| |  Gondo's Giles flubs it again
In covering the story of the purchase of Legacy Park, the Gondo's Greg Giles stays true to form by misquoting Councilwoman Sue Lang; Giles then added bits of editorial comment to show how wrong Lang was in making statements that were, in fact, never actually made
-- Sue Lang, City Council Member, 11/15/08 Got a comment? Make it here. | 
Greg Giles (right), shown here interviewing Councilman Kit McKeon on election night | Once again, [the Venice Gondolier's Greg Giles has] mischaracterized and misquoted my comments. I specifically pointed out that I believed that the County Appraiser assesses at "highest and best use" and that is why I was having a real problem with the huge discrepancy between the 2008 County Appraisal value and the private, independent appraisals submitted to us. I also pointed out that it was not realistic for the private appraisers to use 18 units per acre density as this would never fit on this site which has industrial commercial on two sides and would need extensive buffering. I referred to the drawing in Mr. Hettema's appraisal showing 184 units crammed onto the lot. I also stated that I blamed our staff for telling the private appraisers that the future zoning would be 18 units an acre for this parcel. While this was the maximum density identified for the greater Seaboard area, it is highly unlikely that this density would be approved on the Cemex parcel because of its location behind an active bus depot and abutting industrial/commercial, a height by right of 45 feet, and, a deep setback from a main road which would not lend itself to a mixed use development (other parcels in the Seaboard area are conducive to Mixed Use development which has a maximum density of 18 units per acre). The Land Use for the greater Seaboard area is designated "Transitional." There is no future land plan that says that high density residential/mixed use was anticipated on the Cemex site. The hired appraisers should have used a more realistic density of 9 units per acre (A portion of the Cemex site is zoned County RMF 1 which is 5-9 units per acre). If they had, their appraisals would have be consistent with the County Appraisal of $2.6 million plus the 30% that the County Appraiser discount that the County applies to all appraisals. This would equal about $3.4 million which is what I believe the property is worth. I also pointed out that staff failed to do "due diligence" in examining and providing to us pertinent information such as what the owner actually paid for the property, -- any debt, liens, etc., on the property, all of which normally factor into purchase negotiations. Indeed, Mr. Hettema, the private Appraiser, admitted that he tried to obtain information on the owner's cost, but it was not provided to him. I would appreciate a correction regarding my statements. -- Sue Lang, Venice City Council | Editor's note:
I was at the city council meeting that Greg Giles covered in his story entitled Council OKs $7.35 million park purchase.
Like Sue Lang, as expressed in her letter to Giles at left, I too was disappointed that the story in the Gondolier bore little resemblance in key passages to events as they actually happened. I was especially taken aback by the Gondo's continued attack on Sue Lang and the paper's continued use of fiction to propel their ongoing attacks.
As a board member of the Venice Taxpayers League, I spoke in favor of the park purchase (a fact that Giles curiously omits), but I was very vocal about the total inability of both the Trust for Public Land and city hall to provide information on the circumstances of the land purchase to the media and to the citizens.
According to this letter from Lang, this failure on the part of city staff and the TPL to provide basic information also extended to members of city council.
At the council meeting, Lang vented her frustrations over the lack of data provided to her. She also was critical of the fact that key information appeared to have been withheld by city staff from the appraisers, who were formulating their formal appraisals of the value of the land in question based on information provided by city staff, information that Lang stated was not entirely factual.
Both Lang and I were vocally unhappy with this game of hide-the-data, but that isn't how the Gondo's Greg Giles reported the story at all. True to form, he misquoted Lang and then added bits of editorial comment to show how wrong she was in making statements that she, in fact, never actually made.
Additionally, Giles reported heavily on members of the Venice Neighborhood Coalition's opposition to the purchase (which, to me, is the stupidest thing that the VNC has done yet, both from a practical and public relations standpoint), but Giles failed to mention that I had stated on the record that board members of the Venice Taxpayers League generally supported the purchase (with some reservations on land clean-up, etc.).
This led to Giles' story and his spin that Lang appeared to be throwing every roadblock imaginable at the deal in an effort to stop it. Nothing could be further from the truth -- Lang very much wanted to authorize the purchase, but she was vocally unhappy about what she believed was unnecessary duplicity that was being used to try to influence her vote.
Lang voted for the purchase of the land, but not until after expressing her frustrations. Lang was angry, though, in some of her questions to the appraiser and to the Trust for Public Land, and understandably so. The duplicity shown was maddening and, as shown in the final vote, totally unnecessary.
Unknown to Lang was that one source of info was being surprisingly open: land developer Mike Miller, who was selling the property in question. I spoke with Miller's organization quite extensively in the months leading up to the vote and they supplied a wealth of verifiable information that led me to support and endorse the purchase of the land.
Unfortunately, much of this information was withheld from the general public and from city council because both city staff and the Trust for Public Land failed to relay this information. The TPL's Doug Hattaway had repeatedly promised an issuance of a press kit containing pertinent documents and explanatory text. Maddeningly, that press kit never materialized until the day of the council meeting, at which point it was absolutely useless.
The city itself, through the lack of any press materials from Pam Johnson's office, was equally, if not more, negligent in their failure to inform the public and the media of details in the negotiations as they were happening.
The net effect was that the city failed to capitalize on what could have been a public relations coup, instead turning it into yet another typical city hall clusterflap.
-- John Patten |
John Patten is the editor and publisher of Venice Florida! dot com and had previously worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times. |
