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.
