does the Zimmerman case have the same possibility in the 2012 election (i.e to “decide” the election) by driving enraged blacks to the polls for Obama or driving whites to Romney if riots ensue? At this point that is only a possibility. I doubt that the case will be tried before the election. But the possible parallel of a legal case deciding an election is an interesting one.

Re Romney and his election. It is interesting that apparently no one has yet raised the sin of Cain doctrine against GR. As you said, it would be difficult for GR to disavow parts of the Book of Mormon. So was he raised believing blacks were inferior in the eyes of God?

Contrast that with the Protestant Sunday school hymn “Jesus loves the little children” which states “Red or yellow, black or white, they are precious in His sight”, a clear message that in God’s eyes all people regardless of race are of equal worth and dignity.

Of course I do not believe that there is any evidence that there is even a hint of racism in GR (at least I have not so read anywhere).

I do not see moreover the issue of that Mormon doctrine, or any other, becoming a political issue. Doubt that Obama or his campaign would assert it or that any debate commentator would dare raise it.

Many traditional Christians view Mormonism as a cult.

(But see: http://www.fairlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/siever-is-mormonism-a-cult.pdf)for good definitions of a “cult”.) Therefore many evangelical Christians accept the GR candidacy only hesitantly. (Of course there are those extremists who think Obama is secretly a Muslim.) Some may not even vote for him and his loss of a significant portion of the religious right may make a critical difference if the election is close.

I do agree with you that GR is a moderate (why the conservative base is not enthusiastic about his candidacy) with very good business savvy, by all accounts.

I am sure you are aware of the importance of a presidential candidate being able to energize his base. I think Obama’s base will be energized, particularly the black vote. I do not see the GOP yet “energized” by GR. Many Catholics and to a lesser extent evangelical Christians are enraged over the Obama mandate that organizations receiving federal funds must endorse programs contrary to their religious belief. One would think that the Catholic vote should be as strongly anti-Obama as the black vote is pro.

My thoughts for what they are worth.

Do you remember the one remark that GR’s father made that cost him any chance at the 1968 GOP nomination and thus helped usher in the candidacy of Richard Nixon?

 
I replied:
 
Perhaps for the sake of all this country, Zimmerman’s trial should be after the November election, but perhaps Zimmerman and his lawyer want to get it over with and press for a speedy trial. I would want to get if over with, if I were Zimmerman, if my lawyer and I thought I probably would win.
 
As for the stand your ground law defense not being available, because Zimmerman was following Martin, as I already reported State Attorney Dennis Ward telling me, Judge Garcia here in the Keys held the stand your ground law applied to a case where a man left an argument in a Duval Street establishment, went home, got a pistol, put it in his pocket, went back to the argument, continued the argument, was slapped to the ground by the other altercator, then pulled his pistol and shot the now fleeing other altercator twice in the back and once in the back of his hip. Judge Garcia threw out the State Attorney’s case. Facts in that case far more bizarre than Zimmerman facts, as we currently understand them.
 
The media already went after polygamy because Romney is Mormon. I cannot imagine how The Sin of Cain doctrine will not become a political issue. I do not see how the media will not raise it. I do not see how the African-American and liberal white American communities will not raise it. What if Romney was a member of a snake-handling rural church? Do you not think that would be raised in a presidential election? What if he was discovered to be a polygamist? What if a secret girlfriend came foward and punched big holes in his family man image? The Sin of Cain doctrine is far more combustionable.
 
No, don’t recall George Romney’s remark. Unlike you, my interest in politics was small for most of my life.
 
I had not considered Elian Gonzales case impact on the 2000 election, or maybe I forgot it. What truly disturbed me about that election was the conservative-packed US Supreme Court, apparently on its own motion, underneath probably just following orders, took the Florida election recounting results away from the Florida Supreme Court. I never was convinced all the votes got scrutinized and tallied, or that George W. Bush won Florida. I was convinced the Florida initial results were rigged. Hell, all the more reason to normalize relations with Cuba, if the Castros are receptive.
 
