Emilio Carlesimo: No, no, oh God no, what the hell are you thinking?
If campaign work alone was the measure of a candidate, Emilio Carlesimo would win hands down. He's easily worked the campaign trail like no other candidate in recent memory, going door-to-door. By his account, he's knocked on nearly 2,000 doors since announcing his candidacy for a seat on Venice City Council.

Enough problems dog at him, though, that bells and alarms should be going off in the heads of voters. As this web site stated to Carlesimo early on in the campaign, "Trust is earned, and we don't know you from Adam." In many ways, we still don't.

It turns out that a lot of our initial distrust was justified. While Carlesimo has waved Sunshine Law lawsuit papers in his campaign speeches, it turns out that as vice-president of MacArthur Beach condos, he and his board refused to release copies of condo board minutes to a 73-year-old woman that the board was taking legal action against, this according to a lawsuit filed by Charlotte McGowan against the condo association (story and copy of court filings). Board meeting minutes, included in the court filing, state that the board wanted to rip out some of McGowan's interior walls to accommodate her upstairs neighbors' desire to have plumbing installed for a washer and dryer. According to the lawsuit, the board didn't want McGowan to know that this was the real reason, so they played a game of hide-the-documents with her.

It takes a while to sift through and reread McGowan's lawsuit filing, but a careful analysis of it reveals that McGowan has some pretty solid proof of serious violations and petty shenanigans on the part of Carlesimo and the rest of the board. This was a lawsuit that could have been avoided with some plain common sense, and we are seeing little sign of that in the board's behavior as documented in either McGowan's complaint or the board's legal response that has been filed in court.

Apparently, Carlesimo's thinking here is that it's not OK to violate the Sunshine Law but that it is OK to violate Florida's condo open records laws.

Carlesimo and his board (or, more correctly, Carlesimo's board) are being sued for that abuse and for "Fraud on the Court," an EXTREMELY WEIGHTY CHARGE that no lawyer in his/her right mind would make unless there were actual goods behind the claim to support it. Kerry Mack is McGowan's attorney. Mack is a legal pit bull with a long record of standing up for the rights of less fortunate victims of the judicial system. With Mack coming after them, Carlesimo and his board are in more trouble than they can possibly imagine.

This goes beyond a typical condo pissing match. Charlotte McGowan's lawsuit against the board, which she still could lose due to mounting legal fees and the fact that the condo board seems willing to outspend her, describes a pattern of outright thuggery aimed at her over a period of years. Included in the allegations is a threat of having her door kicked in if she didn't relent and cough up a key to her unit, something that her attorney argues isn't required by the condo associations rules or by state law.

From documents filed at the court and from McGowan's account when interviewed, Carlesimo has played a key role in the condo board's persecution of her.

This does not bode well for a potential public official. This web site's sole purpose is to fight such corruption and abuse of power. We would be remiss if we didn't take notice of this obvious abuse and fight Carlesimo now before he has a shot at gathering the reigns of power. We are somewhat mystified that anyone of good conscience could possibly support him, including the fireman's union who should have (but didn't) known about this lawsuit on their own before supporting him.

Dismissing that, there is Carlesimo's open embrace of airport growth organizations like VASI, VABA, and the Venice Jet Center, all entities with one thing in common: Dan Boone and the Boone law firm.

"When I hear corporate jets, I hear the sound of money," Carlesimo stated (video) to an adoring crowd of pilots and airport business owners at VASI's annual candidate forum, which carried the theme this year of "How many different painful ways can we kill that b*tch Sue Lang slowly, and which way would be the most fun to watch?"

Two months back, Carlesimo stated that he had never stepped foot on airport land and that he had never attended a city council meeting. We asked him again, incredulously, to verify that statement a few weeks later, just to make sure we had heard correctly. He's touted himself as an average guy, an average Joe, a Joe Six-pack kind of guy who doesn't know all the answers but gosh and golly, some plain common sense is needed rather than any actual knowledge of the issues at hand. Incredibly, many voters have been eating up his beguiling styrofoam-filled campaign patter.

The firefighters' union love him, enough that they came to him out of the blue and asked him to run. Or he came to them and asked them to support him. We're not sure which story is true as both Carlesimo and the union have told both versions on different occasions. The fact that he has participated in legal terrorism on a live-alone senior citizen hasn't escaped them, they just apparently don't think it is much of a big deal -- their endorsement continues in the quest for job security and future add-on fire fees to our water bills.

Among the names that appear in Carlesimo's campaign donation reports: Former Airport Advisory Board Chairman Paul Hollowell, a named defendant in the Sunshine Law lawsuit. Hollowell once referred to citizens who complained of airport noise as "anti-airport Nazis," this in a public record email that had to be subpoenaed from Hollowell in order to get it into the public record. Hollowell has already been well documented in several public records and Sunshine Law violation allegations by attorney Andrea Mogensen. Add that to some brand new information on Hollowell's involvement in Sunshine Law violations (article), and it would appear that Carlesimo is more than a bit selective in who he would like to see nailed for Sunshine Law violations.

