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Fear and loathing in circuit court
As cited in an article in today's Venice Gondolier, thanks to Peter Baranowicz, my former attorney, and his total legal meltdown and failure to turn over subpoenaed documents in a timely matter to former city manager George Hunt's attorney, I have a sanction against me to the tune of $2,212.50. This was an event that I was totally and legally powerless to prevent.

To say that this is grossly unfair would be an understatement, but there you have it. The law is the law. To my detractors, of which there are many, this has to be hilarious. I can readily understand some laughter will be pointed at me. I've had my laughs in the past, so... I guess it comes with the territory. Eh.

However: After trying to keep up with payments to my current attorney, Stanley Marable, plus a retainer uselessly paid to my former attorney, Peter Baranowicz, the $2,212.50 within 30 days order might as well have been $1 million.

Hunt's allegations are false
Former city manager George Hunt's allegations are totally false. In a statement made to the Herald-Tribune, Hunt said that he wants to shut this web site down. So this isn't really about harm or damages, this is Hunt playing the part of Moriarty (and he's not doing too bad so far).

In a nutshell, Hunt claims that I am pretty much solely responsible for his inability to find a job comparable to that which he had here in Venice as city manager. Specifically, ... scratch that... Generally, Hunt states that I contacted each of his potential employers (cities around Florida) and that I accused him of various and sundry offenses against God, mankind, small furry animals, The Teletubbies, the ghost of Martin Luther, and the fabric of the universe itself (you read the complaint linked to at right and see if you can figure it out). Hunt doesn't say which cities I supposedly contacted, and for a good reason that I will explain in a moment.

Had I done what Hunt has accused me of, I would probably be arguing that I justifiably performed a public service. The plain fact is that I didn't do what Hunt is accusing me of and a simple set of public records requests to the cities involved would show that.

Hunt also claims in his lawsuit that I am not a journalist and that he is not a public figure. It's an argument that is an attempt to strip me of some legal protections and to wrap Hunt in other legal protections. That would explain the front page above-the-fold story in today's Gondolier (click for image), and the end-of-the-world style headline that the Gondo sported when they broke the news on March 31, 2006 (several days before I was even served), that the lawsuit had been filed (shown in the sidebar at right).

An additional irony: it was from Gondo news editor J.J. Andrews that I first learned of the lawsuit. Nope, no public figures here.

Hunt's job search history
Here's a quick breakdown of what few jobs I know Hunt didn't get and why.

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Welcome to the WeirdFest
Here's the real reason this lawsuit was filed:
Hunt entered forged documents, including a forged letter from a bank, into the public records of Barefoot Bay -- it is still unknown as to who actually created the forged documents as the matter has never been investigated; Hunt filed the lawsuit against myself (John Patten of Venice Florida! dot com) while I was deciding whether to do a story on the forged documents or not (unbeknownst to Hunt, the decision had been made not to do a story; Hunt gambled wrong and sued anyway)
--Venice Florida! dot com, 04/05/06

Hunt's successor in Barefoot Bay resigns
Grace Daddario is resigning, but the community is praising her for bringing them back from the brink of bankruptcy
-- MSNBC.com, 06/30/07

COURT RECORD: The lawsuit complaint of Hunt v  Patten, Parish as filed in Sarasota County Court (PDF file, 3.5MBs)
This basically says that at some point in time, I did some bad things somewhere, that Hunt doesn't quite know what,  but here's a lawsuit anyway; my attorney filed a motion to have it tossed based on vagueness, that motion was denied
-- court records, filed in March of 2006

Private citizen or public figure?
I found out about the lawsuit from a call from Venice Gondolier news editor J.J. Andrews who was looking for a quote. It's a rather strange way to find out about a lawsuit, especially when the plaintiff is making the claim that he is a private citizen and not a public figure. The subsequent front-page headline, published days before I was served with the suit, rivaled that of Pearl Harbor being bombed:

Hunt was an applicant for the city manager position in St. Cloud, Florida in January of 2006. Hunt was listed as one of ten candidates in one news report, which cited negative news stories found in the Venice Gondolier that tied Hunt to the then-ongoing EPA investigation here in Venice. The news story specifically mentioned the Venice Gondolier. I never had any contact with St. Cloud whatsoever.

Likewise, the City of Dunedin took a pass on him due to a double whammy: according to an online news account, Hunt didn't appear to be standing above the pack of candidates and there appeared to be an internal civil war within their own city council over the possibility of promoting their assistant city manager. Several candidates withdrew their applications and fled, which left Hunt and three other candidates in a smoldering pile that Dunedin officials were apparently not exactly thrilled with. It's hard to tell exactly what was going on from the news accounts, but it is clear that the whole process was a mess. Governmental headhunter Colin Baenziger promised Dunedin that he would return with a better pool of applicants, Hunt made a few snitty comments to TCPalm.com about Dunedin's unprofessional behavior (story now offline), and that ended that for Hunt and Dunedin. I had no contact with Dunedin.

On July 15, 2004, the St. Pete Times reported that Hunt didn't get a job in Treasure Island due to "undesirable baggage." Just the day before, the Times had reported how city commissioners had discovered on their own stories about Hunt's predilection for carrying firearms into city hall in Venice as documented in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune. The St. Pete Times specifically and repeatedly mentioned negative news stories from the Herald-Tribune. I did call up the mayor of Treasure Island on July 16, two days after Hunt had been turned down for the job, to ask her if the web played any part in the city's decision to not hire him, but she declined to comment other than to say that Hunt seemed like a very nice man. That conversation was chronicled in an article that was published on July 16, 2004. But again: my contact was after they had already hired a new city manager, and there was no contact between myself and anyone in Treasure Island other than that.

