OPTIMISTIC OR STUPID? IT’S A COMMON QUESTION IN THESE
bleak economic times, as Wall Street buckles and layoffs
surge. Were we optimistic or stupid to believe — post-Enron,
post-dotcom bubble, post-Mission Accomplished — that we
could put our faith in the well-heeled and politically powerful,
and trust their promises of prosperity and success?
Hope springs eternal and all of that, but at what point does a
sucker learn to quit?
The question hits rather close to home
these days, and not just because our 401K
is in the toilet. Last week, St. Johns County
Commission Chairman Tom Manuel was
indicted for bribery. According to the twocount
federal indictment, Manuel accepted
two cash payments totaling $60,000
“intending to be influenced and rewarded
in connection with [county] business.”
The indictment wasn’t exactly unexpected.
Most county officials and observers
have been waiting for it to drop ever since
county Sheriff David Shoar told a reporter
in June that the FBI was investigating
Manuel and that he expected the chairman
to be indicted within weeks. Manuel
denied there was a probe, calling the allegation
“a political hatchet job,” “absolutely
untrue” and “political slander.” In case anyone
doubted his conviction, he added,
“The sheriff ’s a liar.”
When the FBI confirmed an investigation
was indeed ongoing, Manuel told the
St. Augustine paper that it had been “inappropriate”
to call Shoar a liar, and offered
this strange, passive-voice apology: “I was
saddened I called anybody a name,” he
said. “I don’t do that.”
For the record, Manuel
still says he’s innocent of the
charges against him. (He was
suspended from the commission
by Gov. Charlie Crist the
day after the indictment was
announced.) But it’s increasingly
difficult to believe him.
Not just because his initial
denial now seems like a cynical
bit of political theater. Not just
because well-sourced rumors suggest
Manuel’s indictment stems from his effort
to sell out county residents to developers.
But because, at the end of the day, we
think we’ve been Tom Manuel suckers
long enough.
It’s important to point out here that
two years ago, this column made a rare
political endorsement. The Aug. 29, 2006
Editor’s Note fleshed out the controversies
that had emerged in the race between Tom
Manuel and then-incumbent Bruce
Maguire, including some not-so-subtle
insinuations linking Manuel to organized
crime. Folio Weekly had previously
reported on those allegations (Manuel
operated a casino on the Caribbean island
of St. Maarten with Clifford Perlman, a
mob-connected figure considered suspect
enough that the New Jersey Gaming Commission
refused to let him do business
there). We had also reported on Manuel’s
dubious tenure at Sunset Financial, a
Northeast Florida commercial and residential
mortgage business that failed rather
spectacularly in 2004, not long after
Manuel joined as an executive. (Bad investments
in delinquent loans caused the company’s
commercial loan division to tank,
and the company’s stock lost two-thirds of
its value. Manuel, who was on the committee
that oversaw commercial loans, was terminated
soon after.)
Despite Manuel’s considerable baggage,
we endorsed his candidacy. As chair of the
county’s Planning and Zoning Agency, we
noted, Manuel had taken a stubborn, even
combative, stance against unplanned
growth. He’d also refused to accept campaign
donations from developers, choosing
to compete with less than $10,000 in campaign
funds, compared to his opponent’s
developer-funded war chest of $83,000.
Noting that the incumbent, Bruce
Maguire, had already lay down for developers,
special interests and suburban sprawl,
we suggested that the race was between a
known evil and a theoretical one. Even if
Manuel proved to be “a mobster and a
crook,” we wrote, he could at least be relied
upon to fight rampant growth and overdevelopment.
Conjuring the popular
Louisiana bumper sticker from the 1991
governor’s race between the corrupt Edwin
Edwards and former Ku Klux Klansman
David Duke, we wrote, “Vote for the
crook. It’s important.”
Whether that kind of reasoning is
rooted in optimism is open for debate.
What is not debatable is the fact that the
endorsement was wrong. Whatever Bruce
Maguire did while serving as a County
Commissioner — and we still firmly
believe most of it was not good — he did
not get indicted for bribery. He did not get
suspended amid scandal. He did not call
the sheriff a liar for telling the truth.
At a time when everyone is recalibrating
the worth of their investments, it’s pretty
clear that the stock we placed in Tom
Manuel was overvalued. We may not be
able to erase that error, but at least we can
correct the books.
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