Transparency and the North Bay Village Trujillo Tax

The Rey Trujillo Mayoral Campaign got $2000 from Waste Management Systems and related companies on September 21, 2010. On September 28, Rey Trujillo voted without debate to turn our garbage collection over to Waste Management Systems.

Waste Management Systems of Leon County (Pompano Beach) - $500
Waste Management Systems of Florida (Pompano Beach) - $500
Okeechobee Landfill (Pompano Beach) - $500
Harris Sanitation Pompano Beach (Pompano Beach) - $500

The sudden interest of Waste Management Systems in the governance of North Bay Village is surprising. Until you consider how much money was on the table on September 28 at the special commission meeting.

Trujillo's slogan is "Transparency, Integrity and Experience". A truly transparent member of the commission would have recused himself from the dais when such an obvious conflict of interest arose.

The campaign finance report is attached. Look for Page 2 for a complete list of Trujillo Donors

Campaign Finance Report 10/1/10

Kevin Vericker
October 4, 2010

The Race

Mayoral candidate Corina Esquijarosa plans a community meeting of October 15, 2010 at 7601 E. Treasure Drive (The Grand View Palace) Suite 23 from 6:30 PM to 8:30 PM.

Esquijarosa is running on a platform of "More about People, Less about Politics". She holds a Masters of Public Administration and is employed by the City of Miami. I spoke with her at some length over the weekend and found her to be a refreshing change from the current political climate. I recommend checking her campaign out at Facebook.

In other news, the court still has to decide if Marta Lorenzo and Rene Alonso are qualified for the race and that is expected this week. You may have read previous news reports that they were out, but that is not the case. What happened was that an emergency injunction was not granted but the hearing on the merits has not yet taken place. Watch for more news.

Don't forget tomorrow night is the final budget hearing at 6:30 at the Treasure Island School. The hot issues are the garbage privatization and the end of side yard pickup. The PAL / DARE program suspension is sure to provide some fireworks.

Come see for yourself the effect of having to cover the almost $500,000 the city has been forced to spend in non value added costs at Rey Trujillo's behest. Higher taxes, lower services, fewer grants, more lawsuits. Maybe even take a moment to tell him how you appreciate his stewardship. Oh, also, Mr Trujillo is on the board at the Grandview Palace. Maybe we can find out when that board plans to pay the city the $57,000 in firewatch bills? You know, that have been sitting there since 2005?

Kevin Vericker
September 27, 2010

Slander, Libel, Gossip - It's Campaign Season

Since I started this blog in January, there is a standing offer to turn over the blog for other people to post their points of view. Now it's not an open offer. I put three conditions I consider reasonable on the offer.

• The posting needs to be signed.
  
• Any information presented as factual must be verifiable.
  
• It may be edited for clarity but only after those edits have been agreed by me and the poster.

This offer was and is open to all. I particularly welcome such postings from people who don't agree with me, of whom there are several. The only person who took me up on this offer was Tim O'Regan who wrote about his experience when he was proposed to be interim police chief. You can read that post by clicking here in case you missed it.

Last week, there was a second submission, by someone with whom I often disagree. (Oh, what the heck, let me put in an exclamation point, two in fact.) !! I want this and I think the readers (300 per week and rising) do too. After reviewing the submission and offering suggested edits for grammar, spelling and clarity, there was one sticking point. Something damaging about an individual was stated as fact. The problem is that there is no way to prove or disprove the statement, nor is there any legal way for the writer to know the truth.

I responded to the request asking that this one sentence be removed since it fit the legal definition of a libel, that is a damaging, unproven assertion printed about an individual. Not an interpretation but an unsupported fact. I do check with a lawyer on these issues, paid for out of my own pocket, and he was quite clear that this should not be published without either a source named or a document. After some back and forth, the poster did not comply, I could not verify the information with the target of the information, and the original poster requested that I not publish his submission.

I am respecting that, although I am not bound to. Later this week, maybe tomorrow, I will frame the arguments in the post about what constitutes suitable qualification for holding public office in North Bay Village. Probably after that, I will write about what's happening now as we enter campaign season and the race for mayor starts out ugly. But right now, I am just writing about my deep disappointment that even simple discussions about North Bay Village politics so quickly degenerate to unwarranted mudslinging.

Dialogue and strongly voiced disagreement matter, and I encourage the readers to send their own views, as long as they conform to the conditions above, but no made up stuff or stuff you can't prove.

This is probably as good a time as any to remind readers on the comment policy. I don't allow anonymous comments and you need to have a Google account to comment here. I didn't want to do that originally but the comments quickly degenerated to personal insults against people not even in public life, threats of physical retaliation and incoherence. There are a lot of places that enable this - LEOAFFAIRS.COM for one but not here. So if you want to comment, get a Google account and be open about it.

Kevin Vericker
July 26, 2010