What's going on here? When a coverup-prone Republican newspaper and two Republican elected officials unite to try to defeat the public interest, you know that "We, The People" are winning.
Sunday's Record editorial, Commissioner Nancy Sikes-Kline and Commissioner Leanna Freeman are uninformed and misguided, defending Crony Capitalism with fear, smear and shibboleths. No one believes them -- other than a few self-interested crony capitalists.
The Record misrepresented the views and voices of respected citizens, including people whose families lived her for some 237 more years than Director of Audience/Editor KATHY NELSON and Publisher DELINDA FOGEL, who caterwaul at First Amendment protected activity and direct Opinion Editor JAMES SUTTON to write garbage. I feel sorry for Mr. SUTTON, a real journalist, who has written great stories as Editor and good editorials as Opinion Editor. It's time for NELSON and FOGEL to resign in disgrace.
Some of the two Commissioners' friends are JOSEPH LESTER BOLES, JR. and CLAUDE LEONARD WEEKS, JR., ex-Mayors in cahoots on "milking the cow" of City properties, contracts and favors.
Color these two Commissioners misguided and mistaken. In fact, when I first met Nancy Sikes-Kline on the campaign trail at a tapas bar, I asked her about the City's dumping of a landfill in a lake. She responded, "Oh, it was a mistake." Gullible. Loyal to JOE BOLES and LEN WEEKS and the City Hall bureaucracy.
I admire loyalty. I like Commissioners Sikes-Kline and Freeman. I feel both grateful and defensive about both of them, who both stood up and voted against Mayor BOLES' excessive 450th budget.
As to Commissioner Leanna Freeman, I have referred clients to her, admiring her legal skills. Her analysis of the 7-Eleven case was exquisite and correct. Full disclosure: as Vice Mayor, she wrote a nice letter of recommendation to the UF Environmental Land and Land Use Planning Law LL.M. Program for me (one of some 52 such letters, and counting).
But loyalty to corruption is loyalty to corruption. Let Mayor Shaver do her job without fear, favor or heckling from hick hack sad sacks nostalgic for the days of personalism, cronyism and no-bid contracts. Enough gooberishness.
Commissioners Freeman and Sikes-Kline had nothing substantive to say about policy differences: they carp about personalities, the stuff of Dynasty mud fights and Fox News. It's time for policy discussions, charter amendments and government reform.
In the immortal words of William F. Buckley, Jr., "To the devil with the complaint."
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