Our endorsements for the 2002 elections:
Leis for city council
No to the council pay raise
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 10/27/02, updated 10/30/02

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Leis for council
Exactly how nervous is George Hunt these days? With this particular election, very nervous.

He has every right to be.

Scandal after scandal has rocked city hall over the past two years. Looking to the near future, things do not look much brighter. Numerous lawsuits against the city are currently winding their way through the legal system and the city has knowledgably set themselves up as targets for future viable and wildly expensive civil litigation.

Those are legal and political realities, not just rhetoric.

The two candidates running for Venice City Council Seat 1 both have impressive credentials.

Jim Leis is the former Senior Vice President of the World Trade Center in Chicago. Leis has written a good deal of legislation that is currently on the books in the State of Illinois, that legislation primarily dealing with international trade. His resume is, well, very impressive.

John K. Moore is a retired judge from Virginia Beach, Virginia, and has presided over a number of momentous cases, not the least of which was the well publicized murder trial of Dustin Turner.

While Moore has handed down numerable legal opinions from the bench, he has never authored a piece of legislation during his career.

Moore has received the endorsement of The Venice Gondolier and the Herald-Trib. The Gondolier, while praising Leis, tipped the scales to Moore over an attractive, "intangible" asset that the paper felt Moore has. The Herald-Trib's endorsement of Moore also gave high praise to Leis (note - Martha Hanneman was snubbed by both papers in her initial bid for a council seat, and she won handily anyway).

So what made us go the other way?

A number of reasons, including this recent ominous incident that both papers glossed over:

In his role as Chairman of the Code Enforcement Board, Moore became completely intangible at the October 22 city council meeting when some members of council learned to their surprise that the city does not even have a code enforcement officer. In fact, Moore remained silent and offered no input during a 40+ minute council discussion involving citizen complaints about the city's inability to enforce its own codes and the personnel problems within the department.

With this in mind, Moore, before even being elected, has given the appearance of being in step with the city's pattern of not dealing with problems until they become a crisis. This is not good.

In his public speaking engagements, Moore speaks the proper intangible fluff about beaches, tropical climate and community spirit. He's been quoted as stating that George Hunt is overall a good city manager.

Leis, on the other hand, has openly addressed the scandals that have taken place in city hall, and has expressed a quiet anger at the way the city does its business. He is, in short, not a fan of George Hunt and Hunt's policies.

Leis is the first city council candidate ever to publish a candidacy web site, and he addresses those issues forcefully right on the front page of his site. Additionally, Leis lists his impressive credentials within the site. The mere existence of his web site is a major plus in our book, as it shows us that somebody in local politics has actually realized that we are now in the 21st Century.

We support Jim Leis' candidacy for a number of other good reasons, not the least of which is to avoid a clean sweep of council by members supported by a single PAC, the Citizens for Quality Government (CQG). The CQG is currently endorsing and contributing heavily to Leis' opponent, John Moore.

Republican Party endorses Leis
The Republican Party of Florida, in their Sarasota County mailout, endorsed Jim Leis and placed him on their sample ballot, an oddity in a non-partisan race. These arrived in area residents' mailboxes on Saturday, November 2.

Green Party switches from Moore to Leis
Additionally, within the past week the Green Party unexpectedly pulled their endorsement of Moore due to his fundraising ties with developers and switched to Leis.

With the Greens and the Republicans in agreement about anything, a politics and strange bedfellows homily seems more than slightly appropriate.

Boones and the CQG go big budget for Moore
The Moore/CQG warchest, weighing in at $30,000 (compared to Leis' $2,000 budget), has bought a lot of print ads. One notable quarter page ad in the Venice Gondolier listed Steve, Jeff and E.G. (Dan) Boone as Moore supporters, along with a list of area businessmen and women. What was of major note was that many of the supporters that were listed aren't even city residents.

End result?
Up until the Republican endorsement came out, most area pundits had given the edge to Moore. That changed in a day and a mailout, as this is an overwhelmingly Republican populated town. Add in the Green Party, who are good for a few more votes, and suddenly it's anybody's guess.

At least one Leis supporter went so far as to state, "Slam dunk at the buzzer, game over - the Republican endorsement gives the election to Leis."

Our take
While the Gondolier and The Herald-Trib both gave high praise to Leis, both newspapers endorsed Moore. The end result may not be as significant as one might think for a couple of reasons.

The Gondolier has traditionally sided with advertiser interests in council elections, and as such, their endorsements are met with some suspicion by residents.

The Herald-Trib shot themselves in the foot by endorsing the charter amendment for a raise in pay to city council, a proposal that is predicted to be overwhelmingly defeated by voters.

Voters are plenty mad at City Manager George Hunt and a CQG-led council over the scandals of the last year. The backlash will definitely show in the results of the pay-raise issue. The real question is: will the anger translate into a defeat of the new CQG kid on the block, Moore?

In spite of some stated optimism, this race is still way too close to call, with a possible edge going to Leis from the Republican endorsement.

