Gondo under fire
Did the mayor and Jim Myers lie about turning
the VCC into a hurricane shelter just to get their hands on $10 million?
No, of course not, that's just silly -- it's just that there are a lot of different and
conflicting versions of the truth
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 12/19/05
A parking garage in Centennial Park?
Boone and Miller hijack council,
threaten to nuke the Manhattan Project
Tacy's response: Let's roll
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 12/16/05
City found guilty, fined
$110,000 in criminal EPA case
-- U.S. District Court record, 12/14/05
State ethics board rejects plea offer from city's former computer
department head
Steve Randall offered to pay $4,700 in fines, ethics board says
that's not good enough
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 12/12/05
Love among the ruins:
City celebrates the
reopening of the church they could not kill
Mayor Calamaras wraps himself in the arms of the church,
announces he's born again..., sort of; Larry Flynt unavailable for comment
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 12/05/05
City
hall's offer to cops is the lowest of the low
City's offer puts cops in a diabolical ethical dilemma
worthy of an Orson Scott Card novel; our advice to the cops: send the
city manager a response with just three letters -- GFY
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 12/02/05
EPA and fed prosecutors finally
going after The Executive Group
City employees have been subpoenaed to testify against their
former bosses before a federal grand jury in Tampa in late December; federal prosecutors
are finally seeking indictments against the so-called Executive Group
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 11/29/05
Vice-Mayor John Moore on the CMU
Land use laws should be fair, predictable and cost-effective --
the CMU ordinance is none of these things; a guest article (of sorts) by
the Vice-Mayor
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 11/11/05
FOP, city reach agreement in police
contract talks
City hall gets empty victory -- cops ready for mass
defections to other law enforcement agencies as a result of city's
negotiation tactics
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 10/28/05
Harrison wins
breathalyzer source code battle
A landmark decision... let me repeat that... A LANDMARK
DECISION... that opens the door forever on governmental computing
devices... until the obligatory appeal, that is...
-- State v. Bjorkland, 11/02/05, Florida 12th Judicial Circuit, Sarasota
(Adobe PDF file)
PLUS:
Comments on this court decision from Fark
Wilma in Venice: wind, weirdness and wonderment
Overall, the physical damage in Venice could have been a lot
worse; the psychic damage is apparently driving a few of our residents right
over the mental edge
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 10/24/05
The Matrix Report -- full text of summary (11 pages)
Matrix Consulting Group thinks the police station itself
is a great building... and that's about the only nice thing they have to
say about the Venice Police Department in this, their final report, as
submitted to the city and city council
-- Matrix Consulting Group, 10/19/05 (Adobe Acrobat PDF file)
Friends don't let friends vote
drunk -- our 2005 election endorsements
One of the candidates for city council can make the
promise not to get drunk, get behind the wheel and wreck his vehicle.
The other? Well.....
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 10/31/05
"Anybody else wish to come
forward and get arrested?"
a flashback article from 2002, includes
the audio of the arrest of Levine and the mayor's famous quote
Hizzoner and the Venice Gondolier recently decried
the lack of citizen participation in the city's budget process;
both the mayor and the newspaper conveniently ignore the mayor's still-open invitation
from 2002 to those who would dissent
-- Venice Florida! dot com, reprint from September 2002
An open letter to Utils Director
Chris Sharek: Are you an idiot?
Sharek launches an internal investigation into how a
public document was leaked to the public; Venice Florida! dot com asks
the utils director if he is a total idiot or if he's merely on drugs
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 08/12/05
Utils director Chris Sharek
signs his own death warrant?
In the wake of his announced demotion, Sharek writes a
strange and career-suicidal memo to OMI (the private utility management company);
Sharek states that it has just come to his attention that OMI has been
harassing the help, that OMI personnel have not been doing anything close to
their contracted job functions... for a year... they haven't been doing
their job for a year... and it all has just now come to Sharek's attention......
Good eye, there, Chris, nuthin' gets by you... (this has gotta be a
joke, this can't be a real memo)
-- City of Venice internal memo dated 08/02/05
Fear and Loathing in council chambers
City's
response: Steele Report shows nothing happened
Mayor goes all out to show that The Steele Report
exonerates the city; audio excerpt starts out with City Attorney Bob
Anderson explaining his recollection of the famed 2002 meeting as
diarized by Troy Evans in the Steele Report, followed up by ugliness all
around between the mayor and Venice Florida! dot com's Patten
-- Venice City Council audio, 07/26/05
-- MP3 audio file, 6:15, 4.3MBs
The Steele Report
Full text, 42 pages, requires the Adobe Acrobat Reader
-- posted to the web on 07/15/05
We paid for what we already
knew
Herb Levine chimes in on The Steele Report
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 07/24/05
"If the
EPA is coming, where are they?"
