Venice on the web
A semi-regular column

The return of PuterGate:
State ethics commission investigating mayor and city's computer department head
Over a year ago, Gary Anderson filed four ethics complaints against city officials; the state is just now following through on the complaints
-- John Patten, 10/20/04
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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UPDATE 12/07/04:
Hunt, Calamaras cleared on ethics charges (Adobe PDF file)
State ethics board dismisses charges against the mayor and former city manager
-- Florida Commission on Ethics press release, 12/07/04

RELATED:
Venice city manager [Hunt] was firing blanks at critics with phony figures
Tom Lyons' take on PuterGate
-- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 07/14/02

And you wondered why the mayor's race was so ugly?
Last year, Gary Anderson stated he had filed ethics complaints against four city officials with the Florida Commission on Ethics. Venice Florida! dot com has learned that those complaints are currently being investigated. According to Anderson's statements last year, ethics complaints were lodged against Mayor Dean Calamaras, city computer department head Charles 'Steve' Randall, then-City Manager George Hunt and then-Utilities Asst. Director Patricia 'Pat' Wilson.

Calamaras is currently running for re-election against Anderson and Randall is still in his position with the city. Hunt resigned in January of this year. Wilson was let go by the city in August of this year after the city eliminated her position and hired a private company, OMI, to manage the utilities department.

According to the city's computer department head Charles 'Steve' Randall, one of the targets of the complaints, state investigators visited city hall in August of this year and requested numerous documents related to the four investigations. Randall stated that he was told in August that it would take four to six months for the investigations to be completed.

Representatives at the ethics commission refused to confirm or deny that any such investigations are ongoing, citing Florida law that prohibits them from discussing any such matters that may be before them.

Mayor Dean Calamaras also confirmed that the ethics investigation was ongoing. Calamaras seemed confidant that all four complaints would be dismissed. Calamaras stated that ethics investigators had contacted him and that he had turned over some documents to the investigators as requested.

Calamaras stated that new laws would allow each of the four individuals to file suit against Anderson for reimbursement of legal fees if any of them are cleared of the charges against them.

Anderson stated "Right now, I'm not allowed to talk about the situation. You'll have to go with the stuff I said last year."

As Venice Florida! dot com reported in 2003, the complaints filed by Anderson are as follows:

I.S. Director Charles 'Steve' Randall
As documented exhaustively elsewhere on this site, Randall started his own company, Petra Software, and then billed the city for over $12,000 for various services in 2000 and 2001, most of which would have fallen under his job description. Although corporate records filed with the state indicated that Randall was the sole owner of Petra, information filed with the city by Randall gave no indication of Randall's ownership and pointed to a friend of Randall's, Jim Gardner. Gardner would later state to Venice Florida! dot com that he was not an employee of Petra and had no idea why his name would appear on city documents as the company's representative.

Hunt and then-Police Chief Joe Slapp hid this information from the public when it was first discovered. When it appeared that Roy Stout and Herb Levine may have stumbled onto the scam, Hunt and Slapp went public with a watered-down version. In May of 2001, Hunt stated that Randall had broken the law, but that the city had gotten more than it paid for in the illegal deal. A follow-up investigation nearly a year later by Venice Florida! dot com revealed that the city had, in fact, gotten very little for what it paid. Additionally, Venice Florida! dot com and the Venice Taxpayers League discovered that Slapp had hidden some electronic evidence in the case in his office safe. Slapp initially denied having possession of the evidence when asked about it by both Herb Levine of the Taxpayers League and by this web site.

Slapp was the chief of police at the time of the initial discovery of Randall's wrongdoing. He was later promoted to the position of Emergency Services Director. Despite Slapp's claims that he launched an investigation into the matter before deciding to clear Randall, no case number was ever assigned to the matter by the Venice Police Department.

In an unbelievably surreal series of events, Venice Florida! dot com turned the information over to an FDLE agent, who was, according to several law enforcement sources, subsequently ordered to drop the investigation due to its sensitive nature. Police Chief Jim Hanks was ordered by his superiors, Hunt and Slapp, not to pursue a criminal investigation. Venice Florida! dot com then tried to push the issue with the Sarasota Sheriff's Office in 2002. The Sheriff's Office refused to accept a criminal complaint, stating that only the Venice Police Department had jurisdiction and that there was nothing that the Sheriff's Office could do. A phone call to State Attorney Earl Moreland also proved fruitless: Moreland stated to Venice Florida! dot com that he couldn't look at the case unless it was brought to him by a law enforcement agency and that no agency had come to him about the case.