On cults, for quite a while, I have viewed Christianity and all religions as cults. What religion did, say, Adam and Eve belong to? They walked and talked with God, according to that report. Angels, or an angel assigned to them, I would say. Like with Abraham later, and then Moses, etc. They were one-on-one with God, through those angels. There is a very big difference between being one-on-one and belonging to a religion. Looks to me the Founding Fathers knew that, judging by the wording of the Declaration of Independence, and later by the separation of church and state part of the First Amendment. God is God. Religion tries to define, control and/or be God. How can anyone define, control or know what is Infinite, Eternal and Unfathomable? Rhetorical question.
 
I dreamt before dawn this morning of being told by a woman I did not recognize, who was my book editor, of starting on a new book, and of a piece of real estate I had purchased in a strategic position next to a major highway in a mainland rural community perhaps being a really good investment. On waking, I thought perhaps the rural community was Sanford, Florida.
 
Sloan
 

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new FlaKey school tax increase and other school budget blues

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012
School Board Chariman John Dick 

Click on this link to follow up on yesterday’s 2 ex-lawyers discuss the Zimmerman case post:

The Curse of Cain – unintended consequences of accusing George Zimmerman of race crime

That link is supposed to take you to the goodmorningbirmingham.com website, where today’s post formatted best, perhaps because serious race crimes by whites against blacks were committed there. What’s in that post, including a black mob beating nearly to death a Mobile, Alabama white man for Trayvon Martin justice, just might galvanize American white people to vote for Mitt Romney, en masse, if such black-against-white revenge crimes escalate; and a survey of the Mormon religion’s teachings, Romney is Mormon, that black people are black and inferior because they are descendants of Cain, just might galvanize black and liberal white Americans to vote for Barack Obama. Take a couple of Malox before reading it.

 
Back down in The Asteroid Belt, this from school board candidate Larry Murray re this in yesterday’s various school district gossip, mostly, post:

Yvette Mira-Talbott is the Conch candidate in District 2 race. She was KWHS Homecoming Queen. One of her daughters was same. Another daughter did not get it, Yvette was enraged, wrote a nasty letter to the editor The Citizen published. I heard this gossip from two different people. Sound’s like Yevette has her education priorities in order.

Probably not gossip. Larry Murray looked it up for me today …

 
Sloan:
 
I would appreciate it very much if you informed your readers that I have not been spreading gossip about Yvette Mira-Talbott. My concern is if your readers do not carefully follow what you have written that they may draw an erroneous conclusion.
 
Your statement: “Probably not gossip. Larry Murray looked it up for me today:” relates to information that follows, data regarding teacher salaries. Your statement, “Probably not gossip….”, does not relate to information which precedes, i.e. gossip about Yvetter Mira-Talbott. I have not looked up anything about Ms. Talbott. My research yesterday was purely and exclusively relaying data from the District Salary Schedule.
 
I know that it is not easy to write your blog every day and I know how hard you try to always be accurate. Again, my concern is not what you have written. Rather, my concern is that readers may misunderstand or misconstrue what you have written.
 
Larry
 
During his 3 minutes of allotted citizen comments at last night’s School Board meeting, Larry started off saying now that the school district had discovered $1.5 million in its disaster fund account, maybe it could find even more more money it didn’t know it had and that would take care of the $6.2 million budget shortfall this year.
 
When I spoke afterward, after confirming it with Internal Auditor Ken Gentile, I said that $1.5 million that was not lost but was found was capital funds and could not be used to reduce the $6.2 million budget shortfall. What the $1.5 million could do would be to reduce depleting the reserve fund even further (by using that lost but not found money to reimburse FEMA, instead of using the reserve fund to do it.)
 
I then repeated my spiel about cutting wages across the board, instead of firing 40 teachers, and said I saw no way to avoid asking for another tax increase. Short version of longer spiel. For the first time ever, I received applause from the audience at a school board meeting. As did several speakers, who spoke in favor of a tax increase and looking out for the teachers and children. Far as I knew, I was the only school board candidate who had said he favored a school tax increase.
 
After School Board member Ron Martin made his pitch for a tax increase referendum on the August ballot, the School Board’s lawyer, Dirk Smits, said it might be iffy, and it might be dangerous. Iffy, because the timeline for getting it on the August ballot, which will require County Commission cooperation, is tight, and the wording of the law allowing for such a tax referendum is such that a new tax might revoke the tax referendum passed last February. Dirk said he wants to get an Attorney General’s opinion. Nobody disagreed with that.
 
