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Anderson also filed a complaint against Hunt which alleged a cover-up of and complicity in the Randall affair. This was dismissed by the commission, this in spite of the fact that Hunt had given numerous misstatements about the extent of Randall's involvement to the public and to the press until Venice Florida! dot com revisited and exhaustively chronicled Randall's scam company.

As to the mayor's recollection of no complaints ever being upheld by the commission, let's try to refresh Hizzoner's memory, as three of Hunt's stronger references in the promotional materials provided to Fernandina Beach have all been sanctioned by the Florida Commission on Ethics in the past.

Calamaras and former councilman Jim Myers were both sanctioned and fined by the Florida Commission on Ethics in 2000, this stemming from 1999 campaign financing violations. The complaint concerned the improper use of the Venice Main Street merchants association's postal meter to send out their own election campaign literature. The complaints were filed by Herb Levine and Roy Stout of the VTL and these two complaints are the ONLY ethics complaints ever filed by the two men. Indeed, these are the ONLY two ethics complaints that have been approved by the VTL board since 1992.

In 1992, attorney Jeff Boone, who was on the Venice Planning Commission at the time, was officially and formally "admonished" by the Florida Commission on Ethics for conflict of interest issues -- according to the commission's ruling, Boone was attorney for developer Mike Miller while simultaneously sitting on the board that would approve Miller's project requests. The ethics commission said that was a no-no and hand-slapped Boone. According to Levine, Boone resigned from the commission shortly after the admonishment ruling was handed down. The complaint against Boone was filed by then-VTL president Ed Krebs.

So that makes three complaints in total filed by the VTL since 1992 and all three resulted in censure or admonishment by the Florida Commission on Ethics.

Any of these incidents ring any bells, Your Honor Mr. Mayor?

Myers and Boone go ditto on the memory lapse
As noted above, Calamaras, Myers and Boone have all been on the butt-end of ethics commission rulings and, as noted above, Calamaras apparently has no recollection of those events. Here's what Myers and Boone currently have to say about Hunt according to Baenziger's Reference Report as given to Fernandina Beach in Hunt's current job search:

     Mr. Myers thought Hunt did a good job as the city manager. He made excellent decisions when hiring and very good decisions overall... He was very good at keeping the city council informed and very good with the public and the staff. He was a change agent who maintained the organization at a high level of performance. Mr. Myers could not think of any weaknesses. The only issues Mr. Hunt had in Venice were with the Taxpayers' Union [sic], but everyone did. He would hire Hunt if he could.
-- ibid

     [Jeff] Boone could not say enough good things about Mr. Hunt. He thought Mr. Hunt was an outstanding city manager who worked very hard and who was not the typical bureaucrat. He was honest and a straight shooter. His ethics and moral standards are beyond reproach... Although Mr. Hunt had critics, Mr. Boone was not aware of any negatives. In fact, the "critics threw a lot of mud at him and nothing stuck."
-- ibid

 

Councilman John Simmonds and former councilman David Farley join the Alzheimer's Brigade

Four new bridges to the island? Four? And Hunt was responsible?

Just a bit of geography here for those of you who want to go driving around looking for that fourth bridge -- the so-called island of Venice (the western half of the town that is separated from the mainland by the man-made Intracoastal Waterway) has three bridges. Three. Not four.

Two of them have been rebuilt by the state's DOT in recent years and the major force behind that was State Representative Nancy Detert. Hunt's role was supportive, but giving him total credit for the construction of two bridges, let alone adding on another fictional two bridges, is ludicrous.

Also, bear in mind, all of these people as referential sources on Hunt were asked if they knew of anything negative about Hunt that might surface later. Myers, Simmonds and Calamaras were all sitting in the October 26, 2004 EPA Shade Meeting when Anderson told the story of Hunt admitting to Fed prosecutors that Venice illegally pollutes and considers the payment of fines resultant from the lawbreaking a "cost of doing business." Granted, none of the three was allowed to tell that story until after the city's case had wound its way to completion, but in the 15 months since that first EPA shade meeting, you'd have thought that one of them might have told Hunt that maybe it'd be better if Hunt didn't use them as a reference anymore.