Of additional concern is the fact that after Venice Florida! dot com uncovered and published the full, real story of Randall's covert dealings and the efforts of city officials to cover it all up, not one city official, council member, or even the mayor, then or since, has ever called for a criminal investigation. Venice Florida! dot com published a full and detailed account of the entire affair, including copies of all invoices and related state records, on June 13, 2002. Subsequent articles in the so-called PuterGate scandal gave out even more details as they were discovered (see PuterGate articles from 2002 in this list of older Venice Florida! dot com articles).

The mayor, council and staff can't claim that they never knew about the articles or the details contained therein -- the city council meeting of June 25, 2002, was a circus that surrounded the entire travesty, complete with George Hunt accusing Venice Florida! dot com's John Patten of extortion in the matter.

After the discovery of the real story in 2002, the big punitive action that was taken was the public firing of computer department employee Daniel Acosta by unanimous council vote, this after Acosta had spoken with an FDLE agent and after Hunt had privately accused Acosta of being a Taxpayers League spy. The firing of Acosta took place at the same June 25 council meeting. Acosta, the former police department computer guru, has since opened his own business in computer services.

Mayor Dean Calamaras
In 2002, Calamaras, without prior approval from council, renegotiated a contract with Henry Jakimere and the Garden State Fireworks Company for the July 4, 2002 city fireworks. The renegotiated contract was upped by $5,000 to a total of $25,000, this according to Calamaras' statements to council at the time. The contract was actually upped by $8,000 to a total of $25,000 on paper. The focus of Anderson's complaint appears to be that Calamaras' son, Dean Jr., worked for the fireworks company when they did their fireworks shows in Venice. Calamaras stated at the time that his son only worked for Jakimere one day a year. When asked about it yesterday, Calamaras stated his son worked about four or five days in 2002 and 2003.

Calamaras brought the matter before council on July 9, 2002, in order to get approval of the additional expenditure, this coming after the renegotiated contract and after the fireworks display had taken place (see Item 3 of Report by City Manager near the end of the council minutes for July 9, 2002). Council voted unanimously to pay the increased contractual bump of $5,000 -- Calamaras did not recuse himself from the vote.

There were additional problems with the fireworks contract, such as the fact that the city's copies of the contracts, as provided to the Venice Taxpayers League, were unsigned, thus creating yet another blank contract scenario reminiscent of the city's problems with a blank lease with Sharky's Restaurant.

According to Roy Stout of the Venice Taxpayers League, Calamaras, as the contract negotiator, never followed through on receiving any proof that Jakimere and Garden State had purchased liability insurance for the fireworks shows as required in the unsigned contracts (or, rather, as would have been required if the contract on file with the city had been signed). Stout says he repeatedly asked for the insurance documents and was told by the city that they do not exist.

Anderson has apparently alleged that the mayor, in negotiating a contract with a company that hires the mayor's son on a temporary basis to fulfill that same contract, created a conflict of interest situation that benefited the mayor's family financially.

As Venice Florida! dot com reported last year, this may or may not be a violation of the state's ethics code. While there are prohibitions against public officials doing business with themselves, the lines get blurred when it involves a family member -- there is no clear prohibition against such transactions, this according to Julie Costas, an attorney with the ethics commission in response to a hypothetical question posed to her last year (see original story). This matter may hinge on how much the mayor's son was paid and on other factors, such as the unsigned contract.

Calamaras insists it is all perfectly legal, that he checked it all out with the city attorney beforehand.

Former city manager George Hunt
An ethics complaint was filed against Hunt for his complicity in helping cover up the Steve Randall affair (see above).

Former utilities assistant director Patricia 'Pat' Wilson
Wilson is accused of making numerous long distance personal phone calls, totaling in the hundreds of dollars, on her city-issued cell phone. After the bills were discovered by Taxpayers Leaguer Roy Stout, Wilson immediately started repaying some of the bills to the city. Hunt claimed at the time that Wilson and others were using 'free' minutes provided by the cell phone company, a statement that was not supported by information that appeared on the cell phone bills.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.