Nevermind the bollocks -- here's the new city council
While CQGers are grumbling that an anti-business council now exists, the truth is that this election was about access and trust (and kicking Dan Boone in his bollocks)
-- John Patten, 11/11/07
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Grumbles from the grave
This past election brought to the forefront a distinct schism between special interests and the population at large within Venice, a schism that appears to be widening in this post-election sobering period.

Three newly elected council members are continuing to be painted as anti-business, an allegation that rings through many in the business community. Mayor-elect Ed Martin and his partners in crime, Sue Lang and Ernie Zavodnyik, will be a major force on city council over the next three years. When combined with CQG moderates Vicki Taylor and John Moore, council has suddenly become a living nightmare to the select few special interests that run the CQG.

That leaves only two hard-core Boone & Co. loyalists on council: John Simmonds and Rick Tacy. But even Tacy has walked off of the party path on occasion: on election day in 2005, while still wondering if he would be re-elected that day, Tacy voted with Moore and Taylor against the Commercial Mixed Use ordinance, an ordinance that would set the stage for Mike Miller's Tra Ponti condo-hotel project in downtown Venice.

And so, in the present post-election spin, the picture that is being tossed to the voters of Venice is this: You have made a terrible and tragic mistake. You do not understand how this city works or the economic forces that are in play. You are stupid. You have brought on Armageddon by electing council members that are anti-business. You have elected folks that have sworn to turn Venice MainStreet and the Venice Area Chamber of Commerce into death camps.

John Ryan, CEO of the Chamber of Commerce was quoted in the Venice Gondolier Sun on November 9 as stating, "I've met with Ed Martin in the past. He said he supports business. I'll take him at face value on that." That's hardly a ringing endorsement.

Meanwhile the Gondo itself, whose long history of support of the CQG (publisher Bob Vedder once wrote "I am a good ol' boy," this in response to attacks on the CQG and their "good ol' boy" political network) editorialized that the election of Martin, Lang and Zavodnyik was akin to getting a batch of lemons. "If those are lemons, then let's make some lemonade," the Gondo wrote in its editorial of November 9.

But those were tentative and subtle jabs, toned down out of fear of an angry citizen uprising.

One very bitter Republican
Eric Robinson, chairman of the county's Republican Party, has been far less diplomatic. In a series of posts on this site's message board, Robinson has continued to paint the election winners as anti-business and a destructive force. From a November 10 post by Robinson: "The voters spoke by electing anti-business candidates. You are not saying that the Chamber of Commerce and Sue Lang are close friends are you? Please tell me a business group that is happy about the elections?"

That same day, Robinson wrote: "Let's get this straight: we lost. You guys say you were fighting against the business groups and developers. You win. You win big, you win huge. Businesses [will] begin to close shop as they see the writing on the wall and developers [will] lay off people because the hope was taken away from them, and now you say that when your dreams become a reality, you try to step away. I tried to warn you. Don't shoot the messenger."

To lay all that on the election of three candidates who actually took the time to listen to Venice's voters is a bit much. WCI, the developer of gated communities throughout Florida, including the Venetian Golf & River Club, laid off 575 employees after posting a third quarter $75 million loss. Mike Miller's various related Waterford companies have laid off an estimated two-thirds of its work force over the past year, most of those layoffs having occurred a very long time before Martin, Zavodnyik and Lang had announced their candidacies. So to prognosticate about things that have already happened and blame that on three public officials who have yet to take the oath of office is just a bit of a stretch. Just a bit.

I don't think anyone in this town is anti-business. Anti-corruption, anti-special interest -- yes, but anti-business? Nah. Nice try, but: nah.

If the Boones are for it, I'm agin' it
The problem here is that there have been a select few people who have been the Voice of Venice Business, much to the resentment of many business owners as well as residents. The Chamber of Commerce is, for all intents, a closed shop made up of a few CQG members and a larger number of CQG sycophants. This is all based on the perception that this town has only one economic model, a trickled-on model that states that as long as the Boone law firm is prospering with hefty land development legal retainers, the rest of us are assured to get a bit of the sprinkle (as long as we stay on our knees, that is).