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro -- then they try to find jobs in the government
Tucked in to all of this bizarre revisionism is this bit of weirdness, from Colin Baenziger, this from Hunt's resume on file at Fernandina Beach:

Additional Note
Venice has an active anti-government group led by John Patton [sic]. This group was -- and is-- extremely unfriendly toward many of the city's elected officials as well as toward Mr. Hunt as his career drew to a close there. Among other things, every two years for the past sixteen or so years, this group has filed ethics charges against elected officials and employees (sometimes including Mr. Hunt). In every case, the charges have been dismissed.
-- ibid

Again, the VTL has, since 1992, filed three ethics complaints and all led to censure, admonishment and/or fines. The individuals that were fined were Mayor Dean Calamaras and then-councilman Jim Myers. Jeff Boone received an official admonishment. Those are the only ethics complaints that were filed by the VTL and all were filed long BEFORE I ever joined the league and before I was even aware of much of the political workings in Venice.

My name appears nowhere in the Florida Commission on Ethics archives as a complainant. It never happened.

Moreover, I am not and never have been the leader. Herb Levine is the president of the Venice Taxpayers League, a name that Baenziger and Hunt would possibly prefer that no potential employer enter into Google as Levine currently has a lawsuit pending against Hunt. Hence my substitution as the head of the organization.

I called up VTL prez Herb Levine. I told Levine about Hunt's resume and that Baenziger was reporting that I was the leader of the VTL. I also read to him parts of a few other entries. He started laughing uproariously: "So you are staging a coup, Patten? Thought you'd take over the Venice Taxpayers League? You're fired."

Like Levine, I too thought the above was pretty damned funny at first, but then it dawned on me-- this is now a public, official record. I'm suddenly failing to see the humor.

Psychotic
Now take the above and add something else onto this odorous pile. This is from Baenziger's interview of former mayor Merle Graser and is verbatim from Hunt's resume on file at Fernandina Beach:

[Former mayor Merle Graser stated that Hunt] did amazing things for Venice in terms of getting four new bridges built and getting the beach renourished... Overall the public liked him. You should be aware that there is a Taxpayers Union in Venice made up of angry, psychotic people and they tried to ruin Hunt's career. In fact, they are still chasing after him to spread disparaging comments.
-- ibid

So not only am I the leader of this group of pirates and brigands, it's a group of psychotic pirates and brigands. Ahoy thar, matey, arrrrrr, thar be aliens trying to steal ye in the dark hours and poke ye in thine buttocks in that thar skyship, arrrrrrr, arrrrrrrrr.

Psychotic. OK, let's go with that for a moment.

See, I must have made up the fact that Hunt was investigated by the FBI and, according to City Attorney Bob Anderson, nearly nailed on obstruction of justice charges (according to Anderson, Hunt escaped that charge by resigning from his position in Venice).

I must have invented an FAA investigation into Venice, one that accused the city of Diversion of Revenue in the charging documents.

I clearly fantasized about the $1 million in fines and legal fees that the city paid out when it had to plead guilty to three counts of Federal criminal charges, this stemming from a still-ongoing EPA criminal investigation into a group of city employees known as The Executive Group.

I must have invented the Federal Grand Jury proceedings that are currently taking place in Tampa. These proceedings are aimed at indicting The Executive Group, a group whose membership, coincidentally, is almost  guaranteed to include Hunt. Hunt's inclusion is considered a given after it was recently revealed that he told Federal prosecutors that he considers illegal polluting and the subsequent payment of violation fines when caught as a cost of doing business.

