Florida
appears to be heavily laden with corruption.
A current report states that Florida is number 10 on the list of the 10
most corrupt states in the country. I
have read reports from previous years where Florida has been number 1, the most
corrupt state in the country. Governor
Scott has been in charge for the last four years and Governor Crist was in
charge for the four years before that. Together
they have been in charge of Florida for the last eight years during which time
Florida has consistently rated in the bottom 20% of states properly handling
corruption. During this same time, Florida
had 4 cities (Pensacola is number 6) in the category of 10 most dangerous small
cities in the country. It appears that
the Governors of at least forty-six other states have managed to keep their
small cities safer than either of these Florida Governors. This appears to be an F minus for both
candidates.
While
each candidate reports serious crimes on the part of the other candidate and
points out the small successes during their term, neither of them have spoken
about the apparent major problems in Florida—crime and corruption—and what they
plan to do to correct that situation.
I,
like many others, have repeatedly reported apparent illegal/criminal actions on
the part of elected or appointed government officials who have harmed and
victimized the public. I discussed some
of these illegal actions in my blogs:
pensacolanewsletter.blogspot.com and pensacolanewsletter2.blogspot.com.
In
addition to the excessive corruption which has harmed us as a member of the
public, Pensacola City Officials have individually targeted my business with
false charges, false accusations, hostility, bullying, force, and abuse of
authority by illegally interfering with the legal operation of our authorized
business.
Since most people seem to be unaware of
the high level of crime and corruption in Florida, and especially in Pensacola,
I have decided to describe my experiences of being an unwilling victim of crime
and corruption in the hopes that my disclosure will inspire government
officials to end the high rate of corruption in Florida and especially in
Pensacola.
We
had been officially and legally authorized, on two occasions, to operate our
business as an art gallery/antique shop holding functions, by Pensacola
Department Heads in May, 2000, and by the Pensacola City Council on January 11,
2001. This fact is part of the official
records of the Pensacola City Council which can be found at ci.pensacola.fl.us.
Our
business was authorized and had operated, including the previous owner, at the
same location – for over 25 years - with no complaints. The business, an art gallery/antique shop
holding functions, was in an historic house, built in 1883, and was located in
the North Hill Preservation district. We
had been law-abiding citizens, paying our taxes on time, keeping our property
up and dutifully obeying Pensacola Ordinances. We operated our business
strictly as authorized. We enjoyed collecting antiques and art
pieces for resale. We also enjoyed seeing the family reunions, weddings,
gallery nights and other social functions take place in our beautiful building
especially the candlelight weddings (I supplied the candles and flowers free of
charge) for young servicemen and women where I performed the marriage ceremony
as I am a notary public.
Since we have worked so hard all our
lives, we wanted to enjoy our retirement by doing things we loved and, at the
same time, add income to our fixed retirement income. We have followed the
rules and neighbors, guests and city officials have repeatedly stated that we
have added greatly to the appearance of the neighborhood. Our contract
called for no hard liquor out of respect for the bride and our property. All of the functions went well. There were never any complaints from our
neighbors, customers or city officials. We were in a good position, as many
venues for weddings had been heavily damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Ivan. We had survived and quickly repaired the
damage. We were completely booked for
the foreseeable future.
On
March 19, 2005, without notice and out of nowhere, a police cruiser showed up
during a wedding at 7:00 PM on a Saturday evening causing a disturbance with
lights flashing and driving the wrong way on a one-way street. The Pensacola Police Officer loudly declared,
in front of many witnesses, that we were not authorized to have weddings and
stated that our business was closed down.
I stated to him that we had been authorized by city officials to have functions
and that functions had taken place at that location for 25 years with no
problem. He said our business was closed
down and that was that.
It appeared that
City Officials used the Pensacola Police Department to illegally close down our
business, without due process. This was
the day before City Officials announced in the Sunday newspaper that they were
going to build a forty-million-dollar Maritime Park at the end of our
street.
The Supreme Law
of the Land, the United States Constitution, requires due process (Amendments 5
and 14) and equal protection (Amendment 14) for an action such as this. Instead, City Officials skipped to the
punishment stage, illegally closing down our legally authorized business.
Sunday
morning I called the Pensacola Police desk sergeant who said that he was
familiar with the incident and background and that if we tried to reopen or
hold a function, a police officer would be dispatched. The Pensacola News Journal had a front page
article in the MONEY section announcing the plans for the Community Maritime
Park to be constructed on our street.