Also, Dirk said the referendum will be just for 2 years, which is the maximum length of time allowed by law for that kind of tax increase. It’s a constitutional tax increase. The tax referendum last February was a statutory tax increase.
 
Then, the other three School Board members, Duncan Matthewson was not there, said how they felt about a tax referendum in August.
 
There seemed to be general concern that the teacher’s union would try to capture any tax increase to recoup what it had lost in the reduction of teacher’s pay under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which reduction came about when the School District claimed it had agreed to a CBA it could not afford (because it had not listened to Larry Murray), and that had led to the union alleging unfair labor practices, and that had led to the fracas being tossed into administrative review in Tallahassee, and that led to the powers that be up there agreeing with the School District, which had led to the union filing an appeal in state court, outcome there to be decided.
 
Dirk stated concern, as did Board members, about the state court giving the tax increase to the union, up to replenishing what the union had lost under the CBA, now that the School District had more money. I felt the union getting any of the tax increase was a deal killer for a new tax referendum, as seemed to be the Board’s view.
 
Board Chair John Dick stated other reasons why he flat opposes another tax referendum, and will not campaign for it, as he did for the February tax referendum.
 
John said the public does not trust this school district to prudently manage the money it has now. The public will not approve another tax increase this year, and that will set a tone for not approving tax increases in later years. John said this school district needs to have a couple of good audits under its belt, before asking for another tax increase. John gave statistics in other counties which had sought tax increases. The statistics were slightly less favorable for passage, than for failure.
 
John said the County Commission had deferred to the School District this year, by not putting its own tax referendum on the ballot so it could give its employees raises, who had not had raises in several years, while teachers had gotten handsome raises and are the highest paid teachers in the state despite falling school district tax revenues. John said three county commissioners had told him they are furious at the School District for seeking yet another tax increase this year, ahead of the tax referendum the county is seeking the first of next year.
 
John said he is opposed to giving teacher’s raises, when they are already the highest paid teachers in the state.
 
Board members Andy Griffiths and Robin Smith-Martin talked against a tax increase in August, even as the audience applauded everything Ron Martin or a citizen speaker said in favor of a tax increase. The public spoke in favor of a tax increase at Superintendent Jesus Jara’s recent town hall meetings, which Ron said was why he put a tax increase on the Board meeting agenda, to discuss, not decide last night.
 
During the ensuing break, I told John I never felt a tax increase should be about giving teachers raises. We agreed, the union will go for teacher raises if the a new tax passes. A deal killer.
 
John said they already got rid of 26 teachers, I think was the number, on the consent agenda. I had not gotten to the meeting in time to hear that. John said many teachers are retiring or quitting. He said they will lose other teachers similarly this year, and will fire a few for not being good teachers. He said it’s always that way. I asked, then why the big hullabaloo in the newspapers and school district meetings about firing 40 teachers to help recoup the $6.2 million budget shortfall? John said he didn’t know why. I said firing 40 teachers should never have been in the newspapers. John agreed.
 
I went over to talk with Holly Hummell-Gorman, who works for the teachers union, which had worked very hard to get the February tax referendum passed, which Larry Murray had worked very hard to get defeated. I told Holly the union trying to get any of a new tax increase for teacher salary raises, or even replenishment, will be a deal killer, and the union needs to tell the School District, in writing, that it will not go after any new tax increase. Holly said it is illegal under the labor laws for the union to deal directly with the School District in that way. I was not convinced of that, but perhaps there are certain procedures which must be followed. I know the union can make that promise in writing to the School District, if the union wants to make that promise in writing.
 
Later, it came to me that the School District should tell the union no tax increase will be sought unless the union agrees not to go after the new tax revenues, and unless the union dismisses its appeal of the administrative ruling the union did not like. No matter what the School District’s apparently excellent mainland labor law firm says, there is no way to stop the union from at least trying to capture revenues from a new tax increase, which will start yet another legal wrangle, unless the union agrees ahead of time to leave the new tax increase alone.
 
