No offense meant to Hammett, but this is just inherently
wrong.
Diana Mier is a great person, I've really come to like and admire
her. The late Geri Weinberg thought the world of her and had written an
endorsement for Mier just days before Weinberg's death. Mier is a nice person, a
wonderful person. Perhaps too nice. At the Waterford candidate appearance, she
downplayed an ongoing EPA investigation by stating that a lot of communities have
sewage spills and thus have investigations.*
A lot of communities
don't have the kind of investigations that we have had, with allegations of
employees forced to falsify federal documents against their will or with
allegations of a city manager holding peoples' jobs over their heads if they
willingly talked with law enforcement authorities. Mier's innocent naivet about
the pit she is about to walk into indicates that maybe this isn't a good idea
quite yet.
Likewise with candidate Al Feinsod. Early on in the
campaign, he praised outgoing council member Jim Myers highly. Myers has been
highly supportive of the former city manager, George Hunt, who has now become
the safe target of blame for all of the city's woes. To blame Hunt entirely is
incorrect. There was a council that was supposed to be giving him direction.
Editorial after editorial in the local papers kept telling council to give
better direction to Hunt. Council never did, Hunt did as he pleased and that was
fine with Jim Myers.
For Feinsod to praise Myers tells us that he either hasn't
been paying attention to recent council history or that he thinks the policies
of the past were a good thing. In another debate, Feinsod was stumped when asked
to describe the
functions of a city manager.
Other than that, Feinsod seems like a nice guy, and he
appears to be genuinely sincere in his desire to serve. However, we need more than
nice guys.
That leaves Mike Gelormino and Bill Willson, two men who
couldn't be a sharper set of contrasts. Gelormino is under five feet tall,
Willson is up around 6'3", maybe. Gelormino comes out of the blue collar section
of Venice, selling auto parts. Willson has clean fingernails and crisp suits and
sells insurance. Willson is for the
CRA (although he's been wavering a bit of
late as he's been absorbing more information), Gelormino is dead set against it.
Gelormino was the first candidate ever to call for the ouster of Hunt, this in
last year's council race. Willson doesn't want to talk about Hunt or the past,
let's get to the future.
Both men have been heavily active in the community,
although Willson's activities have had bigger budgets (VABI, for example) as
opposed to Gelormino's participation in Venice's Christmas parade and in the
Sons of Italy.
While their views on many subjects are wildly different,
there are many things that these two have in common. Both have a passion to serve
their community. Both men are highly intelligent. Both men have never shown
anything that would impugn their reputations of honesty. Neither of them will be
walking in to the job with any illusions of wonderfulness or with blinders --
both have articulated their awareness of the problems that the city still faces.
In spite of the directions of funding for their respective campaigns, both men
are strongly independent, too independent to be beholden to a cause they might
oppose in the future just because of campaign donations.
Both men have shown over the years to be individuals who
listen carefully to dissenting opinion without emotion -- both are willing to
listen to all sides of an issue.
Both men can be persuaded to change their minds on issues
if the reasons presented are compelling enough.
Read that last sentence again.
That sentence
describes an attribute that is one of the most crucial things needed in local
government, an ability that has been woefully absent in the not too distant
past.
So which one to vote for -- Willson or Gelorminio? Aye, there's the rub, and here's
where you will have to do your own homework. Go to each of their web sites
(linked to at the top of this page until the election is over) and sort through
them a bit. Whichever candidate fits closer to your views -- vote for him.
* Mier responds (posted 10/25/04)
Diana Mier has contacted Venice Florida! dot com
to contest the written summary of her comments above, stating "I would never
downplay a criminal investigation, especially from a federal agency, and I take
umbrage at such a statement. I was in the FBI, I would never downplay the
seriousness of what they do." Mier
insists that the summary of her comments as stated on this page is wrong.
The contested "downplaying" happened after Dean
Calamaras spoke at the candidate forum held at the Waterford residential
community hall. While mayoral candidate Gary Anderson did not mention the
federal investigations at that particular forum, Calamaras did. Calamaras stated that there is nothing to the DEP and EPA
investigations, that the FBI investigated the city as well and found nothing wrong
(in actuality, ever since the FBI taping incident at city
hall, the FBI has remained mum on the issue).
Calamaras stated that as far as the EPA and the DEP investigations go, there
were some sewage spills, the city paid a fine and it's over. Which is not
altogether true. The city denied
several spills to the DEP, then after nearly two years of fighting them (and
after George Hunt had departed from the city's payroll), the city agreed not to
contest the matter and agreed to the DEP's terms. The DEP's investigations were
solely about spills, both of sewage into the streets and of spills
of treated wastewater into Curry Creek in excess of the city's permitted amount.
The EPA investigation, which
involves allegations of falsified documents and employees forced to falsify
those documents, is ongoing. There also is strong
reason to believe that the FBI is still involved in their investigation in
conjunction with the EPA.
After Calamaras concluded his comments, Mier stood up and stated that a lot of
communities have sewage spills and that a lot of communities subsequently have
investigations into spills, which is true, but misses the point of what is
happening here in Venice. The effect was, whether Mier intended it or not, to
validate Calamaras' erroneous statements. This was followed by Council Member
Fred Hammett, who spoke out to concur with Mier. Hammett stated that we know we
have sewage problems and bad sewage pipes and that the city is addressing the issue,
which is also true, but again misses the point.
Thus, the Waterford audience was left with
the impression that all is gone and done as far as the DEP, EPA and FBI is
concerned, and that is clearly not the case.