On Monday morning, March 21, 2005, I
called Mr. Cowper, Director of the Community Development Department and
reminded him that we had been properly vetted, legally and officially
authorized to operate an art gallery/antique shop having functions in
1999-2000. That we had been approved for these uses, including functions, by
all relevant City Departments in May, 2000, again approved by the Pensacola
City Council on January 11, 2001, for these uses, including functions
memorialized by a Pensacola City Ordinance, and had been approved by County and
State Officials for these uses, including functions.
I told him that City Officials had not
issued a prior notice of anything being wrong – informing us that we were in
violation - before the surprise illegal close down of our business by the
Pensacola Police Department. I told him
that City Officials did not follow due process to show we were in violation of
any ordinance, procedure or law. Mr.
Cowper said that we were completely closed down and that we would be charged
with committing a crime if we reopened.
I submitted extensive documentation
to Governor Bush and he refused to stop the apparent illegal/criminal actions
against us.
I submitted extensive documentation to Governor
Christ and to his aide, Mr. Newman, showing that our business had been properly
authorized as being in compliance with all regulations, including zoning,
parking, official authorization, etc.
Below is a copy of the email I sent to
Mr. Warren Davis, Interim Director of Citizen Services, on December 7, 2007.
“Dear Mr. Warren Davis, Interim Director of Citizen Services
In response to my letter to the Governor in August, 2007, I received a
letter from Mr. Newman, dated September 14, 2007, referring us
to our local government for resolution of our problem with the local government
breaking the law. Unfortunately, this has
not worked. As I stated in my initial
letter to Governor Crist, we have been writing to the local government for over
two and one half years pointing out that they are breaking the law and asking
them to stop. So far, they have refused
to stop.
Since the Governor is the Chief Law
Enforcement Officer in the State, it is his responsibility to see that the laws
of the State of Florida and the Country are followed. This is not happening in Pensacola. We have been denied our rights under the
Florida Constitution and the United States Constitution and the Governor has
the responsibility and the authority to resolve this situation.
I am requesting, under the appropriate
public records and public information acts and laws, a copy of all
correspondence, notes and summary of phone calls relating to our situation, our
property or ourselves....”
We did not receive the information I
requested and we did not receive any assistance in stopping the illegal actions
against us.
On March 15, 2008, the Pensacola
News Journal published an article written by the Florida Attorney General, Bill
McCollum, titled, “Sunshine Law protects your right to know.”
Attorney General McCollum stated
that the “Sunshine Law provides a right of access to government proceedings at
both the state and local levels.” Most
of my requests for information regarding issues I was involved in, made under
the provisions of Florida’s Sunshine Law and the Freedom of Information Act,
have been ignored or denied outright (DBPR).
While Attorney General McCollum’s article makes it sound that the
Sunshine Law rights are respected and obeyed, I have found that they were
not. I informed Attorney General McCollum about the illegal closing of our authorized business and the refusal to comply with out request for information. He did nothing about the apparent illegal/criminal situation.
I received a letter from Mr. Newman, the
Governor’s Office, dated March 17, 2008:
“Dear Ms. Mead
Thank you for contacting Governor Crist.
The Governor appreciates your concerns about decisions on the use of
your property made by local officials and asked me to respond on his behalf.
Although the Governor appreciates the opportunity to review your
concerns, your issue is a local government matter. As you may know, our government is structured
on the principle that local communities can best assess the needs of their
residents. For that reason, your best
option is to continue to work with your locally elected officials to resolve
this issue.
The state attorney should be contacted by those who believe locally
elected officials have violated criminal laws.
You can obtain the name of the state attorney in your circuit by calling
directory assistance. The Ethics
Commission should be contacted by those who believe elected officials have used
their office for private gain. That
address is Post Office Box 25709, Tallahassee, Florida, 32317-5709, and the
telephone number is (850) 488-7864.
Thank you again for writing. For information
about the Governor’s initiatives, please visit our Web site at www.flgov.com.
Sincerely,
Signed/typed Rex T. Newman
Office of Citizen Services
Mr. Newman continued to define the
problem as “concerns about decisions on the use of your property made by local
officials” when the facts were that City Officials illegally closed us down
without due process (violation of our rights under the United States
Constitution); prohibited us from receiving income from our properly authorized
commercial property (appears to be grand theft in violation of Florida State
Statutes); conspired together to extort
us to close and remain closed based on force, threats, and bullying; made false
accusations, statements and reports to those I reported the apparent
illegal/criminal actions to; refused to furnish correspondence I requested under
the Public Information Act and the Sunshine law, etc. Extortion, grand theft, conspiracy, making
false reports to state agencies, and other actions which Pensacola City
Officials appeared to routinely practice appear to be felonies and were in
violation of Florida State Statutes. All
Florida State agencies I contacted refused to accept responsibility for
stopping apparent illegal/criminal actions against us.