Nothing was decided on seeking a new tax increase, other than all avenues will be explored ASAP, as time is of the essence for a new tax increase even getting on the August ballot. Whether a new tax increase will go on the August ballot, subject to the County Commission’s approval, will be decided at the next School Board meeting, which willl be held in Key Largo.
 
The other serious issue discussed, while I was there last night, was the reserve fund balance. Board member Andy Griffiths continued to lobby for a lower reserve balance than 5 percent, even though the reserves have been raided every year for years, to meet “unexpected costs.” Even though there are accrued liabilities, which are not being figured into the mix, it was pointed out last night. Lots of snakes, big ones, still out there, it was said. The other three Board members seemed steadfast in restoring the reserve to 5 percent, so there will be a cushion for unexpected expenditures which historically occur, to prevent the reserves from falling below 3 percent again, which is the state-mandated reserve requirement. If reserves fall below 2 percent, the state takes over.
 
Related discussion was the disaster fund, in which $1.5 million lost but not lost and not found was found. Andy wanted to apply what was left of that after repaying FEMA, perhaps $1,000,000 would be left, to the reserve fund. The other Board members did not agree. A hurricane would cost quite a bit more than $1,000,000 million, and there had not been a hurricane since Wilma, and if there had been, the budget crises would be a lot worse than it is now.
 
I left after talking with John Dick and Holly Hummell-Gorman, and telling Ron Martin and Robin-Smith Martin that no way can the union be allowed to go after any tax increase, and if that cannot be resolved, they should not put it on the ballot. Maybe John Dick is right. They just have to make do with less until they prove they are trustworthy. Besides, even if the public does approve a tax increase, it’s only for two years. Then what? Another 2-year tax increase referendum? And then another 2-year tax referendum? How can a school district operate sanely in the face of such uncertainity? It’s bad enough when the don’t know from year to year what the local school tax revenues will be, because of falling real estate values, and they don’t know what cuts the state will make in its funding of local school districts.
 
Here’s what The Citizen reported about last night’s School Board meeting.
 
Idea of new schools’ tax derided
District also formally fires ‘search’ consultant
BY GWEN FILOSA Citizen Staff
gfilosa@keysnews.com
Monroe County School Board members engaged in a spirited discussion over whether to seek a new property tax via a referendum on the Aug. 14 ballot. But by the end of Tuesday night’s meeting, only the man who proposed it was squarely behind it.

“Dammit, somebody has to watch out for the kids,” Ron Martin said, drawing cheers from about a dozen people in the audience. “All I’ve heard about is cut, cut, cut. We just about broke the knife.”

The board directed its attorney, Dirk Smits, to continue researching whether a new tax is feasible, since voters in January approved the renewal of a half-mill tax.

If so, the board’s only chance to vote on it in time to get on the fall ballot will be at the May 8 meeting in Tavernier.

Martin stood alone on the idea as an answer to the $6.2 million budget shortfall.

Board Chairman John Dick and Vice Chairman Andy Griffiths called it a bad play, as the School District is still recovering from poor state audits in the wake of the 2009 embezzlement scandal. Member Duncan Mathewson was absent.

Member Robin Smith-Martin didn’t support a new tax, either, but did agree with Martin that an uptick in property taxes wouldn’t gouge anyone in Monroe County.

“Anyone who thinks their school taxes are too high is a greedy bastard,” Smith-Martin said. “We have the lowest millage in the state of Florida.” The issue, he said, is voter confidence in the management skills of the schools.

“They think it’s going to be lost, stolen or given as raises,” said Smith-Martin. “You’re not going to loan somebody 50 bucks who is dysfunctional, unless you never want to see it again. We’re not there yet.”

Griffiths, the senior member of the board in his fifth term, noted that the district just received access to $9 million in capital funds through the Jan. 31 referendum. “There will be organized opposition,” Griffiths said of a new tax.

Dick agreed.

“We need to have a couple of clean audits under our belt before asking for money,” he said, adding that at least three county commissioners were “furious” to hear that the School Board was even considering adding a property tax on the ballot. The county is asking for a sales tax on the fall ballot.

