http://cleanupcityofstaugustine.blogspot.com/2015/12/anti-bribery-campaign-in-st-augustine.html
Thanks to The St. Augustine Record for opposing corruption today:
Editorial: Corruption bill may stand a chance this time around
Posted: January 30, 2016 - 11:08pm | Updated: January 31, 2016 - 12:13am
There’s some good news, for a change, about politics in Florida.
In 2012 the Sunshine State was named the crookedest state in the nation, in terms of political corruption — based on the number of federal corruption convictions, gleaned from Department of Justice files.
The 2015 report, recently released, now ranks Florida third in the country, currently behind Texas and California.
Additionally there are dozens of state and local convictions each year. St. Johns County’s had its share over the years.
Florida also improved in the 2014 State Integrity investigation — from an “F” to a “D-minus.”
But what’s chilling about the numbers is how little they tell.
First, bid-riggers or bribe-givers have to get caught. So, for the sake of argument, let’s say one in 10 do. Then that offender has to be convicted. And very few are, because Florida law makes it difficult to prosecute a case. More on that in a moment.
In fact, state prosecutors call bribery and bid-rigging a “corruption tax” that you won’t find on your county or city tax bill, but it comes out of your pockets just the same. It’s impossible to put a figure to it, but experts say corruption costs taxpayers hundreds of million each year in Florida alone.
A grand jury was empaneled five years ago, and came up with several recommendations that lawmakers brushed aside. Bills, of course, were filed, but died in the dark hallways of bureaucracy — quietly.
There may be some light at the end of that hallway this year. The House has passed an ethics bill and the Senate takes up its version this week.
The bills attack corruption in two key ways.
First, Florida’s public-corruption statutes do not apply to government contractors. Yes, they’re the ones who most violate those laws: And, no, we have no idea how they came to become exempt from it (but it’s a pretty good bet money changed hands somewhere). The new bills expand the definition of public servants so that government vendors can be prosecuted under bribery and misuse of office statutes.
They also remove from state law the mind-boggling language that so hampers prosecutors. Currently they have to prove that a defendant acted “corruptly” or with “corrupt intent.” This requires a much higher burden of proof, because prosecutors need to prove what the defendant was “thinking” when the transaction occurred.
Under the proposed law, prosecutors would need to prove only that the defendant acted “knowingly.”
The Senate bill might also include an increased fine of up to $20,000 for ethics violations, and is looking at allowing Florida’s ethics commission to open investigations on its own. Currently it acts only on written complaints.
Thus far, the bill is no further along than its predecessors following the grand jury recommendations. But this time around it’s getting the attention from the press and public it demands — call it a little bit of sunshine in the darkened halls. This year it seems to have bipartisan support. And this year, it has the backing of two of Tallahassee’s heavy hitters, former Senate President Don Gaetz and the incoming chair of the Appropriations Committee, Sen. Jack Latvala.
Corruption is tough to uncover and will likely never go away. The new corruption legislation will at least help punish those involved — and hopefully frighten others before becoming involved.
One suggestion: It might at least make the legislation look better if lawmakers cracked down as hard on the bribe-takers as the bribe-givers.
You agree?
TIME FOR A NO-BRIBERY CAMPAIGN IN FLORIDA
We need an anti-bribery campaign in the State of Florida.
People who are offered bribes should turn in the bribepayer.
People who are asked to give bribes should turn in the public official.
A culture of corruption can be changed one day at a time, just as courageous citizens have done in Sicily.
Stand up to bribepayers and bribetakers, who destroy our democracy.
Interesting that there's never been one editorial in local newspapers against bribery, even though our former Republican County Commission Chair and a county zoning official pled guilty to bribery and the FBI Corruption Task Force in Daytona is hot on the trail of local corruption.
"Does it show?" Those were the immortal words of U.S. Rep. Richard Kelly (R-Florida), stuffing $25,000 into his pockets during the ABSCAM scandal, prosecuted by the late Roger Adelman of the United States Attorney's office for the District of Columbia, who died recently.
"It shows" -- ask the St. Augustine neighbors concerned about the DOW PUD, treated disrespectfully by four out of five Commissioners. In addition to the corrupt University of Florida "Opinion Paper," and the conflicted City Commissioner who requested it, there was the stench of corruption in our City Commission meeting room on August 24-2015.
Commissioners TODD NEVILLE, NANCY SIKES-KLINE, LEANNA FREEMAN and ROXANNE HORVATH are unjust stewards. Time for them to go.
FBI must investigate them and their ties to developers, as well as two paid-off Historic Architectural Review Board members (JEREMY MARQUIS and HARB Vice Chair PAUL M. WEAVER, III) both working in tandem for developer DAVID BARTON CORNEAL's payroll (in possible violation of 18 U.S.C. 666 and Sunshine laws), as well as our estimable former Vice Mayor, DONALD CRICHLOW, working as a lobbyist less than two years after leaving office in violation of Florida ethics laws. F.S. 112.313(14).
Is the culture of corruption in the State of Florida that pervasive that the WRecKord can't write an editorial calling for whistle blowing in the midst of an FBI anti-corruption investigation of local fiefdoms, including Sheriff DAVID BERNERD SHOAR f/k/a "HOAR?"
There's corruption in our midst. "It shows."
What do you reckon?
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