Mr. Newman, representing Governor Crist,
and all other Florida State Officials I have contacted falsely define this
matter as “a local government matter” or as a “civil” matter instead of abuse
of authority and probable corruption on the part of public officials; and
stated they would do nothing to investigate and stop the actions being committed
against us.
On
April 8, 2008, I, again, wrote to Governor Crist’s Office.
“Dear Mr. Newman
I
am enclosing a letter, dated March 9, 2008, that I sent to Mr. DuBose at our
State Attorney’s office. I have heard
nothing regarding my letter.
As
I previously stated to you, we have been writing to the local government for
over three years pointing out that they are breaking the law, stripping us of
our income from our commercial property downtown by illegally closing us
down—an illegal activity they have refused to stop. We have been writing to the City Council for
almost 10 years, pointing out other illegal activities on their part which have
caused us and others great harm.
As
I’ve explained, in Pensacola, we cannot get our local governmental officials or
our elected officials to follow the law and do their job.
Mr.
Newman, we have aggressively pursued these apparent crimes through the state
Agencies set up to handle them - State Attorney, Attorney General, Chief
Inspector General, FDLE, etc.- and no one will effectively address these issues
therefore, we are again asking that the Governor oversee this situation.
We
can be reached at (850) 433-7711. Thank
you for your assistance.
Sincerely,
--------------------
“Tallahassee – Gov. Charlie Crist asked the Florida Supreme Court
Wednesday to impanel a special grand jury for a year-long investigation into “a
culture of corruption” among public officials.
At a brief news conference with Bill shepherd, the statewide prosecutor
in Attorney General Bill McCollum’s office, Crist said the special grand jury
he is seeking will focus on South Florida.
But he emphasized that it is not working on any single case, such as the
recent arrest of Broward County eye surgeon Alan Mendelsohn – who raised money
for Crist and served on his 2006 transition team.
Broward County School Board member Beverly Gallagher and County
Commissioner Josephus Eggelletion also have been charged with corruption, and two
building contractors face charges of attempting to pay off unidentified Miramar
city officials.
“Recently, we have experienced an unsettling string of crimes,
unconscionable violations of the public’s trust by public officials,
predominantly in South Florida,” Crist said.
“The people deserve better.”
Governor Crist petitioned the Supreme Court to create a grand jury to
investigate allegations of corruption, indict those involved and make
recommendations to fix “the fundamental problems within the system that may in
fact be cultivating a culture of corruption.”
“Crist, a candidate for the U.S. Senate, and Shepherd were joined by Lt.
Gov. Jess Kottkemp, who is running for attorney general next year, and Florida Department of Law
Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey.
McCollum, who is running for governor, issued a statement of support.”
Apparently the “special grand jury for a
year-long investigation into “a culture of corruption” among public officials”
never amounted to a serious undertaking but appeared to be press releases for
people running for office. The “”culture
of corruption” among public officials continued to be a serious problem.
I
wrote Governor Charlie Crist, again, on October 28, 2010:
“Dear
Governor Crist
We
have repeatedly requested protection against apparent criminal/illegal actions
committed against us in violation of the United States Constitution, Florida
Statutes and local ordinances regarding the Pensacola Mayor, Pensacola City
Council and Pensacola City Officials illegally denying us the legal authorized
use of our private historic property listed on the National Register of
Historic Places. So far, you have
refused to stop the apparent criminal/illegal actions against us.”
I
also asked for all communications regarding myself except for correspondence
generated by me.
Governor
Crist did not answer this letter and did not send the information I requested.
Each time I have written the Governor (including
Governor Bush, Governor Crist and Governor Scott), the Governor sends us back
to FDLE who will do nothing to stop apparent illegal/criminal actions against
us on the part of officials to take our property away from us (not imminent
domain, which would be a civil matter, but an illegal closing without due
process).
Governor Scott’s aide, Mr. Newman, did not respond
to my letter of August 7, 2011. I wrote
him again on September 16, 2011.
Dear
Mr. Newman
I have received no answer to my letter to you of
August 7, 2011.
I
asked that you investigate the apparent illegal/criminal actions against us,
lift the illegal prohibition on me operating my legally authorized business,
and bring charges against all who are breaking the law.
I
asked, under the Public Information Act, all correspondence, except generated
by me, regarding our situation.
I
am again asking, this time under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), all
correspondence, except generated by me, regarding our situation.
Sincerely,
Mary Mead
Mr. Newman, Governor Scott’s aide, never responded
to this letter either or did anything to stop the felonies being committed
against us. It appears that Governor
Scott and his aide have no problem with citizens of the state being victimized
by public officials.