In what turned out to be a million dollar question, Mayor Dean Calamaras
posed this query back in 2002,
this according to EPA whistleblower Troy Evans in the recently released
Steele Report; Venice Florida! dot com has an answer for the mayor but
he's probably not going to like it
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 07/17/05
Response to the
Gondo's 'No sewage/sludge dumped at airport' stories
Gondo and mayor tag team Venice Florida! dot com's
Patten; Gondo alters quote from a Venice Florida! dot com article to
make its case; mayor refers to Patten as 'bankrupt;' Patten humming a Tom Petty
tune
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 07/27/05
Patches memo #2
Utils Director Chris Sharek on the
sewage break at Patches Restaurant earlier this month: We didn't dump
sewage into a storm drain and we won't do it again
-- memo from Chris Sharek, dated 07/08/05
The
Patches Memo
Utils
Director Chris Sharek explains the massive sewer pipe failure and the
subsequent repairs
-- memo from Chris Sharek, dated 07/05/05
I'm back, I'm angry and I'm sharing
the moment
Venice Florida! dot com's Patten is back and he's vitriolic
over the latest batch of municipal lunacy: "The mayor is shilling for
corporate pals, Councilman Tacy has managed to alienate the city's youth and
their parents, the city's utilities department is imploding under the weight of
its own stupidity and the city's personnel department can't figure out how to
obey the state's Sunshine Law without getting testy -- other than that, I'm
fine, thanks for asking"
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 07/04/05
More Herald-Trib suckage
H-T's
Lauren Glenn attacks Dan Hopsicker in a very..., well, let's just say an
inventive way; among the numerous foibles in Glenn's article: she hilariously quotes an ad here on Venice Florida! dot com
and misattributes it as news copy that supposedly appears on Exit Realty's web site
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 07/12/05
Hospital from Hell? The letter that the mayor doesn't want
you to see
Uhhh ohhhhhh...... here we go again....
Calamaras strongly supports Venice Regional Medical Center where he is a
sitting board member, cites numerous letters of praise for the hospital from
staff and financial supporters; meanwhile a letter to the mayor from a
recent patient alleges that VRMC is the hospital from Hell; Calamaras
politely avoids mentioning the outrageous-sounding complaints detailed in
the horrific missive
-- Venice Florida! dot com,
06/21/05
False groundswell -- letter writing
and plagiarism
Back in February of this year, we caught Frances Rice, one of
the state's leading Republican organizers, plagiarizing Washington Post
columnist Colbert King; when cornered, she accused Venice Florida! dot com
of racism
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 05/22/05
The Newburn and Adinolfi
letters
Gondo disputes our coverage of deliberate sewage spills
at airport -- here's some of the supporting evidence
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 05/11/05
Venice Florida! dot com responds to Gondo's
'Liar, liar' article
We reported sewage spills, county sent out to test for
herring, Gondo takes a bite and asks for white sauce
-- Venice Florida! dot com,
REVISED 04/30/05
Venice and the EPA:
The Ooops Chronicles
Latest installment:
Part 4 -- The body is buried and the fix is in
In a bizarre rerun of 2002's PuterGate fiasco, council proves they have some striking similarities to their predecessors
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/27/05
revised 04/28/05
Part 1 -- Ooops, I did it again
Less than 24 hours after the city votes to plead guilty to
criminal charges levied by the EPA, utils department head Chris Sharek and
OMI's Tim Newton pull a Britney Spears job on city and city workers
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 04/20/05
Part 2 -- The Ooops memo
OMI's Gerald Boyce responds to issues raised by
Venice Florida! dot com, continues to state that the soil in question was
not contaminated despite the lack of testing
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/21/05
Part 3 -- Ooops duck and dive
e-mails
An ugly saga of journalistic uppitiness and municipal evasion
Trying to get information is like pulling teeth
as doors slam shut in the wake of follow-up inquiries, but damn -- these folks
are funny
--
Venice Florida! dot com,
04/22/05, still being updated
City backs off on point-shaving
accusations, Levine reinstated as an Envision Venice facilitator
City claimed three people complained about Levine's
performance as a facilitator; Venice Florida! dot com interviewed all three
and all deny complaining
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/22/05
Levine accused of sabotaging Envision
Venice
A letter from the City Planning department kicks Levine out
of the program as a facilitator, accuses Levine of skewing the results;
major problem: the VTL prez wasn't acting
in the capacity of a facilitator at the event in question
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 04/15/05
Who bought
the domain name heraldtribunesucks.com?
The very day after Venice Florida! dot com officially pronounced the
newspaper's local news department as suckworthy, an unknown party purchased
the uncomplimentary domain name; before you ask: Venice Florida! dot com had
absolutely nothing to do with it, had no prior knowledge, sincerely
does not know who purchased it (yet) and thinks the purchase is hysterically
funny
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/12/05
Not so fast, Slippery George: appeal filed
in Levine lawsuit
Judge Nancy Donnellan knocked former city manager George Hunt out of the
case, stating that Levine couldn't sue Hunt for malicious prosecution
because Levine had never been prosecuted; Levine's attorney files
an immediate appeal arguing that the prosecution process started as soon as
Levine was arrested
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/09/05
Feds ink plea deal with city; EPA criminal
investigation
now focused on nailing "The Executive Group"
$110,000 minimum in fines, and guess who gets to pay the
freight? And what, exactly, is The Executive Group?