“If it passed, we would start receiving money in 60 days,” said Martin, a former teacher and principal who represents the Upper Keys. “We could use some of that money this year for the fund balance. The teacher contract – maybe we could think about honoring that again.”

Superintendent Jesus Jara jumped in then, saying the state has ruled twice that his administration acted properly last year in freezing teacher raises and mandating seven furlough days.

“We are honoring the contract,” said Jara.

Smith-Martin fielded that one. “We’re technically honoring our contract, but we are dishonoring our teachers,” he said.

The teachers union is still suing the district over the changes, which were upheld because the district cited the financial crisis as the impetus.

Dick was adamant that asking for the referendum would turn off voters to the point where they could start saying no to any future schools tax.

“John, you’re projecting all this stuff,” Martin said.

“I projected for years and it all happened,” Dick said.

So long, Mr. Consultant

With little comment, the board voted 4-0 to fire Wayne Blanton, the consultant who was hired to help lead the search for superintendent.

Blanton, executive director of the Florida School Boards Association, has billed the district about $1,800. He promised not to charge more than his blanket fee for superintendent searches, $8,000.

With 37 years in the education field and 76 schools chief searches on his resume, Blanton isn’t needed any longer only because the board assembled a 22-member citizen search committee, said Griffiths.

Griffiths had pushed the Board to hire Blanton in the first place.

After an organizational meeting April 11 in Key West, several members of the search committee complained that Blanton wasn’t telling them anything they didn’t already know. Blanton also twice asked the committee to make a decision with a member out of the room — a violation of Florida’s Sunshine Law.

Applications for schools chief are due May 11, and so far, Human Services Director Cheryl Allen has received 31.

In God, Jara she trusts

One of the public speakers at the meeting was Donna Gentile, wife of Internal Auditor Ken, poised to become second-in-command as the district’s first chief of staff.

Donna Gentile choked up and her hands shook as she read from a prepared statement in which she volunteered to work without pay for the district to “save” a teacher. It wasn’t her first time speaking at a School Board meeting.

At a recent town hall meeting in Marathon, Gentile told the crowd she believed in the power of prayer moments after a preacher had announced that Jesus would help with the district’s $6.2 budget deficit.

Tuesday, she also said the district should keep Jara, saying the Keys were fortunate to have him.

“That kind of sacrifice and loyalty is hard to find and should be rewarded, not punished,” Gentile said.

Spending money on the superintendent search sends “a confusing message of division and disloyalty at a time when we need unity and focus,” she said.

“I will continue to pray for our loving God to bless our leaders with discernment in making the best decisions for our children,” Gentile added.

gfilosa@keysnews.com

 
Following Donna Gentile during citizen comments, I said everyone working for this school district should abopt a teacher, by everyone taking a reduction in pay. I said I had proposed that at the last school board meeting, and except for Ken Gentile, I had seen no indication they thought that was a good way to deal with the $6.2 million budget shortfall. I said Ken had said the people making the most money should give up the most relatively speaking, with people making least giving up the least.
 
Jesus of Nazereth told me, Donna, the way Jesus Jara can help is he takes the lead by cutting his own salary.
 
That’s the second time Gwen Filosa has had a chance to report my suggestion for an across the board wage reduction to deal with the $6.2 million budget shortfall, and that’s the second time Gwen did not report it. I can only take that to mean Gwen and The Citizen, like the School Board and Jesus Jara, don’t like the idea. Nor, apparently, do any other school board candidates, based on none of them having said, to my knowledge, that they like the idea.
 
When I spoke during citizen comments, I did not state my name. Some candidate. I led off saying I was from The State Mental, and as I represented the rest of the folks there, could I have 5 minutes to speak, instead of 3 minutes? John Dick said I only had three minutes. I said that was discrimination. (People who represent organizations get 5 minutes.) I used the three minutes to speak to the issues.
 
Sloan Bashinsky
 
declared but not yet filed write-in school board candidate
 

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The Curse of Cain – unintended consequences of accusing George Zimmerman of race crime

Wednesday, April 25th, 2012

Dr. Martin Luther King, who preached and practiced non-violence, and was assassinated for it by a white man, or white men, depending on what story you read

Distant in-law Ron responded to yesterday’s two ex-lawyers discuss George Zimmerman prosecution post:

SLOAN – Your rational discussion with Tim Gratz regarding the Zimmerman / Martin case was excellent. In this case, it is clear that two wrongs don’t make a right, they make a mess. Poor judgement on both sides caused a tragedy.

