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Venice4PositiveFuture: Got a comment? Make it here.
Simmonds gets angry, blames the usual suspects Simmonds has also been very vocal in stating that the city has not courted any developers, that the recent proposals by five developers were situations in which the developers approached the city out of the blue, NOT the other way around. That may seem like a minor quibble. As you'll see later on, it is anything but. To counter, groups (including this web site) have been hammering back at Simmonds. While there is no proof that any such deal has been sealed with the city itself, the Herald-Tribune has reported that the Venice Golf Association has inked a deal with Amalthea Investments to sell the golf course lease to Amalthea, ostensibly for the purpose of building a high-end Marriott resort complex directly across the street from Caspersen Beach. All of this would be contingent on city approval of the transfer of the VGA lease to Amalthea. E.G. 'Dan' Boone is acting as attorney for the VGA in that deal while his son and law partner, Jeff Boone, is acting as attorney for Amalthea. It is also known that last year, former city councilman (and husband of current Vice-Mayor Vicki Taylor) Ed Taylor, acting as a representative of Amalthea Investments, had been involved in tentative meetings with City Manager Marty Black and meetings with Dan Boone. While that should have been enough to keep Taylor very busy, Taylor was doggedly pounding the pavement as a campaigner and fundraiser for John Simmonds' re-election campaign and for CQG coffers during that same period of time. The CQG's funds, in turn, were were being used solely to support Simmonds. Taylor was at nearly every candidate forum and was vocal in cheering Simmonds on at the events, an unusual pattern for Taylor as he was silent and invisible during all prior campaigns going back ten or more years, even during his own wife's two campaigns for election. Simmonds stated at the Chamber of Commerce forum that not only had Taylor donated to his campaign but that Taylor had actively convinced others in the community ("put the arm on," in Simmonds' words) to donate to Simmonds' campaign (video of Simmonds' statement -- Ed Taylor's voice can be heard off-camera asking Simmonds about campaign emails). Getting back to Taylor's involvement with Amalthea and his meetings with Black prior to the November 2006 elections -- what made all of this strange is that Black apparently did not disclose to council the nature of his mid-year meetings with Taylor. Black certainly did not disclose any of this to the public or the media. Sometime around September of 2006, when Venice Florida! dot com initially asked Black if he knew anything about any new airport development ideas, Black adamantly denied that he had heard anything about development of a hotel on airport land, this despite confirmed information that several such preliminary meetings between Black and Taylor had already taken place. In fact, Black stated that he had heard no new talk of any airport development, only that he had wa recent and vague conversation with Airport Advisory Board member Jim Leis about the possibility of a hotel somewhere on airport land some time in the future. Black would later reverse himself and confirm the meetings with Taylor, but he stated to this writer that he deliberately didn't take any notes during the meetings in order to avoid having them enter into the public record. It is still unknown if Black met with any other potential developers or their representatives during the time leading up to the 2006 elections -- Black has yet to publicly deny or confirm that any other such meetings took place.
Turns out Simmonds was right; Venice Florida! dot com calls to apologize What was maddening, and what I hammered Simmonds about at the recent joint Airport Advisory Board/City Council meeting, was Simmonds' constant harpings that there were citizen groups deliberately and irresponsibly planting a falsehood that a secret deal had already been struck by the city and, more importantly, that city hall had already fixed their eyes on the prize: a glitzy high-roller hotel on Harbor Drive across the street from the beach. No individual or group that I know of has stated that they have any proof that such decisions have been made. Nevertheless, Simmonds was adamant: the city didn't know yet what it wanted, if anything, on airport land and he was damned mad at anyone who was spouting otherwise. I had to telephone Simmonds last night to apologize. He was right all along. There was a citizen group promulgating that very idea in emails and open meetings. What made Simmonds groan was when I told him that the misinformation was coming from Tracy Knight of Knight Marketing, a company that the city has contracted with in the past (Knight's web site lists the City of Venice as a client), and Cindy Gnegy, the apparent leader of the Chamber of Commerce's rah-rah youth squad, Venice4PositiveFuture. Gnegy's web site (screen cap of 05/26/07) currently states that she is a real estate broker for Mike Miller's Waterford companies. In a set of emails that were spammed from Knight Marketing's email account, Tracy Knight was coordinating the dissemination of the very misinformation that Simmonds has repeatedly decried as false statements, although Simmonds had been mistakenly blaming the Venice Neighborhoods Coalition for the false propaganda:
Again: Simmonds, Black, and the rest of council have stated repeatedly that no decisions have been made yet as to what will go on airport property and that the recent batch of developers approached the city with no prior prompting or carrot-dangling from the city. That is the official version of events, anyway, and I always believe everything that comes out of city hall. Nevertheless, in the above email, Knight is stating the exact opposite of the official city hall party line -- Knight is stating that the city had already decided what was going in on airport property and opened the process up to hoteliers after making the decision. It's an important distinction: if Knight's version of events is true, it would make the entire process to date one big lie that city hall has perpetrated on its citizens and the media. Of particular note is that Knight Marketing is the ad agency that put together the city's ad campaign in the successful, albeit narrow, passage of the $10 million bond in 2003. When contacted by phone to validate the emails, Gnegy confirmed that the emails had come from her and Knight. Gnegy stated she is no longer employed by Mike Miller, that she now works for Michael Saunders' real estate operations. An attempt to contact Knight for this story was unsuccessful.
