The famed C.J. Fishman 'I Own Your Ass' speech
The CQG's titular head is in the papers touting that his pro-growth organization is a voice of the people -- funny, cuz that ain't quite what he said a year ago
-- John Patten, 10/08/06, REVISED 10/09/06
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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In his letter in the Gondo, Fishman lauded the CQG, calling it an open organization whose meetings are open to the public. Actually, their meetings are once a year at the pricey and private Venice Yacht Club, are by invitation only, and are never publicly announced. This year's "public" meeting to decide candidate endorsements took place on September 13, 2006, -- after the open enrollment for candidacy had closed and the day before the famed county commission meeting on the controlled growth charter amendment (a meeting that CQG members attended en masse). Ya think maybe they had already decided who they were going to endorse going into this meeting?

Fishman compares the CQG meetings to the Venice Taxpayers League meetings, a statement that is horribly misleading. No VTL board member has EVER been invited to attend or has sat in on a CQG meeting, while at VTL meetings, there are almost always one or two CQG members taking notes. In fact, CQG board members have accepted invitations to speak at VTL meetings.

Flash back to exactly one year before -- September 13, 2005
The CMU ordinance (Controlled Mixed Use) is up for a vote, an ordinance that John Moore voted against because it was, in Moore's opinion,  horribly written (full text of Moore's dissenting opinion). This ordinance, if passed, would allow Mike Miller to build what this web site dubbed as his Manhattan Project, a clump of towering buildings along U.S. 41 and Venice Avenue on the island.

Growth advocates were coming out of the walls to rally for the ordinance, which narrowly passed on a 4-3 vote. Miller's project went on hold, supposedly due to the narrowness of passage of the ordinance.

The public came out in force at the September 13, 2005 meeting, as evidenced by the number of public speakers that appear in the minutes of that meeting. In the middle of the public comments came the now infamous speech by Fishman, a speech that has come to be known as the "I Own Your Ass" speech.

With Fishman's letter in the Gondo, it really is time to take a look back and see what Fishman actually said in his speech of September, 2005. To save you from killing yourself out of boredom, the video above has been edited down to Fishman's instructions to the press on how to write about him followed by his three 'I own your ass' statements.*

In the opening, Fishman gives a grimaced and surly warning to the press to report that he is speaking as an individual, not as the head of the CQG. In the whole rest of his speech, it is clear that he is speaking in the capacity of CQG chair, but the press isn't supposed to report on that as he just instructed them not to. So, now that he thinks that he has cleared the air and given himself the freedom to say what he wants without any fear of being reported, he moves in for the kill.

This, then, leads into part 2, where he reminds council that he and a few friends put them onto the dais because, as Fishman states, "I trust you to do your jobs." He tries to be subtle by couching the phrasing within the context of Fishman as an everyman, just another part of the general public, but he's about as subtle as a fully loaded Hummer crashing through the front window of a china shop.

This, then, begs the question: if he's only speaking as a member of the public and not as the head of the CQG, why even bring up his and his friends' involvements in prior council election results? Why the clear, blatant, and heavy handed reminder that other eyeballs with checkbooks were just behind him, looking over his shoulder at council as he spoke? What possible purpose does mentioning those PAC purse strings have to do with his support, as just an average Joe Sixpack individual member of the public, of a proposed amendment other than chest-puffing and political/economic bullying?

Bear in mind, the CQG spends massive amounts of advertising money in these small municipal elections.

That's followed by a lengthy and misunderstood analysis of the CMU amendment as interpreted by Fishman, which is cut out for brevity. According to Fishman, the CMU will give flexibility in the approval process for tall buildings on the island, this for whenever council wants to give flexibility in downtown development. Over and over, Fishman stresses flexibility in island building limitations as though it is the sole golden key to our town's economic survival.

Flexibility is a buzz word here that, within the context of the then-proposed CMU ordinance, meant a wild west approach to increased building height and height exceptions along U.S. 41 and Venice Avenue West on the island -- no more special exceptions because the rules calling for exceptions will be thrown out a 9th floor window.

Fishman's love of nebulous flexibility in the CMU ordinance was in sharp contrast to Moore's assessment. Moore felt the proposed ordinance was a confusing and self-contradictory mess that would demand constant creative interpretation and reinterpretation because of its loose wording.

That's OK for Fishman, the more confusing the better. After all, most of the wording for the CMU ordinance was drafted not by council or by the city's staff or attorney, but by the CQG's very own Jeff Boone, an attorney who curiously also represented the one developer who would benefit most from the passage of this ordinance.

Thus in part 3 of the video clip, Fishman goes on a major roll and pings off two more (count 'em) reminders to council as to who put them into office and what is now expected of them in return for that favor. This is all surrounded with generic statements of representing the people at large, but the implication is crystal clear: 'I own your ass, now vote for this ordinance.'

Yup, Fishman is clearly in support of council flexibility. You gotta be flexible if you are being tied up into a political knot like that.

Postcript
On November 8, 2005,the CMU ordinance narrowly passed into law. Despite John Moore's impassioned plea for reason and common sense, four council members voted in favor of the ordinance: Dean Calamaras, Fred Hammett, Bill Willson, and John Simmonds.

The three that voted against the proposed amendment were John Moore, Vicki Taylor, and Rick Tacy. Tacy was re-elected to a third term on the same day, but the polls had just closed when the final vote for the ordinance was taken and the results of the general election were not yet known.

*NOTE: For purists who want to sit through the whole thing, and to avoid accusations of creative editing, we've made the full unedited version available as well.

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.