Fun for the whole family
Here it is kids: your chance to write a story for Venice Florida! dot com. You read the public records docs (linked to above), you make a few phone calls to verify the information, maybe even pick up a few new tidbits, then write the story. Send it to us and we'll publish it!!!

You will be paid absolutely nothing, although if you are having a problem with your computer, we may give you a bit of free fix-it advice.

Make no mistake, this is the biggest scandal yet to come out of the Walia campaign. If you read the report carefully, you come to one inescapable conclusion: that Walia deliberately lied to police in sworn audio statements, as well as a sworn written affidavit, when he stated that his electric boxes at his house had been deliberately and repeatedly sabotaged (in spite of being told by his own electrician that it was a failure caused by a prior "Mickey Mouse job" of wiring), and that Walia used that accusation and the threat of his own self-perceived political power in an attempt to intimidate a contractor so that Walia would not have to pay a bill.

As supporting witnesses, Walia points to campaign staffer Heather Skeffington, a convicted burglar who is currently on probation for two counts of burglary and still awaiting charges on exploiting the elderly, and a licensed electrician from Best Electric that Walia had hired.

Skeffington backs up Walia's story as far as she can, stating that she would do anything "to protect [Walia], big time."

Electrician Ronald Parish provides the testimony and physical evidence to show that Walia and Skeffington invented the whole story as there was no damage caused by vandalism, that Walia's problems stemmed from shoddy workmanship that was at least a year or more old.

While that sounds circumstantial either way, when you read the full evidence that the police gathered, plus the fact that they catch Walia in a couple of lies while interviewing him, the evidence points to only one conclusion: Walia deliberately and knowingly filed false information in his affidavit.

In other words, Walia tried, and is still trying, to bully his way out of paying a legitimate bill, and he outright lied to police about a number of factors while trying to have his creditor falsely arrested.

OK, so now you know what to look for in this story.

Anyone can play
Even if you work for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune or the Venice Gondolier, you can play along -- just get your editors to pull their heads out of their collective asses and actually run the story, and we'll write a snappy and pithy headline teaser along with a genuine free HTML hyperlink to your work, so people can actually read it and marvel at your investigative news prowess.

Just in case the Herald-Tribune and the Gondolier can't figure it out, I'm asking each and every reader to print off two (2) copies each of the PDF file and hand-deliver it to a Gondo and an H-T staffer. At the Gondo, ask for Bob Mudge (editor) or Greg Giles (semi-literate useless tosser); at the Herald-Trib, demand to see either Victor Hull (editor), Eric Ernst (not a racist and he'd like to prove it to you), Zac Anderson (can be a fairly decent reporter when he writes about something other than solar power), or Kim Hackett (love her or hate her, the plain fact is that she has access to a lot more eyeballs than I do). If 30 or more copies get delivered, maybe the newspapers will even consider reading one of them. While you're there, consider canceling your subscription until they run the story. Send the money to this web site, instead. Amos needs a new bag of kibble.

A true Venice Florida! dot com WTF moment
The reason we are doing this is two-fold. One -- we hate trees and the tree-hugging hippies who hug them. The other is that maybe the two newspapers will actually do a bit of research instead of ... well writing dreck like this where the reporter pulled his head out of his own ass just long enough to stick it up the ass of Harbhajan Singh Ahluwalia (or Harry Walia as he is known to his friends, family, the courts, the police, and those he is trying to screw out their hard-earned cash). Hell, we're surprised the reporter didn't tell you what Walia had for breakfast that day.

On a more serious note -- these two newspapers have been well aware of the longstanding numerous ethical and legal problems associated with Walia's background. They have known about it and have refused to write about it, instead putting up puff pieces about him and, in the case of Eric Ernst, hinting that anyone who is a Walia detractor is likely a closet racist. This is wrong. If these were candidates for a state or national race, this stuff would be all over the news, but since this is a local race, the two papers appear to be hiding this information from you, the voter, and instead have been feeding you puff pieces and utter crap. This is so wrong that it is unconscionable, and you can help to stop it.

How to write the story
1.) Download this 18-page PDF (same doc as linked to at the top of this page). Print it if it makes it easier to read.

