Simmonds, Hollowell agreed to meet secretly in 2005 to discuss airport development plans
With the Marriott on the Beach hovering secretly in the background, Airport Advisory Board Chairman Paul Hollowell makes an exciting discovery in November of 2005 and he can't wait to share it with Simmonds in a series of emails marked "Confidential"
-- John Patten, 10/21/08
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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BONUS FACTOID:
Hollowell is a financial contributor to Emilio Carlesimo's election campaign -- $200, to be exact

The emails were made public pursuant to Judge Robert Bennett's prior court order, this as a direct result of attorney Andrea Mogensen's subpoenas and motions requiring Simmonds' deleted emails to be put into the public record where they should have been all along.

Both Hollowell and Simmonds are named defendants in the Public Records/Sunshine Law lawsuit that Mogensen has filed. Attorneys for Simmonds turned over some 800+ pages of emails to attorney Andrea Mogensen and to city hall last week as a result of a court order requiring Simmonds to have his hard drive forensically analyzed by his own attorneys.

The first meeting, as documented in these newly released emails from Simmonds' computer, was set up by realtor Mark Smith. Smith worked for Synergy Real Estate Corporation, a Pennsylvania firm that had been brought in as a real estate sub-consultant by airport consultants MEA-Hanson. That meeting, hyped as a stakeholder "task force to explore non-aviation land development" at the airport, took place at the Venice Area Chamber of Commerce on November 10, 2005. A number of prominent local business names pop up on the invitee list, including Tim Miller of Waterford (condo developer Mike Miller's brother), Venice realtor Brian Meurs, Venice Chamber CEO John Ryan, and airport manager Fred Watts.

Also in attendance and participating in the discussion: AAB members Simmonds and Hollowell.

Oooops. That there is what you might call a Sunshine Law violation, especially if that you is Andrea Mogensen and you happen to be an attorney involved in bringing a Sunshine Law lawsuit against the city.

But that's not even the good stuff. This gets way juicier very fast. Read on and be prepared for major jaw droppage.

800 pages of emails = approximately 60 emails (but hey, nobody will notice that)
The 800 or so pages of emails from Simmonds' computer, contained in three mammoth binders that are sitting in City Clerk Lori Stelzer's office, contain numerous redundant documents -- some 50 identical copies of one three-page duplicated email, for example. All told, the 800+ pages boil down to about 60 individual emails, with some including threaded responses, in total. My guess here is that the Boone law firm, who represent both Simmonds and a number of airport leaseholders in a seemingly bizarre and apparent conflict of interest, have decided to go the legal route of "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance..."

Curiously missing are emails from 2007 and 2008.

Also curiously missing: any emails to, from, or cc'd to Dan Boone, who Simmonds has a habit of cc'ing on many of his emails that have dealt with the airport and airport development. Since Boone represents a substantial number of leaseholders and since Simmonds has claimed that the Boones have been his own personal attorney since 2004, it's a safe bet that a vast majority of emails have been withheld under the guise of attorney-client privilege. Those omissions, if the Boones did make them, will likely not hold up under court scrutiny, and Andrea Mogensen's office has made it clear that such scrutiny is forthcoming.

Venice Florida! dot com discovers the Marriott (mid-2006)
In late March or early April of 2006, I learned for the first time that the Marriott, or representatives claiming to speak for the Marriott, had been having discussions with Venice city officials for some time, but everything was hush-hush and I couldn't get anyone to go on the record. By June of 2006, I had enough information to indicate that local businessman Ed Taylor had been acting as point man for investor Aris Mardirossian, that Mardirossian was looking at a package development deal that included a Marriott where the golf course is presently located, that Taylor had been meeting secretly with Marty Black, and that these discussions apparently went as far back as mid- to late-2005.

Hi John I send this to you in confidence and hope this message can remain so: Good afternoon.

Lots of turmoil in the airport these days. You may not have heard the goings on but you will. I would like to sit down with you and give you my take confidentially. We have prospects of real progress at the airport and I hope the discord that is brewing does not kill these prospects.

In confidence, Paul Hollowell

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From: John Simmonds:
To: Paul Hollowell
Date: (??? -- info deleted)
Subject: RE: Venice Airport - Confidential
CC: (??? - info deleted)

Oh Shit!

I was afraid of this! It happens at all airports when changes are made

It's confidential as long as you day it is. [sic]

When can we talk?

I have til probably the end of next week to ask for a different liaison assignment for next year. Should I?

