Martin kicks off his mayoral campaign while Hammett is forced to sit and watch
Ahhh, the irony is delicious
-- John Patten, 09/04/07
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Photo: Ed Martin addresses the crowd in front of city hall

View slideshow of all pics from Martin's campaign kickoff

This is very tasty
Talk about delicious cruelty. Ed Martin kicked off his campaign today with a meet and greet/press conference to a small invited crowd of about forty supporters on the front porch of city hall, right in front of the big arched windows of council chambers. Inside, the city's Planning Commission meeting was just starting, thus Martin's meet and greet was in full view of the Planning Commission -- the commission members couldn't not see Martin's conference, they have to sit facing those windows. Also sitting on the dais in plain view of Martin and the crowd: our current mayor, Fred Hammett.

That's right: Hammett was forced to sit and watch his potential replacement as Martin smiled and greeted the public, shook hands, accepted hugs and checks and handshakes.

It was such an incredibly barbaric and cruel thing to do. Brilliant!

Martin won't say if cut-to-the-heart terror was his intent, but the move was apparently somewhat successful -- when I went into the Planning Commission meeting to take Hammett's picture, Hammett spotted me with my camera and immediately buried his head in a very small pile of paperwork. He refused to look up for the ten or so minutes that I waited to get a face shot, so I finally ended up snapping him in his fake studious look (see slideshow).

Pennies from Martin
After handing out pennies for the thoughts of his potential constituents, Martin laid into the current administration:

"I will not accept campaign contributions from people who come before the mayor and city council with requests that will result in their significant material gain, in some instances millions of dollars. Every member of the council, including my opponent, has received or will receive support from individuals or political action committees organized by people who are asking the city for favorable decisions on annexation, zoning, increased heights and densities, leases on city property and more.

"I have, as a columnist, asked the incumbents to voluntarily decline to take campaign support from these individuals, but none has agreed to do that.  The result of accepting  this support is that  we witnessed C.J.Fishman, the chair of the political action committee, the CQG, tell the council when it was considering an important issue for a developer friend of his,  'We put you all here because we know you will do the right thing.' And guess what? They did, from his point of view."

Bada bing!!!! radadadadadadada (rimshot/cymbal crash)
Of course, Martin is referring to C.J. Fishman's famed 'I own your ass' speech to city council, which became a bit of a minor hit on YouTube (link to video clip) since first being posted over a year ago. Fishman was supporting a new ordinance which would offer developers a wide latitude of height options in areas around downtown Venice.

But Martin was nowhere near done: "If you think the right thing for Venice is 105 foot towers to be joined by four new 80-foot towers right downtown, plus 60 foot buildings on east Laurel Road, then you also might be satisfied, but I am not."

On the subject of the airport development process to date, Martin was equally firm and contrary: "If a university MBA program wanted a case study of how not to plan and implement an important decision—they could follow what Mr. Hammett and council have done about the airport.... When that process begins again in December, I hope the city will have new leadership.... The environmental loss to the city in construction of a resort hotel is unnecessary for progress and for support of the airport. It is a money-making scheme. As the movie line said, 'Follow the Money.'”

Martin's candidacy web site is already online at www.edmartinformayor.com (note to Ed: KILL THE DAMNED ANNOYING MUSIC!!! -- I CAN'T READ THE TEXT WHILE BEING BLASTED!!!!). Martin will also continue to update his blog throughout the campaign, that's available online at www.insideveniceflorida.com.

 

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.