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A semi-regular column

My breakfast with George
VGA attorneys Boone & Boone get snapped while having a breakfast meeting with former city manager George Hunt; hilarity ensues
-- John Patten, 06/30/04
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

Got a comment? Make it here.

June 23, 2004 [sic -- should be June 28]

Re: City of Venice/FAA/VGA

Honorable Mayor and Council Members:

I believe you would like to know that in an attempt to work toward resolving the issues between the VGA and the City, George Hunt requested a meeting at the Clock Restaurant this morning. We feel certain he will confer with the Mayor as soon as possible, as the two of them were appointed by City Council on 5/27/03 to meet with VGA representatives, which they did.

Gary Anderson is employed at the Clock Restaurant and was there this morning. He in turn called John Patton [sic -- should be Patten] and Mr. Patton took pictures of George Hunt, Jeff Boone and me. In his zeal to get Gary Anderson elected Mayor and to discredit Dean Calamaras, we feel Patton will no doubt attempt to portray the breakfast meeting as a "secret meeting." This type of nonsense is strictly an attempt to further the campaign of Gary Anderson. Further, Gary Anderson used poor business sense in involving his employment in something like this.

George Hunt and the Boones have nothing to hide and meeting at the Clock Restaurant should be proof of this. George knew when he set the meeting that Anderson works at the Clock Restaurant. We certainly could have met in "secret" if we so chose. We want to do everything we can to resolve this issue.

Putting the politics aside, George Hunt should be complimented for volunteering to step forward and work toward disposing of any misunderstandings between the City and the VGA.

Very truly yours,

E.G. Boone

EGB/jb

cc: George Hunt
      Donald W. Shrode
      Robert Anderson, City Attorney
      Martin P. Black, City Manager
      Lori Stelzer, City Clerk
      Michael T. McPhail, Finance Director

And Hunt is germane to the issue... why?
Now all that's fine and dandy, except for one thing. George Hunt doesn't work for the city any more. After the mess that Hunt and Dan Boone created in the FAA/VGA fiasco, it's a sure bet that council and the current city manager, Marty Black, don't want to hear whatever it is that Hunt has to say. The city has to listen to the Boones, they are the attorneys of record for the VGA. But Hunt? In this matter, he's a non-player that's turning into a loose cannon. Hunt's only value to the Boones is if he is backing up their story, that the city dangled a $20,000 refund in front of them and the VGA and then snatched it away after the contractual dotted line was inked.

It may be the Boones' only hope, but Hunt has a severe credibility problem over this very issue, and the following explains why.

In the minutes of an October, 2003, VGA board meeting (see page 5, 4th paragraph) then-City Manager George Hunt was a guest speaker. Hunt is reported as stating that the city will indeed be leasing land from the VGA as a preferred way to reimburse the golf course for an agreed-to increase in rent:

Which is really odd, because in the original deal that Hunt set up with the VGA, that one acre of land is being leased by the city to the VGA for about $1,000 a year according to government sources, and now it's being appraised to be leased back to the city at a minimum of $12,000. But I digress.

In last Saturday's Gondo article, Hunt claims that never happened:

...city officials say no promises for a setoff were ever made when the VGA accepted a rent increase from $160,000 to $180,000 last October in order to satisfy Federal Aviation Administration complaints that it wasn't paying enough in rent. Any claims that Mayor Dean Calamaras or former City Manager George Hunt promised reduced utility bills or a lease of land for the dog park to offset the new rent are completely untrue, both Calamaras and Hunt said Friday. Dan Boone, attorney for VGA, called the city's stance "fraud" and accused city representatives of "knowingly negotiating in bad faith" in a letter dated June 1, and mailed to Calamaras' home.
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 06/26/04

Obvious questions: So what is it exactly that Hunt could possibly do to help resolve this situation without making it worse? The old lawyer's question to someone after that person has reversed his story is appropriate: "were you lying then or are you lying now?" Was George lying at the VGA meeting when he stated that that the city's intention was to reimburse the VGA or did he lie to the Gondo last week when he told reporter J.J. Andrews that no such promise was ever made?

This is assuming that the minutes of that meeting, as written by pro tem secretary Dan Boone, are accurate. There appears to be no sensible reason why Boone would make a fabrication like that in writing, it would have served no good purpose at the time the document was written -- the document was originally intended only for the eyes of the VGA board members who were at the same meeting.

Moreover, if all of this is on the up and up as Boone claims in his letter to mayor and council, why the sudden need to hastily inform them in a panic-stricken and accusatory sounding letter that the Boones had met with Hunt about the VGA situation? It's obvious from the context of the letter that Calamaras and council were not informed in advance about the meeting. The Boones don't have an obligation to inform anyone of who they are meeting, but this letter is basically stating "No, we weren't sneaking around behind anyone's back."

Problem: nobody ever accused them of sneaking around. Why the loud and sudden defense against an accusation that had not been made?

Strange stuff.

It's almost a non-story, except for Boone's odd reaction.

Cruel humor -- I ought to be ashamed of myself
Oh, and one other thing. In his letter to the mayor and council, Boone writes:

George knew when he set the meeting that Anderson works at the Clock Restaurant. We certainly could have met in "secret" if we so chose.

Which is absolute... there's no other word for it... pardon the upcoming French... bullshit.

For starters, Anderson is the night manager at the restaurant. He is very rarely there before 2:30 pm.

It's also bullshit for another reason -- I know, because I was eating breakfast at the counter next to the cash register when Dan Boone and Hunt paid their bill just after 9:30 am (Jeff Boone had left about a half an hour earlier).

Hunt came up one one side of me, Boone on the other, and I heard from behind me Hunt's voice saying, "Well hello, John."

Now I had taken the pictures earlier and had ditched the camera before they were even aware that I was in the restaurant, so I'm reasonably certain that Boone and Hunt had no idea yet that they had been photographed.

I turned around and said hi to the both of them and then commented "Gee, the two of you together and me without my camera."

Boone replied, "Yeah, you'd have liked to have taken that picture, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would," I replied.

Hunt then turned to face Anderson, who was standing behind the cash register. Hunt was genuinely surprised to be handing cash over to Anderson. It was plainly obvious that up until that point in time, Hunt had no clue that Anderson worked there.

As Anderson tells it, "Hunt saw me when he first came in, he had this 'I know you but I'm not sure from where' look. They all sat in the far corner, so there wasn't any way they could see me the rest of the time they were there. When they came up to pay the bill, Hunt recognized me after seeing some Anderson for Mayor literature that was on the counter, and he said, 'You work here?' I handed both Boone and Hunt some campaign literature and told them I look forward to their votes."

Which is about when I damned near choked on my coffee and fell off my counter stool.

And now, a word in Yiddish from the Venice Taxpayers League
Venice Taxpayers League prez Herb Levine has a favorite Yiddish phrase that he said immediately sprang to his mind when he read Boone's letter. He's used the phrase quite a few times in the three or four years that I've known him, usually when someone has made a loud, unsolicited and odd denial:

"Bie ah gonniff brent ah hittel."

You figure it out -- I can't speak Yiddish.

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.