John

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From: Paul Hollowell
To: John Simmonds
Date: 11/13/05 (Sunday) 8:29 AM
Subject: RE: Venice Airport - Confidential

John Thanks for offering to keep this discussion confidential. A lot of this feud is going to come out to some degree and I along with most others are on the sidelines and I would like to sort of keep a low profile at this point. I support the airport manager in his efforts with the FAA and FDOT to get funding to fix the problems at the airport. We seem to be on the right path with those infrastructure projects.

John I hope you chose to remain with the Airport Advisory Board. I believe the AAB needs you to continue as the liaison for the next year. The AAB being still in a formative stage the experience and expertise that you have contributed have made a difference. This is particularly true as we go through the next year which could be a little tumultuous. Hopefully not too much disorder but your steady hand with the board and the airport is needed in any case. If things fall into place with the FDOT and FAA the airport stands to make a lot of progress over the next 12 months even in the face of controversy and your contribution to that will be vital. I hope you choose to stick with the AAB.

Perhaps we could meet Monday. What is your preference? Is lunch an option? I will be free after 10:30 Monday morning.

----------

From: John Simmonds
To: Paul Hollowell
Date: 11/13/05 7:33 PM
Subject: RE: Venice Airport - Confidential

I'll stick with the airport committee. Just thought maybe I was perceived as being part of the problem because I support the airport manager and the city manager. Evan [sic] if that is the problem I think the airport is better off with me than with another Council Member that knows jack squat about airports and sees little benefit in Venice airports' future [Simmonds is referring here to Councilman John Moore, as there was some discussion around this time of making Moore the council liaison to the AAB].

I have a Dr. appointment at 10:00am and should be free for lunch. Where would you like to meet? What is your home & cell phone numbers, so we can keep in touch. My home phone is 484-3220; cell is 320-7960.

Marty Black's denial to me in May of 2006 was easily the most flagrant of the deceptions thrown at me. When asked if he had heard any talk of a hotel at the airport, he stated at that time that the only thing that he had heard was that AAB board member Jim Leis had stated that he thought a Days Inn or a small motel might be a good idea. Leis has since stated that he was curious at the time about the feasibility of a small motel or hotel at the northeast corner of the airport, way far away from the proposed location of the Marriott.

By June of 2006, I had enough info to ask intelligent questions without having to worry about dealing with false denials. On June 10, 2006, I was prepared to ask City Manager Marty Black about his involvement in negotiations and discussions with Taylor at one of Black's notorious weekly press conferences, but Black kicked me out of the meeting before I could even get a word out in front of other members of the media. Black stated that the press conferences were by invitation only and I hadn't been invited.

Humiliated and discredited, I was unable to convince anyone that the Marriott was a background player in airport shenanigans. Later that month, I was able to slip the word Marriott into the public lexicon at a city council meeting, and from there, albeit slowly, all hell started to break loose. That was during a chamber of commerce youth push for a bandstand at Tomato Pasta park, one that would be located quite close to the projected placement of the Marriott and would act as an amenity for the hotel development. Spokespeople for the chamber youth squad quickly denied that the bandstand was a tie-in to the secret Marriott deal, but the connection was made in the public's mind and later revelations bore out the truth of my early suspicions.

I am absolutely convinced, in hindsight, that if I had not blown the lid when I did, the deal would have been brokered and sold before the public had a clue that the golf course was going down and a high-priced bauble was being tossed in in place of the golf course.

Hollowell makes an exciting discovery of his own and can't wait to share it with Simmonds, who apparently already knows (November, 2005)
Going backwards from there to November of 2005, the Marriott was a closely guarded secret that only a handful of city hall staffers and inside power brokers knew about. Black knew, and it's a safe bet, from later docs and info that came out, that then-Mayor Fred Hammett knew. Ed Taylor knew. Judging from the emails in this page's sidebar, John Simmonds likely also knew.

So we get to this set of emails between AAB member Paul Hollowell and Simmonds, both sitting members of the AAB subject to the Sunshine Law. Hollowell has just stumbled upon a secret so delicious that he can barely contain himself, but he doesn't dare put his discovery into writing. If you know the events of that time as I have just spelled out, it doesn't take a genius to figure out what Hollowell had stumbled upon that had gotten him so excited. It also becomes apparent that Simmonds already knew what Hollowell had stumbled on.

Both men were serving on the AAB board at the time of these emails, Hollowell as a board member and chair, Simmonds as city council liaison. As such, the emails and the meeting discussed would fall under both the provisions of Florida's Sunshine Law and Florida's public records laws.