Bobbo talks!
City Attorney Bob Anderson finally comes out of hiding, says some stuff about the Sunshine Law and the Herald-Trib that makes it look like he's done some real lawyering
-- John Patten, 06/11/08, 9:00 PM
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Deja vu
At Tuesday's Venice City Council meeting, City Attorney Bob Anderson made the following statement:

"For the benefit of the pubic and the media, I want to correct an inaccurate story in the Herald-Tribune sometime last week. It discussed two events, and they are separate and distinct.

"Shortly after the election last November, John and Linda Moore extended an invitation to the Martins, the Langs, and the Zavodnyiks to get together on a Sunday evening at the Moore home to have a glass of wine and just socialize. I have spoken to five of those eight people - and only those eight people were in attendance at that event - and they all agree that at that event, which was purely social, there was no discussion whatsoever of city business. Therefore, that is clearly, unquestionably, not a violation of government in sunshine.

"Now the second event: Shortly after being elected to city council, Mr. Zavodnyik sent an e-mail to Sue Lang and Ed Martin - this was before the certification of the vote and before their swearing in - suggesting that the three of them should get together, talk about priorities that they wanted to put in place, exchange lists of priorities, and then hit the ground running once they were sworn in. I agree that the e-mail was sent by Mr. Zavodnyik. We’ve all got a copy of it. It was responded to by Mr. Martin, but I have spoken with all three of them and they have assured me that the meeting never took place. Therefore, if there was no meeting, again clearly, unquestionably, there was no sunshine law violation. My understanding was there was an article last week by the Herald-Tribune, which alluded to both of those as being violations of the law. That reporting was inaccurate and I just wanted to clarify that for the viewing public, the public in general and the media and hope that the Herald-Tribune sees it upon themselves to do the proper correction in tomorrow’s paper."

Hmmmm... wonder where I read that before?... oh yeah, I remember.
 

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.