Six of the seven current council members have been given backing and/or financial support in their bids for office by the CQG. City Manager George Hunt is also fiercely loyal to the PAC. The CQG's membership consists of developers, their lawyers and a host of the city's wheelers and dealers. Local attorney Steve Boone, whose law firm is one of the PAC's contributors, was quoted in local newspapers a year ago as referring to the CQG as "people like us." The comment was mixed in with a backhanded diss to retiree residents in Bay Indies. This drew howls from the community at the time and spawned the PAC's nickname, The Stepford Party.

The only current sitting council member not to receive CQG support is Martha Hanneman, and it is her seat that is currently being contested.

The CQG and Moore's own campaign have, to date, collected a whopping $30,000 to oppose Leis' candidacy according to election records (yes, that number is correct, it is not a typo: $30,000 for a job that pays just over $3,000; the local newspapers have erroneously and grossly underreported the figures).

$30,000!!!

That figure alone should spell out how crucial this single-seat election is to the future of Venice. A Moore win would mean that council would be stacked 7-0 with CQG-endorsed elected officials. A Leis win would mean that someone with a strong executive business background would be scrutinizing the business dealings of the city. If you think the CQG and George Hunt want somebody knowledgeable looking over Hunt's shoulder, think again.

Let us not forget that Taylor Ranch is back in the news, a huge plat of property that, unregulated, has the future potential of making our current growth woes seem miniscule in comparison.

Unlike previous opposition candidates, Leis is not wholly opposed to growth. He acknowledges that without growth a community dies. He is, however, opposed to wholesale endorsement of any growth that is brought before council on the sole basis that it is endorsed by (and will profit only) contributing members of the CQG. While developers are entitled to make a living just like anyone else, this doesn't mean that their income should be subsidized heavily by the average citizen, and that is a tremendously refreshing attitude in a political candidate for office. Previous 'no-growth' opposition candidates were as intractable and as potentially dangerous as their 'growth at any expense' opponents.

Leis also references that city employees need to be treated with a sense of fairness in a normal, proper business environment That stance, while inherently fair and just, has the added practicality of avoiding more lawsuits in the future. Employees who are treated fairly and honestly do not have the need or the opportunity to sue their employers, something that the city has seemingly failed to realize on its own. Leis' opponent has remained largely silent on this issue.

With all the scandals of the past and present, and with the upcoming specter of Taylor Ranch looming over city politics, it is crucial that at least one city council member should exist who does not have ties to developer and big business interests. But that alone is not enough. It is also vital that at least one intelligent and experienced voice be raised to question a majority council that has for too long supported big business at the expense of residents, with a major emphasis being placed on intelligent and experienced.

We feel that Jim Leis is more than up to the job.

In the race for Venice City Council Seat 1, we endorse Jim Leis.

No to pay raise
Council members' current pay rate is ridiculously and scandalously low. The amount in the proposed pay increase is well within line with what they should be paid, all things being equal. But all things aren't equal in this proposal, which not only would change their pay but would also fundamentally alter forever the ability of citizens to control their own government.

Before anyone thinks it, our stance here has nothing to do with council's past performance.

We do feel that the council's pay should be raised to the dollar levels requested. In fact, we feel that they should even be paid a bit more than what they are asking for, if only because of the naive-sounding Socratic dictum that well-paid officials tend overall to act less self-interested in their governing actions than poorly paid ones. Council is only asking for about $9,000 a year plus perks, while we feel it should be a full-time job starting at at least $20,000 or more plus perks.

Downsizing council to five members from the current seven might make this proposition more palatable to voters in the future.

Currently, council members are paid over $3,000 a year plus perks, which is absolutely shameful. If you feel that you have received bad governing in the recent past, be comforted with the knowledge that you have gotten exactly what you have paid for, every nickel's worth.

That said, there are two reasons we oppose the pay raise as presented in its current form before voters. Three actually, but the third one is admittedly weak.

1.) The ride-along verbiage in the proposed pay raise will remove the rights of voters to ever have a say on this very issue again.

That's an incredibly serious and insurmountable problem that cannot be overlooked. That rider alone should doom the proposal entirely. But there's a second reason that is even worse.

2.) Future pay raises, going along with the state's pay raise guidelines, would be based on growth.

It doesn't take a high school graduate to figure out the incentives here: say yes to every growth plan that comes before council in the future, no matter how poorly conceived, and council's pay gets bumped.

If those above two factors did not exist, we would thoroughly and enthusiastically support a raise in pay that is even greater than what council is currently asking. Maybe some rewording and an interim election between now and November 2003 could rectify the inequity in current pay of council.

And then our third reason, which is lame at best, but is nevertheless very telling:

3.) While all seven sitting council members support the initiative, both candidates vying for the single open seat in council oppose it. Leis has been firmly against it from the start. Moore was originally for the increase, but has since stated he will vote against it.

Therefore, in the matter of the proposed charter amendment for raising the pay rate of Venice City Council, we recommend voting No.