The ongoing lawsuit against Calamaras, Hunt and former police chief Joe Slapp, this stemming from the false arrest of a 75-year-old man for the crime of calling Hunt a liar at a city budget meeting? Clearly a delusional fantasy, one that Baenziger and Hunt forgot to tell Fernandina Beach about -- Baenziger's report on Hunt states that no records were found in a civil check on Hunt, yet the records are plainly visible and online in the Sarasota County Clerk of Court web site.

The out-of-court settlement that was given to three Venice employees, this in a whistleblower harassment lawsuit that was filed as a direct result of Hunt's persecution of the three? Must have been a straight-jacket dream.

I apparently have a very vivid imagination, as these psychotic hallucinations are, to me anyway, highly detailed and very real. I can remember all of them as though they are only a click away.

Good thing that folks like Calamaras, Simmonds, Myers, Farley and Boone are all much saner than I am, because you never know -- somebody somewhere might be dumb enough to take my psychotic ramblings seriously. Arrrrrrr, arrrrrrrrr.

It's tinfoil hat time ("unless he has me on tape")
Just for grins, I put on my tinfoil hat and called up Merle Graser to see what he had to say about these psychotic delusions. I clearly identified myself as John Patten of Venice Florida! dot com. In spite of the fact that I clearly identified myself and the web publication that I write for, it became readily apparent that Graser was absolutely clueless as to who I am.

I asked Graser about the use of the word psychotic. The former mayor couldn't back-pedal fast enough without falling all over himself. Graser stated that he was interviewed by Colin Baenziger, but denied using the word psychotic: "I didn't use the word psychotic. It's not a word I would use in an interview. Don't get me wrong, these Taxpayers are very bad people, they hounded George, really hurt him. But I wouldn't have used the word psychotic, it's not a word I would use, I don't know, unless he [Baenziger] has me on tape."

So Graser didn't use the word... unless Baenziger has him on tape. According to Graser, who was unaware that he was speaking to a fairly well-known VTL boardmember, the league is made up of bad people, but they are not psychotic... unless Baenziger has Graser on tape.

OK. Moving right along.

No, not moving right along, because I'm beginning to get seriously pissed.

Ya know, over the years, the press has usually taken these folks' word as gospel and then reprinted their words as gospel. Its easy to see how the VTL has become so maligned over the years -- the league's members are the faceless evil ones who commit despicable acts by doing... something or other. The rounded up usual suspects who you already know are guilty.

I'll agree with Graser in part: there's definitely some psychotic behavior involved in all of this.

Only I didn't just use the word psychotic. Unless you just printed this page.

OK, now: moving right along.

The next day, I called up Baenziger, who stated that he did indeed interview Graser for the report on Hunt. I have no idea if Graser got to Hunt and then Hunt got to Baenziger -- there was certainly enough time. Anyway, I asked Baenziger about Graser's attributed quote and the use of the word psychotic. Baenziger was prepared: "We didn't quote him, we characterized what he said to us."

Huh?

How would you characterize something into the word psychotic? What word or idea could possibly be synonymous with such an over-the-top adjective? Which is what I immediately asked Baenziger: "Well, then what exactly was it that Graser said that you would have eventually characterized as translating to psychotic? I mean, it had to be something pretty strong because psychotic is right up there at the top of the scale."

Baenziger refused to answer the question and then he promptly ended the conversation as he stated that he was very busy.

I think he doesn't like me.

Then again, I could have hallucinated the whole thing.

*  While some people in the league (like myself) applauded Anderson for his actions after the fact for his filings of complaints with the state's ethics commission, the plain fact is that these were not actions taken by or at the behest of the VTL. While Anderson's city council candidacy in 2003 would later be endorsed by the league, he was not a member of the VTL when he announced his candidacy for office nor was he a member of the league when he filed his complaints with the ethics commission. Herb Levine and I were first introduced to Anderson at a bond rally on August 16, 2003, after he had announced his candidacy and I noted in an article at the time how Levine and I finally met this mystery man. Up until that date, neither I or Levine (or anyone on the board of the VTL) had a clue who Gary Anderson was or why he had decided to run for city council.

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.