2.) Verify its authenticity by calling the Records Department at the Venice Police Department. You may want to request some additional documents or video discs that are referenced in the PDF file you are downloading from this site (we have, just this morning, requested attorney Diana Pankova's written affidavit as well as a DVD of the video of Walia's interview with detectives -- can you say YouTube?).

3.) Read it -- front to back -- carefully. It's actually a pretty entertaining read, so it won't take as long as you might think. Here's a hint on how to understand early what is going on in this story: start at page 13 of the PDF file (which is the same as page 8 of the "Narrative Print"), and read the description of the taped police interview of Ron Parish, electrician for Best Electric -- the whole story pivots on his witness statement and you need to know the content of his statement because you are going to read a lot about what other people want you to believe that he really said. Then go back to the beginning of the document and read it from front to back.

4.) On paper, sketch out your story, who and what to start with, the ending conclusion, some notes on how to get to the ending conclusion, and notes to remind yourself that this is all pretty damned hilarious stuff (or it should be by the time you finish writing it). Then start writing.

Feel free to indulge in your favorite drugs while writing -- my drug of choice is using espresso grounds instead of regular coffee grounds in a standard coffee maker, and then I drink a least half a pot. That gets me in just the right agitated and angry frame of mind. If the dog can stand to be in the same room with me, I haven't consumed enough of it yet. You, on the other hand, might choose peyote instead. Hey, whatever works.

5.) Sit on it for a couple of hours (not literally -- that would be weird), then come back and do your first and second rewrites, mainly for logical ordering and to insert even more nasty and witty barbs. Don't forget to add in a few cultural or literary references just to show how hip you really are.

6.) Check and double check your facts. This usually involves phoning people or asking for additional documentation. Even the little facts. If you can't validate, say, Ahluwalia's exact height, don't mention it at all. Since the overall story you will write will be true and totally devastating, these pinheads will use any tiny error to attempt to derail the entire story (a tactic known as straw-manning the story), so being absolutely correct in even the tiny details is critically and vitally important.

The "questions linger" questions
Some questions you may want to mention or research to make the story more interesting:

-- Was Walia really with Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum? How does McCollum feel about being name-dropped to support a flurry of provably false criminal accusations made by Walia? Does the Attorney General approve of jailing workmen as a way of avoiding paying them?

-- Skeffington and her hilarious comments (remember her from this web site's recent story?) -- does she really work for the Ritz-Carlton in Sarasota, and if so, is she supposed to somehow fit in with Walia's hopes for his own luxury hotel at the airport through his company Green Apples Hotels?

-- Is this a noticeable pattern on the part of Walia: run a scam to avoid paying a bill? Has he ever been known to do it before? (hint: why yes... yes he has...)

-- Is Walia cheap, psychotic, or just an insufferable dumbass prick? Ask a local psychiatrist to weigh in with his/her views.

-- What about Walia's girlfriend, attorney Diana Pankova -- what did she write in her affidavit? As an attorney accepted at the Florida Bar, did she have any responsibility to behave differently than she did? Is she really, as Walia stated, his girlfriend or is she his beard?

-- Despite this and a companion incident, why have the police let Walia slide? Why was he not charged with a couple of different counts of filing false police reports? How much money in police man-hours did Walia waste?

-- Could this be an ethics violation with the state's Ethics Commission? Is anyone planning on filing a complaint? Does the Ethics Commission have jurisdiction over a candidate running for office? If so, that would make Walia the first politician ever in the history of Venice to have a complaint lodged against him prior to actually being elected (a few years back, then-mayor Dean Calamaras and then-councilman Jim Myers had complaints lodged against them with the Ethics Commission; the commission ruled that the pair were in violation of state ethics rules, this stemming from illegal campaign activities, however the pair of them were running for re-election at the time).

Then email your wondrous creation to jpatten@veniceflorida.com. If it passes high on our patented Snark 'O' Meter, we'll publish it and give you the byline. We are serious -- we will publish the best story (or the only story if only one is submitted).

Can't write? Don't want to? That's OK. Just print off copies and drive over to the offices of the newspaper pros that we mentioned earlier on this page. Raise a bit of a ruckus -- that always helps.

Above all, have fun. This is a learning experience and education should be fun.

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.