Marty Black is at the end of his rope and needs your help
"You've gotta be kidding me," Simmonds stated in an exasperated tone when I read to him the above paragraph. "Where are these people coming up with this stuff?" Gnegy's email was equally numbing and mind-boggling. Gnegy blamed the pending fall of the city's benevolent plans on the pure meanness of just a few individuals. Gnegy goes on to write that an amphitheater at Caspersen Beach is now a done deal and that her group is solely responsible (this will come as some surprise to both city council and Maxine Barritt). Gnegy concluded her confusing missive by begging for recipients of her email to aid in the resurrection of the holy plans:
"Anything Dan Boone wants is fine with me" The group first surfaced at a city council meeting on October 24, 2006, where some twenty or so members came to support the construction of an amphitheater next to Sharky's Restaurant on Caspersen Beach. At that point in time, only a few people (myself included) knew about the Marriott talks that Ed Taylor had been having with Marty Black and VGA attorney E.G. 'Dan' Boone, so I found it curious that these so-called kids were suddenly promoting the construction of a tourism amenity directly across the street from where Ed Taylor wanted a Marriott to go. I said so at the same council meeting, which marked the first time that the word "Marriott" entered the public record (although, curiously, my thoughts on the issue are not reflected in the minutes of that meeting). I was immediately pooh-poohed by Michelle Ryan, a twenty-something employed at the Chamber of Commerce and the daughter of the chamber's C.E.O., John Ryan. Michelle Ryan had just finished speaking before council as a member of the group and in support of construction of an amphitheater on the beach. Michelle Ryan denied that any development interests were involved in promoting Venice4PositiveFuture's stance on park amenities. I pointed out to her that I knew that Marriott was interested in constructing a nearby hotel. I also told her that Dan Boone was in the back of the room taking notes furiously during the entire time that members of her group were speaking before council. She apparently didn't get the gist of what I was implying, so I then told her that the only time he does that is when he has a client's interests at stake. She snapped angrily at me: "That's OK. His granddaughter is my best friend, so anything Dan Boone wants is fine with me." Thunk. That's the sound my jaw makes when it bounces off of the floor.
Apparently realizing the ramifications of her own words and fearing that I would use her quote, Ryan later chased me down in the hallways of city hall and loudly denied ever making the statement. In a high-pitched and angry valley-girl accent, she laid into me: "I never said anything of the kind, and anyways someone just told me that you are crazy and nobody believes anything you say." So I somehow learned that she and Dan Boone's granddaughter were best friends by... osmosis? What the hell is this anyway, high school? Purely by coincidence, I ran into Michelle Ryan two days ago at a local sandwich shop. She was standing behind me in line. I turned to her and asked if she didn't feel uncomfortable standing this close to a crazy person. Her blank, surprised look told me that she likely had no clue who I was or what I was talking about. Fine. Rather than fill in the blanks, I left her wondering. Besides, I felt a bit guilty: it was kind of unnecessarily mean of me say that to her. Better to just walk away. She did take a step back, though, and maintained that distance through the rest of the cash register line. Craziness, it turns out, does have its benefits.
John Patten is the editor and publisher of Venice Florida! dot com and had previously worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times. |
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