While Mier may not have intended to downplay the
seriousness of the legal problems that the city has faced and still is facing, the impression that was
cumulatively left with the Waterford audience by
Calamaras, Mier and Hammett is that all is well with the city as far as federal
investigations go, which is clearly not the case at this time.
Mayor of Venice
Venice Florida! dot com recommends Gary A. Anderson
First off, let's debunk a few things. The mayor's seat is
arguably both the weakest and strongest seat on council. The mayor cannot
introduce a motion, for example -- that has to be done by a council member. He
chairs the council meetings, helps to set the agendas, cuts a few ribbons here
and there and... that's supposed to be about it. We don't have a strong
mayor type of government, power rests in council collectively and through them,
again collectively, to the city manager.
That's how it's supposed to be, anyway, at least in
the normal day-to-day operations of the city.
Now on to the endorsement.
Dean Calamaras is running for re-election, asking for the
chance to serve a third term as the Mayor of Venice, this after serving three
consecutive terms as a city council member. His opponent, Gary A. Anderson, has
never been elected to public office and ran unsuccessfully for city council last
year, losing to John Simmonds in a 60% to 40% split.
Calamaras spent many years allowing former city manager
George Hunt to get away with running this city in a ramshackle and almost
totalitarian fashion. The end result was a record number of employee grievances
and lawsuits against the city and some high-powered federal investigations,
including ongoing criminal investigations by the EPA and the FBI and a
now-resolved investigation by the FAA into unlawful diversion of revenue. That
was the past, you say? This is a new council, you say?
The fact is that we will be paying for a lot of past
mistakes into the future. We need a time of healing. What we don't need is
someone on the dais still helping to cover up past misdeeds because of his own
oversight (or lack of it) in past dealings.
We need a fresh start so that we can move on without a
continuation of cover-ups and lame explanations for why things are the way they
are. That doesn't mean we need to live in the past and rehash every evil that
has befallen the city. It means that there are going to be times that an honest
assessment of how we got to where we are is going to be needed in order to
figure out how to get to where we need to be. Some of the needed
disclosure will cause some further embarrassment. That's not necessarily good,
but it will be necessary in order to move on with a fresh start.
It will be impossible to move on with a fresh start with
Calamaras at the helm. It just won't happen.
Calamaras isn't all bad. He's an odd man, a strange mix of
benevolence and, sometimes, pettiness. He can be kind and gracious, but there
have been a few instances where an unnecessary mean streak has shown up, the
most glaring example of which took place two years ago when VTL prez Herb Levine
was arrested at city hall for returning an insult that had been thrown at him by
Hunt. Calamaras ordered Levine to leave council chambers. Levine refused and was
subsequently arrested. To be fair, Calamaras raised a weak objection to Levine
being arrested, but never followed through. He then invited any other members of
the public to speak before council by asking, "Does anyone else wish to come
forward and get arrested?"
Although arrested, Levine
was never prosecuted by the State Attorney's Office. The prosecutor in the case
felt that Levine's behavior mirrored that of Hunt, council, and the mayor for
not policing council. A much
dreaded and talked about civil rights lawsuit from Levine has yet to
materialize.
Calamaras is verbally articulate and yet
semi-literate (or possibly dyslexic) in print. His criminal affidavit against
Levine of two years ago is an example -- it contained numerous misspellings of
simple and common words, including "comation" for "commotion" (see
Men in Plaid article for a sample of the
affidavit). This is pointed out here not to make fun of the man, but rather to
gain some insight into his thinking processes.
To be fair, there's been some wonderful printed blunders
on Anderson's web site, but the level of literacy is markedly higher.
On the matter of education levels reached, Calamaras has
no degree past high school, although his bio indicates some college coursework. Anderson, claims a four-year B.A.
from USF on the front of his web site (see link at top of this page until
election day), as well as attendance at some fairly impressive-sounding schools.
Anderson has been referred to in print as combative and
inexperienced. The nature of the campaign trail made this race combative. Both
candidates have been fiercely combative.
As to experience, it's not that tough of a job. John Moore,
Rick Tacy and the rest
of council will be there to keep Anderson on the straight and narrow, something
that Anderson has stated privately that he is looking forward to.
Anderson has been refreshingly honest and open in all
things. He's never given a dishonest answer on any question that can be
discerned. He's given a few wrong answers, but not dishonest ones. From
Calamaras, one can receive honest answers, dishonest answers and wrong answers.
Wrong answers are acceptable, it's just a matter of discussion and education on
any given issue -- nobody really expects the mayor or council to be omniscient.
Dishonest answers, though, are unacceptable.
From PuterGate through the problems of the utilities
departments, Calamaras has publicly been a fount of misinformation seemingly
designed to protect George Hunt, John Lane and Patricia 'Pat' Wilson from the
media and from investigators. There are plenty of instances that are well
documented on this web site.
The two men wildly differ on any number of issues.
Anderson wants Venice City Hall to be even more open than it is right now in its
public dealings. Anderson is not wild about the CRA concept and would like
council to explore other options to achieve the same goals. Anderson has been
one of the few people to publicly speak out about some of the harsh
environmental damage that this town has inflicted upon itself, the huge
sludge pits adjacent to the Wellfield Park being a
prime example. Heck, under Calamaras, hardly anyone knew the sludge pits were
even there, it was one of this city's best kept secrets. This web site learned
of their existence from -- you guessed it -- Anderson.
Some of the Good Ol' Boys hate Anderson. Some of them are
actually warming to him, something that Anderson did not expect. He will have
his detractors, to be sure, but the question is -- can he do a better job than
Calamaras?
This site obviously thinks he can.