Fernandina Beach is the one and only city I did contact during a job search by Hunt, but solely for a simple public records request as background for what started out as a story on Venice's search for a finance director but that morphed into a somewhat different story once I looked at what Fernandina Beach had sent me. The Gondolier has copies of my correspondence with Fernandina Beach, as does Hunt.

All of my correspondence with Fernandina Beach (and any correspondence that Hunt alleges that occurred between myself and other cities) would all be public record. If I had actually done what Hunt is alleging, it would be incredibly foolish of me to deny it when I know full well that a simple public records request would refute my denials and forever ruin my credibility. I don't own that much so I'd kind of like to keep my good name.

So what happened in Fernandina Beach
As to why Hunt was not hired in Fernandina Beach, the then-ongoing EPA investigation as documented in the Herald-Tribune was mentioned in their local papers, however the Fernandina Beach officials stated that it played very little into their decision -- reading between the lines, it would appear that Hunt was basically outclassed by a better candidate.

According to a February, 2006 story in the Fernandina Beach News Leader, someone had emailed an article from the Sarasota Herald-Tribune to a city commissioner. Hunt apparently maintains that it was me. It wasn't, nor was it anyone that I had directed or had any advance knowledge of.

A follow-up article quoted Hunt as blaming his bad press here in Venice on "a newspaper" that was trying to "wrestle control from a long-standing administration." A newspaper. Not a web site. Not this web site. A newspaper. That same article has Hunt strangely issuing a non sequitur denial that he is not a dictator.

My co-defendant, Sylvia Parish, wanted to send such articles to Fernandina Beach. I advised her against doing so, although I could think of no hard line prohibition against doing so. Due to what was turning into a financial fiasco in Barefoot Bay under Hunt's leadership, she wanted Hunt gone from a managerial role in her community. I told her that if that was her wish, then don't interfere in his job search. She has subsequently told me (and I just reconfirmed it this morning with her) that she never did send anything to the City of Fernandina Beach.

So still to this day, I don't know who, if anyone, emailed the City of Fernandina Beach with negative information about Hunt. Not relevant to my case, but a curiosity: I'm not sure you can successfully sue somebody for that, especially since Hunt is a political and public figure -- it would seem to be ridiculous to claim that you are not a public figure when your job search is chronicled in minute detail in various newspapers throughout the state. Unfortunately, I am having to spend wild amounts of money in order to convince Hunt, and ultimately a judge, of that (that and the fact that in typical good ol' Furious George style, if he does have a case on that matter, he is apparently suing the wrong people).

If there are other cities that Hunt has been turned down for jobs in, I'll find out as this lawsuit progresses.

It is not lost on me that there is a bit of irony here: I am being sued for allegedly encouraging Parish to do something when in fact the exact opposite is true: I actually discouraged, and thus prevented, Parish from contacting Fernandina Beach with negative information about Hunt.

Hunt to sue Google?
Hunt is currently the personnel director for the city of Palm Bay, Florida. In his mind, it's probably not a step up from his glory days in Venice of meeting with developers and watching Herb Levine get arrested at a city budget hearing. No, this human resources gig is not what he had in mind at all.

Somebody must pay.

Hunt has arbitrarily chosen me, no doubt to send a message to those villains at the Gondolier and the Herald-Tribune.

I would suggest that Google News may be the actual culprit for Hunt's failure to find work more suited to his notorious brown polyester suit. On Google News, you will find hardly any links to my stories (since this web site is not a newspaper, Google News doesn't include it as a news site), but you will find a plethora of links to some very negative stories from the Sarasota Herald Tribune, the Venice Gondolier, the St. Pete Times, and various other newspapers.

With the award of attorney's fees to the tune of $2,212.50, Hunt may very well get his wish of seeing this web site hit the cyber-dumpster. While I'm sure the thought of that is making Hunt sing aloud, "Oh frabjous day, calloo, callay," the question is, how do you, the citizens of Venice, feel about that? Do any of you really care about independent journalism and good government or is the golf game more important?

The reason I ask that question is because I am asking for your

HELP!!!!
I need your help. I hate asking for it, but my back is against the wall. Without it, this web site will close. Not may. Will.

Actually, I need your money. $2,212.50 of it to be specific. Within 30 days.

There was nothing I could do to avoid it. As the Gondolier article notes, I repeatedly (as in more than twice) turned over the same set of documents that Peter Baranowicz, my former attorney, asked for. For reasons that I still cannot comprehend, Baranowicz never saw fit to turn those same documents over to Hunt's attorney, while I was actually prohibited from turning them over myself. The end result is that I ended up receiving the financial sanction for my former attorney's failure to comply with a court order.

For years I have written about bad government and I've been somewhat successful in keeping the wolves at bay, but at great personal cost. The financial turnaround for good, solid journalism never materialized and I have gone into debt over the years supporting a passion for good government. I had always hoped for a turnaround, and while it appeared that was the case, Hunt's lawsuit tore a serious hole into this web site's finances.

I even gave up driving a car and I get around now by scooter. The upside is that I'm paying around $10 a week in gas and it's a 1950's retro cool-looking model known as The Venice. If I was gonna get a scooter, it'd have to be The Venice. The downside is that... it's a scooter (although lawyers and bankers drive them en masse on the streets of London and Rome). But damn: $10 a week on gas.

If I don't pay the money, I don't get a chance to fight Hunt's allegations. My case will be fatally damaged, I will likely lose the right to plea, Hunt will likely win the suit. Yes, it's all incredibly unfair -- Welcome to Venice. This probably won't help Hunt get a job, but I don't think he's thinking much past revenge at this point.

So please. I need your help. I've put everything on the line to try to help save this town over the years from cretins, villains, and ne'er-do-wells, now I desperately need your help in return.