Brett Wasserman, of the Wasserman family that built the Venice Jet Center, is Carlesimo's campaign treasurer, which negates Carlesimo's claims that he has no ties to airport business interests. This isn't to malign anyone in the Wasserman family (who this web site has had a pretty good relationship with in the past), but it just wasn't honest on the part of Carlesimo to make such a statement.

All of which makes Carlesimo an exercise in dangerous and un-understandable black/white dichotomies and thus the most dangerous candidate to run for council in the last ten years. You think council is a war zone now? You think you are having a hard time with issues of fairness and due process now in your dealings with city hall? Elect this guy and just wait.

So to Carlesimo, we can only say: No, no, oh God, please, no. Osmulski would be a better pick than this guy.

Osmulski and the CQG -- a land developer's PAC in exile supports... hey, where the hell did they go?
John Osmulski has been part of the growth machine for nigh on twenty years or so in Venice. Some troubling aspects from his past, though, should give pause.

In 1995, while acting as the chair for the Parks and Recreation Board, Osmulski was awarded the bid to build the bathroom building in Centennial Park (the downtown park on the main strip between Venice and Tampa Avenues). Osmulski's original bid was $117,000. Payments to his company in the last four months of 1995 totaled over $121,000 for the project. One city staffer has told us that the actual costs went as high as $161,000. For one bathroom building. In 1995.

Also in late 1995, he received $5,000 for work on the storm sewer outfalls near the Venice Jetties.

Osmulski, aided by the VASI (Venice Aviation Society) moderator, ducked the question on the campaign trail of whether or not it was legal or ethical to simultaneously be Chair of the Parks and Rec Board and be a paid vendor doing work that could fall under the board's jurisdiction. It wasn't even a pretty duck. Osmulski acted outraged that anyone would actually raise a legitimate question about his public record (video). Later, when interviewed privately, he insisted that he had lost money on the deal and had to volunteer time, materials, and manpower to finish the project.

Whether Osmulski made a profit or a loss is irrelevant. Osmulski should either have resigned from the board or not made a bid. He should never have allowed himself, nor should the city have allowed him, to be placed in such a position that the question of conflict of interest could be raised. The fact that this kind of thing was the norm in Venice ten... even five... even two years ago doesn't excuse it, it makes it worse. Moreover, his anger at an obvious and expected question is inexcusable. VASI's help in allowing him to duck the question... well, that's just VASI being VASI.

At Envision Venice public meetings a few years back, Osmulski took some heat for his nightly introductions that included a pro-growth sermon. As Planning Commission chair, Osmulski was one of the major hosts of the municipal "fact-finding" road show. Based on a complaint from city planner Kathy Ebaugh, who was working closely with Osmulski in monitoring the Envision Venice event, Taxpayers League prez Herb Levine was accused (falsely, the city later acknowledged in a written apology) of rigging the votes in favor of slow growth and shorter buildings downtown. Which explains why Levine didn't want to sit in the same room with Osmulski and why Osmulski was not invited to the Taxpayers League forum (a mistake in our estimation, but it was Levine's call).

Unknown to everyone during the Envision Venice road show's theatrical run, except for a select few insiders on the Planning Commission and in the city's planning department, was that the Conditional Mixed Use ordinance, authored by land development attorney Jeff Boone, was winding its way through the planning department. Based on the results of Envision Venice, the message from citizens were clear: no more tall buildings on the island, especially near downtown, and let's stop trying to annex everything that North Port and the City of Sarasota hasn't annexed yet.

Within two weeks of the doors closing on Envision Venice, the citizens discovered that the Planning Commission and the then- pro-growth city council were looking at multi-story towers directly in front of Mike Miller's three towers at the north end of the island (which, ironically, Osmulski had voted in favor of a few years back and which now sit mostly empty, looking for buyers).

Somehow, the CMU ordinance was never revealed in Envision Venice. The city's Planning Department was still crunching the numbers of Envision Venice while the CMU was suddenly unveiled as though it had been a part of the process... predictably, the citizenry went ballistic.

We think Osmulski, as Planning Commission Chairman, owed us that bit of info during the process, although we can understand why he didn't want the info out there: it would have caused a riot during the Envision Venice process. Better to delay that reaction, and so Osmulski, the Planning Commission, and the city's planning department did exactly that.

To Osmulski's credit, he has toned down the pro-growth rhetoric over the past year (singular -- year, not years). He also correctly predicted the due process problems that city council was headed for in the short-term rentals fight. Last year, Osmulski voted in support of Steve Milo and short-term rentals. However you may feel about that issue, it turned out that he was legally correct as later interpreted by Judge Robert Bennett. In fact, Bennett used Osmulski's arguments to support Milo's short-term rentals.