Ditto the Rotary Club, which is viewed as the private domain of land use attorney E.G. "Dan" Boone. Indeed, Ed Martin once wrote in his column that outgoing councilman Jim Woods was approached by Boone at a Rotary meeting and asked if he wanted to be on city council. The subsequent brokering of Woods' appointment, as with the prior appointment of Fred Hammett to the position of mayor, has been widely attributed to Boone's political manipulations. Dan Boone will, no doubt, vociferously deny this with profound innocent sincerity.

I've often advised candidates running for office through the years to not run against their stated opponents but to run against the Boones. I have fantasized about running for office on a campaign slogan of "If the Boones are for it, I'm agin' it." I still think it's a winning strategy: the Boone law firm is not well liked, even by business interests. They are not loved. They are feared, and with good reason: get on their bad side and few will do business with you out of fear of being economically ostracized.

While you won't get many overt donations from the business sectors from running such a campaign (as campaign donations are public knowledge), you'll probably get most of their votes, albeit secretly, as well as their emotional support. Look what happened at the Rotary debates earlier in the campaign season for the truth of this: What started out as a non-comedic roasting of Lang and Martin turned into an ugly and total PR disaster for the Rotary Club, CQG prez C.J. Fishman, and, by implication, Dan Boone.

My own opinion, based somewhat bitterly on my own experience with the Chamber of Commerce (yes, I actually was a member but left years ago in disgust): the Chamber and the Rotary and the Boones have been anti-business and probably will continue to be. Let me qualify that: they appear to be anti-small business, especially to new small businesses that would be perceived as being competitive with anything that the few at the top of this town's socio-economic pile have business interests in. If you are paying a retainer to the Boone law firm, then you will receive favor. If not, well, go f**k yourself.

Nevermind the bollocks, here's the CQG
That perception, whether true or not, remains as a believed truth, even within business sectors in this town. It was an unstated perception that helped Martin, Lang, and Zavodnyik sweep into office. Make no mistake, this election was not about getting rid of Bill Willson and Jim Woods. Nor was this election about business interests versus the residents at large. This election was about kicking C.J. Fishman and the Boone law firm in their collective balls. Willson and Woods had the misfortune of having political ties to the Boones and the lack of wisdom to try to politically separate themselves from the self-appointed royal family.

As for Fred Hammett? His name has twice (and only twice) appeared on a ballot. The first time was in 1999, when he ran against Martha Hanneman for a council seat. Hammett was trounced. The second time was this past election. Again, Hammett had his head handed to him.

In between those two vicious beatings, he would be appointed to council to fill the opening created by the death of Virginia Warren. He then ran unopposed for council, unopposed due to the political climate at the time and the sense that running against a CQG candidate was economic suicide. Later Hammett would be appointed as Mayor (reportedly at Dan Boone's urgings) to replace Dean Calamaras after Calamaras skulked out of office and out of town in disgrace.

Hammett would run unopposed for the final year of Calamaras' term in 2006. Here, there was no opposition for two reasons, the first being economic -- who would want to fight the CQG for a lousy one-year term? There was a second, perhaps insidious, reason that both Taxpayers League prez Herb Levine and I had discussed back in 2006: let Hammett be mayor for a full year -- he is totally incompetent, but the voters haven't recognized it yet. Give him a year and his Peter Principal glass ceiling will shatter right over his head.

For once, the Taxpayer League president's political forecasting paid off handsomely, but at great and unfortunate emotional expense to the city as a whole. The year that followed (this past year) included revelations that the Marriott had been secretly meeting with City Manager Marty Black, along with the airport charrette debacle, Tra Ponti at six stories, and the self-induced vilification of Hammett by a series of less than thoughtful reactions to citizens, the press, law enforcement, and the Sarasota County Board of Commissioners. Hammett showed himself to be a mean-spirited political idiot, totally lacking in the political grace and poise shown by his fellow CQGers Woods and Willson.

I'll turn on you like a rabid dog
And now to the present. Ed Martin will be sworn in as Mayor this Wednesday. Sue Lang and Ernie Zavodnyik will raise their right hands and recite the oath as well. For the very first time since I have become politically active in this town, I have the sense that there is now a majority of council that will give me straight answers to hard questions.

For me, in the end, that was what this election was all about. Not growth. Not the airport. Not Tra Ponti. Not the Wal-Mart. Not the CQG versus the Taxpayers League. Straight answers.

To this new council and to the new management philosophy that Marty Black has adopted, I give this fair warning right now: If at any time I feel like I am not getting straight answers, I will turn on you like a rabid dog.

Comprende?

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.