The law should prevail, but I think we are all concerned that the results, if there is not a conviction, will cause anger and probably riots due to the perceived racial slant. In that regard, I lean heavily on the testimony of Zimmerman’s black friends that he was not racially motivated. However, I fear the fear mongers, Jesse and Al at the forefront, are going to lead us down the wrong path.

 
The discussion that you and Tim put forward, is the discussion that should be aired on the major networks and in other news media. Our thanks to both of you for taking the heat out of the discussion of the issue. I wonder if there is a more recent picture of Martin. The pic’s I have seen since day one, seem to show a young man of 11 or 12 years of age. The pic’s being shown would logically elicit sympathy that might not be forthcoming for a more mature individual, that could beat your head on the concrete.

If I were in trouble, I think I would hire you and Tim to consult with my defense attorney. You both seem to cut through the BS and get to the heart of the issue.

Regards, Ron K.

 
I replied:
 
Hi, Ron. Thanks. Will pass yours on to Tim Gratz.
 
Looks to me from CNN interviews, Zimmerman has a pretty good defense lawyer. Maybe Tim and I could be more help to the special prosecutor and the national media.
 
Don’t have national media connections. Did a long time ago.
 
Saw photos on CNN last night of an older Trayvon, who looked like he could take care of himself. The media made a big mistake using the younger Trayvon photos after he was killed. Am attaching googled photo of Trayvon perhaps close to his age at death.

I agree, injecting race into this is grave. Consider this email back and forth today. Take a Malox before you proceed.

Sloan:

Enjoy reading your blog each morning and I don’t even live in KW. I live in Tennessee but found your site when the BluePaper went out of business for a month or so. Keep up the good work.
J
 
 

Man Beaten By Mob, In Critical Condition 

Matthew Owens
Matthew Owens lying in the ICU at USA Medical Center.

By: WKRG Staff | WKRG
Published: April 23, 2012 Updated: April 23, 2012 – 6:55 PM
MOBILE, Alabama –Mobile police need your help to catch a mob that beat Matthew Owens so badly that he’s in critical condition.
According to police, Owens fussed at some kids playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive about 8:30 Saturday night. They say the kids left and a group of adults returned, armed with everything but the kitchen sink.
Police tell News 5 the suspects used chairs, pipes and paint cans to beat Owens.
Owens’ sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. “It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed.” Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using “brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on.”
Police will only say “multiple people” are involved.
What Parker says happened next could make the fallout from the brutal beating even worse. As the attackers walked away, leaving Owen bleeding on the ground, Parker says one of them said “Now thats justice for Trayvon.” Trayvon Martin is the unarmed teenager police say was shot and killed February 26 by neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman in Samford, Florida.
Police canvassed the area, but did not find any suspects. They’re asking anyone with information to call them at 251-208-7211, Crime Stoppers at 251-208-7000, or text a tip to 274637 and include the keyword CRIME 411.
 
I replied:
 
Hi, thanks.

I don’t live in Key West either – anymore. Now hang out around Mile Marker 28. For now.

You are in law enforcement?

Had not heard of Mobile horror show.

George Zimmerman looking at real serious karma, but why did that Mobile mob beat up a white man? Will they beat up a Chinese man next? Then, a Native American? Then, finally, a South American?

That mob’s karma as bad as Zimmerman’s.

Maybe I should be glad I live in the Keys, instead of Alabama. Mobile might be small seek preview.

Wonder what that mob would do to me over what I’ve been writing about Trayvon shooting?

About where do you live in Tennesee? I went to high school in Chattanooga, then college in Nashville, married a co-ed from Memphis, long, long time ago, universe far, far away.

Sloan

 
J replied:
 
Live in Nashville, retired and I am not or was not involved with law enforcement but can understand why the email address might raise the question.
 
