Venice on the web
A semi-regular column

Misunderstandings? maybe...
The critical campaign issue last year was George Hunt; this year, it's the VGA lease and their list of owners
-- Herb Levine, 10/02/04
-- herbert.levine2@verizon.net

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RELATED:
Mayor to VGA: "Talk to our lawyer!"
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 08/28/04
Taxpayers should know who owns the Venice Golf Association
-- editorial, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 09/22/04
The Martin County Decision
In a case nearly identical to what has happened here in Venice, the Florida Attorney General ruled that a golf association leasing public land has to cough up financial data under the Sunshine Law requirements
-- MyFloridaLegal.com

There must be some misunderstanding (ooooow-woooo-ooo)
"Misunderstanding" is the sort of word that can mean almost anything. It seems as if there has been a "misunderstanding" between Venice's mayor and a few members of the Boone law firm. The problem is classical, one of those "who said - he said - you said " arguments where no one seems to be right or wrong. It has to do with the FAA insistence of a $20,000.00 addition to the VGA's yearly rent payment to the City of Venice Airport Enterprise Fund.

The strange thing is that the City of Venice lobbied the FAA to reduce the original figure of fifty some thousands of dollars down to the twenty thousand.

Let's all understand one thing. The city spent many thousands of dollars for outside and inside legal advice, travel to Washington, staff meetings, etc., all paid for by the City Of Venice Airport Enterprise Fund (our money) to keep the rent increase low. It's almost as though city council had some idea that we, and not the VGA, would want to pay the increased rent.

Then there was a series of "shade" meetings held by council and officers during which there were several discussions concerning appropriate and quiet methods the city, rather than the VGA, could use to pay the increase. The transcripts of those "shade" meetings are now public record. Any one can download them, read them, do some wondering and some understanding about "misunderstandings." In the past, I have been at odds with the Boone law firm's backing of Growth, Growth and more Growth. Here again, something does not quite add up in the "misunderstanding" controversy

Another strange thing is that our city attorney headed up the lobbying effort to reduce the rent increase but the mayor and our then-city manager did not include him in their subsequent meetings with the VGA attorneys. Weren't the mayor and the city manager the driving force behind the original 30-plus years in this sweetheart, sweetheart, sweetheart contract? The contract that caused all the headaches?

After getting the FAA to lower their expected demands, the city attorney was NOT invited to the meetings with the VGA attorneys. I wonder why not? Two lawyers were on one side of the table and we didn't bother to brings ours along?

Another familiar theme was the mention by a Boone law firm member that our mayor didn't want to negotiate this rent increase until after the coming election. It's similar to a "We All" Boone statement of several years ago. He made the statement or wrote it in a letter that "We all decided not to negotiate on the golf course until after the election." When the question came up about Sunshine Law violation, the Boone Law Firm member stated that "We All" did not mean his firm and some members of council, that "We all" was really southern talk concerning he and his law firm and did not include members of council. DOH!

There's an obvious answer. Hire an outside law firm to audit the entire story of the golf course negotiations from 1998 until now to see if there is a viable way to break the lease. If there is, the city should proceed along those lines. If not, have our city attorney attend all future meetings with the VGA attorneys and record them with at least two recorders - in case one of them has a "misunderstanding."

Herb Levine is the president of the Venice Taxpayers League

Note: Levine submitted this article to the Venice Gondolier Sun and to Venice Florida! dot com almost a month ago. We promised Levine at that time that we would publish the article, but then came a month's worth of hurricanes. So now, a little belatedly, we are keeping our promise to Levine.