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/08/05
Full text of the city's guilty plea
agreement with the U.S. Attorney General's Office
City claims in their press release that they did no harm but
the plea agreement notes ecological damage and willful violations of
numerous laws by what the EPA refers to as "The Executive Group"
-- U.S. Attorney's criminal plea agreement, released 04/07/05
The Dean and George Travellin'
Stagnation Show (with special guest Slappy Joe) -- CANCELED!
Judge Nancy Donnellan throws out the portion of Levine's lawsuit that
includes former city manager George Hunt
-- Venice Florida! dot com,04/04/05
Gotcha!
...again
This year, we spoofed the court system, city hall and the
mayor's recent threat of a lawsuit against this web site for our
annual April Fool's prank
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 04/02/05
Newburn calls
it quits
Utils supervisor John Newburn admitted
involvement in illegal dumping of sewage at Venice Municipal Airport; is
reported to have accepted job in Cocoa Beach
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 03/30/05
Herald-Trib
is up to their usual stellar standards in reporting
**cough** **cough**
Paper
refuses to issue correction in yet another seriously botched job of covering
city hall; reporter Lauren Glenn states her error was correct
-- Venice Florida! dot com, REVISED 03/24/05
Randall
resigns
City's top geek calls it quits
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 03/21/05
The story that started it all:
PuterGate
Version 2.0: Where's The Web?
Up until the publication of this story to the web in 2002, the Randall
affair was a dead and nicely covered up issue; this story resurrected the
scandal, exposed an all-new set of facts that the public was not aware of
and that both newspapers had ignored; this story, then, was the ultimate
reason that Randall finally ended up in front of the ethics commission
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 06/13/02
Complete
text: The Florida Commission on Ethics Report of Investigation on Steve
Randall
This is a doozy and as far as Hunt and Slapp go, it's pure
comedy gold: Hunt describes Randall as "befuddled," Slapp is caught changing
his story
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 03/19/05
Countdown to indictments?
City Manager Marty Black is about to issue a public statement on the EPA
investigation in what is rumored to be a prelude to Federal indictments;
meanwhile all of Venice is holding its collective breath, waiting for the
blast that may not come for quite some time
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 03/13/05
Parade
of Homes pulls Monopoly graphics from web site
The Sarasota and Manatee Home Builders Associations, along with the
Herald-Tribune, used graphics from Hasbro's Monopoly game to
promote this year's Parade of Homes; Hasbro says that's a no-no and has
referred the matter to their legal department
-- Venice Florida! dot com, updated 03/11/05
Blind science
Unknown chemicals wind their way into a public high school
classroom, all in the name of science -- what could possibly go wrong?
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 02/25/05
Good Lord! Goodbye, good
doctor
The death by suicide of Hunter S. Thompson is the death of a
country's conscience; a goodly bit of this web site died as well
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 02/21/05 REVISED 02/22/05
Blustering and posing
Calamaras froths because he can't sue Gary Anderson -- turns out Anderson
hasn't done anything that could get him sued, but Hizzonor probably doesn't
want you to know that
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 02/16/05
Shane Saputo
congratulates the mayor
The
ex-wastewater supervisor pats Calamaras on the back for the
state's Ethics Commission's ruling: "I sincerely hope
that you do not feel there is a difference in our situations"
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 01/14/05
The FOP negotiations -- So
what exactly is it that the cops want more than anything else?
Cue up the Aretha Franklin music
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 01/22/05
Calamaras under fire
New trouble: Venice Florida! dot com accuses the mayor of
knowingly participating in the violation of EPA whistleblower
Troy Evans' civil rights in the airport sewage dumping
incidents;
Old trouble: Mayor recently cleared by the state's Ethics Commission for
questionable negotiations over city's 2002 fireworks, however the case may be
headed back to Tallahassee for a second round as the mayor's story doesn't seem
to add up
-- Venice Florida! dot com, 01/06/05
Cops
to city hall: We will not be intimidated
PR battle continues between the boys in blue and the man in
black over union contract -- scroll down to the bottom of page
for the cops' latest volley
-- Venice Florida! dot com, last updated 01/15/05
News update -- EPA questions city
employees about airport sewage dumping
--
Venice
Florida! dot com,
01/08/03
So how
much trouble can you get into for dumping sewage on Federally
regulated
land?
Plenty!!! Forget about the EPA -- the FAA has its own set of
rules and regs and according to their recent regulatory
revisions, things can get pretty nasty if you piss them off
-- FAA Environmental Pollution Code, issued 09/14/04, Adobe
Acrobat file, from FAA.gov
Anyone wanna play
another round of Mudball?
Massive amounts of sewage
regularly and deliberately dumped on Venice Airport property
over the past 5 years, probably for much longer
Cover-up went all the way from line workers though former city manager
Hunt
to council and Mayor Calamaras -- yeah, we couldn't believe it at
first, either
-- Venice Florida! dot com,
REVISED 12/29/04