The MSM, along with Sharpton/Jackson have the Zimmerman case right where they want it. If Zimmerman walks – which I think he will and should – then they can start the riots before the election. The trial has nothing to do with the unfortunate death of Martin – it is something to use to rally the black population to back Obama 100% and to get those liberals who feel guilty that they are not black to vote for him again also. Divide and conquer should be Obama’s campaign tag line instead of Hope and Change. We are doomed regardless of who wins the election – the only thing they worry about after being elected is being re-elected.
 
Keep up the good work.
J
 
I replied:
 
I can understand blacks being delirious over Obama being elected and wanting to keep him in the White House. I didn’t want him there, nor McCain. Nor George W. Bush, whom I didn’t want there a lot more than I didn’t want McCain there. I wish I felt okay about Mitt Romney. It probably doesn’t matter who is in the White House next, it seems destined to get worse.

Yeah, I can see Trayvon Martin’s death helping Obama’s reelection bid. But if Zimmerman is acquitted, or the jury hangs, or the judge doesn’t let the jury decide the case, and blacks riot around America, Obama could lose every state in the Union. If you have read the Book of Mormon, I have read a lot of it, it puts white-skin people way above black-skin people. Romney is Mormon. Maybe MSM, Jackson, Sharpton and Trayvon-avenging blacks ought to ponder all of that before opening their mouths or raising their fists, chains, pipes, paint buckets again.

Maybe President Obama will find he needs all those troops in Afhanistan and still in Iraq to protect Americans from Americans. Maybe he ought to worry more about that than Afghanistan, Syria and Iran.

 
I should have added to the bad karma list anyone who is playing the race card in the Zimmerman case.
 
Sloan
 
Hard to imagine how one man could set so much horror in motion. Wonder how George Zimmerman will feel when he hears about Matthew Owens? Wonder if President Obama, US Attorney General Holder, Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton will react as strongly to what happened to Matthew Owens, as they reacted to what happened to Trayvon Martin? Is there any real difference? Yes, what happened to Owens is a race hate crime. Will white vigilantes take to the streets of Mobile, Memphis, Little Rock, looking for blacks to bludgeon like blacks bludgeoned Matthew Owens? I cannot begin to imagine a better way for Mitt Romney to beat Barack Obama in November, than what what the black vigilantes in Mobile did to Matthew Owens.
 
Meanwhile, consider this which I found on BlackMormons (Mormon Racism), after first finding that 3 percent of American Mormons are black. As you read it, consider that most Christians today view the Bible as the literal Word of God, and I imagine most Mormons are no different in their view of the Book of Mormon, from which The Curse of Cain doctrine was derived, as I recall from my reading many years ago of a good bit of that book.