Osmulski's ties to the CQG, a pro-development PAC that has been curiously silent this year after last year's bad press, is apparent. Campaign treasurer (and fellow planning commissioner) Janis Fawn is a long-standing CQG member, known to donate every year to pro-growth candidates.

Nevertheless, Osmulski, while sometimes volatile, has usually given straight answers to straight questions, the VASI campaign stop notwithstanding. He's kept the lines of communication open, even with those whose views were diametrically opposed with his. Unlike Carlesimo, if Osmulski says a thing, you can pretty well bet that it is true.

We like Osmulski as a person. Of late, he's become a pretty good planning commissioner. We just strongly disagree with a lot of his pro-growth views, which have now been tamed down to "smart growth," whatever that means in this year's elections. The implication there is that a lot of the past growth, growth that Osmulski coincidentally voted for, was "dumb growth." His past CQG ties are troubling and his recent born-again conversion from "dumb growth" to "smart growth" bears watching for the future, but it is a bit of "too little too late" to earn an endorsement from this web site this year.

Kit McKeon: The dream lives on... bruised... battered... bloodied... but still alive
Kit McKeon is the only candidate touting post-high school education as part of his resume. West Point graduate with a major in Mechanical Engineering and a Master's in Business Administration. He's worked in aviation and government circles ever since leaving the military, with his most recent stint as an executive for Sikorsky Aircraft. If anyone has the street and work cred to deal with airport issues, hands down, it's McKeon.

Of all the council members, McKeon holds the most admiration for former Judge John Moore: "His arguments make sense, they're based on factual analysis and a good eye in research."

McKeon wants the airport to be viable and wants to end the disharmony between business interests and city hall. Given a chance, he thinks he can pull it off, as he's been on their side of the fence before.

McKeon worked with Sue Lang, Ernie Zavodnyik, and Ed Martin on their campaigns last year. As did this web site. McKeon has voiced his dismay with a few of the decisions made by our new mayor, but is overall supportive of Martin and Co. As has and does this web site.

In fact, McKeon, as a candidate, has more in common with the goals of this web site than any candidate yet to appear on a ballot. On due process and fundamental fairness issues (where we have even taken a stance for Dan Boone and Mike Miller on two separate occasions), he's there. His thinking is clear and his skills in critical analysis, the single most important skill a public official can have, are top notch.

Beginning of scandal. Yes, McKeon has had his emails subpoenaed as part of the Sunshine Law lawsuit. As has this web site. Actually, that's not true. The court kicked both subpoenas for being too broad and invasive, so attorney Andrea Mogensen is in the process of trying to resubmit the subpoenas. So no, actually, McKeon has not had his emails subpoenaed.

Nevertheless, McKeon has stated, "Fine. Take them." As has this web site. We turned ours over voluntarily without waiting to be served, within hours of knowing that the subpoena had been submitted to the court (we had no reason to believe that the subpoena would later be kicked by the court).

McKeon, as a public official on the Planning Commission is still waiting for the green light from the city attorney's office to do the same.

At issue: McKeon received two emails from Councilwoman Sue Lang while he was still a private citizen. We've read the emails, and, despite what you have read in the papers, Mogensen isn't pushing a case against McKeon. Mogensen, when interviewed by this web site last month, stated, "Those emails are reflective of Sue Lang's behavior, not Kit McKeon's. The fact that McKeon received a random email is just that: a random event."

Well, hardly random, but Mogensen was stretching for a way to explain her position. She's trying to subpoena a huge swath of citizen emails right now, casting a huge net to see what gets caught in it. It's a lawyer thing that lawyers do, and there's a name for it: a fishing expedition. We didn't get too bent out of shape about it. We gave her what she wanted before she had a chance to finalize her subpoena. McKeon has also promised to turn them over voluntarily. End of scandal.

The plain fact is that whatever good that the new council was trying to get done has been attacked on every level and in every imaginable way by evil and incredibly greedy forces-- it's been death by a thousand cuts. A clear look at the overall case shows plenty of Sunshine Law violations on all sides going back years into prior councils and throughout the history of the Airport Advisory Board. The only difference is intent: one side had an undisputed purpose of trying to deceive the public in order to glean riches from the public trough, while the other side tried to prevent that action from happening. Nevertheless, the end never justifies the means and our side could have and should have acted smarter.

If everyone can get past all of this unscathed, the new kids will still be outnumbered 4-3 by CQG-sponsored council members, so this whole notion of "returning balance" to city council is yet another campaign fiction. If the CQG has their way and Lang and Martin are eventually ousted, that will leave Zavodnyik alone as a voice of resident voters. That's scary. Toss in either Osmulski or, worse, Carlesimo, into the mix and you can pretty well kiss the whole citizen takeover of city hall goodbye. It's back to the Boones, the CQG, and continued economic rape of the airport. This town will never be in a condition to be fixable again.

We need McKeon. Badly.

This web site, in the strongest possible terms, unabashedly and unreservedly endorses Kit McKeon for City Council Seat 2.