Oh Mr. Simmonds, can you explain this one, too?
Simmonds types an email -- one more from the lost episodes
-- John Patten, 06/23/08, 5:00 PM
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

Got a comment? Make it here.

Photo: John Simmonds on the witness stand on June 11; pool photo, courtesy of WWSB-TV

The plot thickens

"On the bright side, none of the documents have revealed plots or evidence of corruption. For the most part, they're just the typical exchanges one would expect in government. That's all the more reason to save those exchanges for a public forum."
-- Eric Ernst, Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 06/15/08, on council emails in the current public records and Sunshine Law brouhaha

Herald-Trib writer Eric Ernst was referring to emails from rookie council members Sue Lang, Ernie Zavodnyik, and Mayor Ed Martin. The trio have been the focus of the Trib's investigation into Sunshine Law and public records violations. What Ernst wrote was true from what the Herald-Tribune knew on the morning of publication, June 15.

It would not hold true through the day, however.

By mid-day on June 15, Venice Florida! dot com had published a series of emails from early January between Councilman John Simmonds and Venice Jet Center CEO, Art Nadel. Those emails revealed deeply held hostilities on the part of Simmonds towards the three then-newly elected council members and appear to be the initial conspiratorial seeds for what would later turn into the present scandal that would, in turn, turn around and viciously bite Simmonds on his own bum.

It also kind of blew Ernst's theory right out the window. To be fair, Ernst and the Herald-Tribune would likely not yet have had knowledge of the contents of Simmonds' emails by June 15. They've had more than a week since then, though, and they've emitted nary a peep so far.

Your minimum daily requirement of irony
The irony and hypocrisy in Simmonds is shown in the earlier published January emails. In those emails, he was advocating legal action against the trio of new council members while he was violating public records laws by sending the emails and then deleting them. Whether or not such deletions were deliberate is turning into a moot point as more and more of his hidden communications are beginning to float out into the sunshine, pun intended.

The Herald-Tribune is intent on focusing solely on Martin, Lang, and, to a lesser extent, Zavodnyik. The criticism that the H-T is giving back to critics of their coverage is that we out here seem content to justify wrongdoing as long as it is done by "our" side. Not true. Both Lang and Martin put out some wrong emails. They shouldn't have done it. It was a stupid thing to do. Additionally, John Moore was sucked into the morass and he, like Lang, has publicly acknowledged the wrongdoing and has apologized.

But (and this is a very significant "but" from both an ethical and legal perspective) from what had been made public up to the morning of June 15, everything that had being written privately was mirrored by public statements and stances. The emails released from Lang and Martin that crossed the line into potential Sunshine Law violations were all continuations of long, drawn out dialogs that drifted in and out of public view. Not good at all and this web site is not excusing the politicos for the offending emails, but as Eric Ernst noted, there were no surprises, no smoking guns, no hidden agendas.

That changed with the release by this web site of a small set of previously hidden emails that Simmonds has stated under oath that he has deleted.

It's rarely the crime that gets pols into trouble, it's the cover up
Where this web site in particular is so critical of the Herald-Trib is because the newspaper only focused on the few offenses by their least favorite pols while ignoring the bigger story. Additionally, the paper has repeatedly stretched beyond the facts and the law in efforts to make the offenses discovered so far somehow more numerous and egregious than the facts at hand would support.

Where the Herald-Trib hasn't been looking is where things get murky and sinister.

Take the below email, for instance, from John Simmonds, one that the Herald-Trib should have found in their collection of emails by now. It is clearly of a conspiratorial nature (Ernst's word). It's one that likely will be argued as a violation of the Sunshine Law, as Simmonds is an ex-officio board member of the Airport Advisory Board. The email is addressed to fellow AAB board members Nick Carlucci, Bart Bartanowicz, Susan Balsinger, Kim Stephens, and John Yurasko.

Here, Simmonds is attempting to rally the troops into insurrection against current city council members by gathering information and forming policy initiatives against the concept of rolling back the Venice airport to a B-2 purposed airport (or, more correctly, a B II), which Simmonds totally misunderstands and instead somehow confuses with a German rocket from World War II, a V-2.

If nothing else, it clearly shows why Simmonds is so quick to hit the delete key on his keyboard.

Pay attention, folks: the big crime here isn't the hidden discussion that appears to violate the Sunshine Law. The big crime is the cover up: the willful deletion of public records in violation of Florida's public records laws.

There are, no doubt, plenty more of these to come once attorney Andrea Mogensen does her forensic examination of Simmonds' computer(s), and that's when we'll all get a real insider's view into Venice's long-hidden real government.
 

Subject: Baloney
Date: 11/28/2007 4:55 PM
From: [John Simmonds] aloha1329@comcast_net
To: [Bart Bartanowicz] rbartano@comcast.net, [Nick Carlucci] joecessna72@verizon.net, [Kim Stephens] kim@homesofvenice,com, [Susan Balsinger?] SSSB519@aol.com, [John Yurasko] JJYUROSKO@ao] com
CC: aloha1329@camcast.net

Folks

Last night during Council audience participation 3 guys claiming impressive credentials "brother in lawed" themselves, one behind the other' trying to down play Airport development. Their pitch was to hold up the development plan and lower everything from projected growth through c-2 to v-2. They emphasized that the FAA will not tell a city what to do but, rather; it is up to the cities As Dan Boon said they effectively parlayed 5 minute limitations into a 15 minute presentation. Brenner followed them with his trash. Sue Grinned a lot. I suspect it was her script.

There was no one from "our" aviation community to take issue with them. We can expect more of this and we need some of our folks to counter their nonsense. Moore was impressed with their professed qualifications.

I need to back up my impressions with facts.1st. question: isn't it so, that we are already contracted out to tenants like "Jet Center" past V2? If so We might have to buy out their contract for millions or face a nasty Law suit if we down graded to V2. Right ???? Maybe other tenants also? Who?

Talk to me!!!

John

 

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.