Summary of the Curse of Cain Doctrine and Priesthood-Ban Policy

For 130 years (1848-1978), Mormon Church leaders taught the following:
*All human spirits were born sons and daughters of God and one or more of His wives, on the planet that God lives on, which is near a star named Kolob (koe-lawb)
*Jesus is the first-born Son of God, and Lucifer was the second-born Son of God.
*Lucifer wanted all humans to be forced to be saved, but Jesus said only the faithful should be saved.
*Elohim (God the Father) accepted Jesus’ plan, and rejected Lucifer’s plan.
*Lucifer became angry and rebelled against the Father.
*Two-thirds of the spirits followed Jesus, and one-third followed Lucifer.
*Jesus and his spirits fought against Lucifer and his spirits, and the two-thirds that followed Jesus “won” the War in heaven, and were promised they would become humans as a reward.
*But some of these human spirits who fought for Jesus against Lucifer were “less valiant” than others, so, as punishment, they were born into the lineage (bloodline) of Cain (i.e. born as Negroes).
*Adam and Eve were white people, living in the Garden of Eden in what is now Jackson County, Missouri, who looked like Anglo-Saxons (like 19th century Mormons).
*Adam and Eve had Cain, Abel, and Seth, as well as daughters who are not named.
*Cain loved Lucifer more than God, and he was jealous of his righteous brother Abel.
*Cain was a white man until he killed Abel, so God changed him into the first Negro.
*Cain was also “cursed” in that the ground would not yield its fruit to him, and he would have to wander the Earth.
*Also, the “seed of Cain” would also inherit his “cursed” and “mark” and also they would be deprived of the Priesthood until the LORD removed the Curse of Cain sometime after Abel was resurrected, had children, and all of Abel’s male descendants received the Priesthood first, then the Curse of Cain would be removed.
*Cain tells the LORD that anyone who finds him will kill him, so the LORD gives Cain a “mark of protection” called “The Mark of Cain” as a warning to those who want to kill him, that Cain will be avenged seven-fold.
*The Mark of Cain was a black skin, flat nose, and kinky hair.
*Cain, a white man, is “changed” by the LORD instantly into the first Negro.
*Cain married his sister, and she became the second Negro ever because the Lord also “changed” her from a white Anglo-Saxon looking woman into a Negro.
*All the spirits who fought for Jesus against Lucifer in the War in Heaven, before this Earth was formed, but who were “less valiant”–were punished by being born into “the lineage of Cain” as Negroes, and thus “deprived of intelligence”, with “mis-shapen” and “ugly” bodies, and destined to be “servants” of the white man, their superiors, until the Curse of Cain was removed by the LORD sometime after the Millennium was over.
*The LORD commanded that the white-skinned Sethites had to remain separate from the black-skinned Cainites, because inter-marriage between white and black is an “abomination” to the LORD and all “normally-minded people”.
*The Cainites intermarried with the white Sethites, which caused the Lord to send the Flood of Noah.
*Noah and his family were the only pure Sethites left, and this is why the Lord wanted to spare them.
*But Ham disobeyed the Lord, and married a Cainite woman named “Egyptus”.
*Ham married “Egyptus”; a Cainite woman already pregnant with a full Negro child (Canaan).
*Ham entered Noah’s room while Noah was naked and drunk,and told his brothers, which dishonored his father Noah, so Noah cursed Canaan to be a servant of servants, because he (Canaan) was of the seed of Cain via Egyptus his mother.
*Canaan and his descendants went into Africa, and a few to India and Australia and New Guinea.
*Negroes are Canaanite (descends of Canaan), and also Cainites: because Egyptus, the mother of Canaan, was a Cainite woman that Ham married.
*All Negroes inherit the “Mark of Cain” which is a black skin, flat nose, and kinky hair.
*Negroes are banned from the Temple and the Priesthood until the Curse of Cain is removed by the Lord sometime after the Millennium (1000 year reign of Christ on Earth) is over.
*The Priesthood-ban Policy of banning all “Negroes” and “anyone with one drop of Negro blood” is based solely on the Curse of Cain Doctrine, which is always presented as “a doctrine of the Church” and taught to rank-and-file Mormons from the top-down from 1848 until 1978.
*Negroes cannot be granted the priesthood until Abel is resurrected, has children, and all of Abel’s descendants are given the opportunity to hold the priesthood first, then, after that, the “seed of Cain” (Negroes) will be allowed to hold the Priesthood, and the Mark of Cain (black skin, flat nose, kinky hair) will be removed from that race and Negro women will begin to have white Anglo-Saxon looking children.
*If the Church grants the Priesthood to the Negro before that time, then the Priesthood is taken from the Earth and the Church goes into a full state of apostasy and immediately loses all Divine Guidance and Authority; meaning all baptisms, endowments, and sealings become null-and-void.
This doctrine was known as The Curse of Cain Doctrine. Because of this doctrine, all black Mormons, and anyone with “one drop of Negro blood” was banned from the Mormon Temple and the Mormon priesthood. All male Mormons over the age of 12 hold the Priesthood, and they must have it in order to get into the highest heaven. All Mormons must be “Endowed” and “Sealed” in a Mormon Temple in order to get into the Celestial Kingdom (highest heaven). Without the priesthood and Temple endowments and sealings, a Mormon can only become an eternal sexless and genderless “servant” to the faithful in heaven.

****************************

 
I wonder why President Obama and black American leaders have not raised cain about that in the national media? I wonder why the national media has spent so much time exploring Mitt Romney’s possible ties to the original practice of polygamy, which the early Jews also practiced, when The Curse of Cain Doctrine seems to have been utterly ignored, as least as far as I have seen on CNN news programs?

Sloan Bashinsky

 
keysmyhome@hotmail.com
 

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