Serianni v City of Venice, Days 2 & 3

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The trial of Venice Police Officer Demitri Serianni v City of Venice continues today in Federal Court in Tampa. Serianni's attorney, Thomas Sadaka, will likely conclude his prosecution of the civil charges against the city today after calling his two final scheduled witnesses: former City Manager Isaac Turner and Serianni himself.

Over the past three days, the five-woman three-man jury has heard numerous stories of abuse of authority by police officials aimed not just at Serianni, but at a number of lower level police officers. The tale that is being told to the jury through the collective testimonies is that in order to gain rank under ex-chief Julie Williams, you had to have a flexible or non-functioning conscience and a natural penchant for thuggery and bullying.

Jurors heard testimony about the investigative white board in the squad room, usually used to put up details of ongoing criminal investigations, informing officers of new operating procedures or upcoming classes. However for several days in May 2010, then-Chief Julie Williams used the board to post pages from this web site's message board where citizens and police officers had posted information that was critical of her and her leadership along with derogatory pages from Serianni's personnel file.

Serianni v City of Venice -- Day 1

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The opening day, August 6, of the trial of Venice Police Office Demetri Serianni v The City of Venice was for the most part a yawner. At stake is an award to Serianni of anywhere  from $100 k in attorney's fees to a couple of million on pain and suffering punitive damages, so this is not a minor deal. This case is to the current administration what the Sunshine Law lawsuit was to the Ed Martin administration and here, again, the city's legal strategy has bungled what should have been a small case that should have been settled out of court a year ago into a monstrous financial black hole with bottom discernible.

Having followed this case closely from the start, I am pretty comfortable stating that the city will lose this case on a big scale. How big will be up to the jury, five women and three men from all over central Florida.

The first half of the first day was spent on jury selection. Two women from Venice were in the selection pool. The first was a retired university professor from Iowa who now lives on the island of Venice. She stated she had attended functions where former Mayor Ed Martin and former city councilwoman Sue Lang had spoken (both Lang and Martin were on the original witness list, Lang was dropped after telling attorneys that she remembered little and that she has a phobia about traveling on the interstate highways).

This potential juror's comment during voir dire questioning that "the politics in Venice are crazy" earned her a peremptory strike from the city's legal team, this despite Judge Virginia Hernandez-Covington's statement to the city's legal team that she found the statement vague and not meaningful: "People sometimes say things without really thinking about what they are saying."

The other, an RN who works at Venice Regional Hospital, stated she was a social acquaintance of current councilwoman Jeanette Gates (also on the current witness list). Under questioning from the judge, the potential juror stated she and Gates ran "...in the same social circles," but that she did not know Gates all that well. She stated she had heard a bit about this current lawsuit, but not enough to form an opinion. She was eventually selected for the jury.

The lies of Greg Giles

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The Venice Gondolier admitted that they are scared of me in a recent editorial, a line so wonderful that I am using it in political ads. This, however, has led the newspaper to go beyond stating their opinions. So disturbed at my candidacy, the paper is now actively in the game of trying to affect political outcome by peddling fictions, this through the work of their star ace cub reporter (and Alaskan ex-pat) Greg Giles, who has been inventing an alternate universe and, in issue after issue, reporting this set of fictions as fact.

Sounds like a paranoid delusion, right? Because the next question you would have is: Why would the Gondo do that?

One doesn't need to look too far into the organization to understand how truly scared the newspaper is of me. Giles' immediate supervisor is Bob Mudge, an ex-attorney who, prior to working for the Gondolier, was an in-house attorney with the Boone law firm.

For those of you who are new in town, Boone, Boone, Boone, Hines, & Koda is the local law firm that has financially supported the campaigns of the current majority of city council and who also represent any land developer who wants to get anything built in Venice or annexed into Venice. Attorney Jeff Boone is currently the chair of the Charter Review Board, which has been tasked with reviewing council members' benefits.

Below is a slightly modified version of an email that was sent to Gondo editor Bob Mudge on November 2, detailing some of the many recent fictions that Giles has invented.

BTW: Online campaign reports, to verify statements below, can be found at http://www.venicegov.com/Municipal_links/City_Clerk/election.htm

Nonpartisanship questioned by dummies who don't understand campaign laws

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The following is a Letter to the Editor at the Gondolier, which I guarantee you that they won't publish as they are not in the habit of correcting their errors. This is in response to a recent article that stated that myself and Don Anderson had violated campaign laws by working at the fair booths of national political parties during the recent Sun Fiesta. In reality, Dave Sherman and Gondo reporter Greg Giles invented a non-existent law and then chastised us for breaking it. Proofreaders and fact-checkers at the Gondo let it slide into print without verifying the accuracy of the story.

Contrary to what you might have read or written, there is no prohibition against political parties getting involved in non-partisan elections. Quite the opposite is true and always has been. To write that partisanship has been "happening subtly for years" indicates that the writer has either been sleeping for a few decades or is writing about a land I know not where.

Patten's platform -- a self-serving bit of self-promotion

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Venice United had me fill out a questionnaire, and I'm proud of what I wrote, so here it is, below, in full. They never did endorse anyone. Seems that in the end, they wanted someone who looked distinguished like Sherman, but that thought like me.

Go figure.

Anyway, this pretty much spells out my platform and how I think for those that are unfamiliar with my writing over the years.

"Democracy doesn't work unless you participate." -- Frank Zappa

Sherman given permission to pad his resume by Circus Arts Foundation

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On Dave Sherman's campaign literature, he states he is on the Board of Directors of the Venice Circus Arts Foundation. Not true, says member Rosemary Vauzanges in a reader posting on Ed Martin's blog.

I confronted Sherman at Saturday's candidate forum at East Gate Homeowner's Association. Sherman stated that he had since resigned from the board even though he technically was never an actual board member, but he had acted as though he was a board member and was given permission to state he was a board member by Orlando Bevington, the non-profit organization's Exec Director.

If that doesn't make sense, don't feel alone. I had to play it back several times in my head before I could begin to figure out what Sherman wasn't saying.

The literature for the Venice Circus Arts Foundation, which can be found on their web site, shows three board members through the non-profit's history: Tito Gaona (founder), Armando Gaona, and Larry Ryan. Additionally, Orlando Bevington is listed as Exec Director and Debbie French as Office Manager (http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs068/1103530896159/archive/1107911428260.html).

Curiously, not mentioned is the name Dave Sherman.

Sherman's campaign treasurer is CQG's blogger, Wick Headed Woman

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Listed on Dave Sherman's campaign treasury reports as treasurer is Andrea Cooper. You might also know her as Wick Headed Woman, the woman who ran Winston Wilmore's attack site against the Venice Taxpayers League candidates of Martin, Zavodnyik, Lang, McKeon and Bennett, even going so far as to give ex-mayor Martin the nickname of Mayor Martini. Cooper referred in print to the prior administration repeatedly, usually in conjunction with articles by Cooper and Wilmore or linked to from her site that supported airport growth, as the Slang Gang.

After Wilmore retired from the site, Cooper continued on with her politics page as Wick Headed Woman supporting Mayor Holic, and council members Gates, Daniels and Carlesimo. Cooper hasn't been active on the site since last April, but on her politics page are past slams against Golden Beach residents over airport issues and the like.

Ed Martin: short-term rentals are all Patten's fault so vote for Sherman

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NOTE: In politically supporting Dave Sherman, former mayor Ed Martin is blaming me for my stance on short-term rentals, implying that I am in favor of not regulating them.

That would be not true. I live next to some nuisance long-term rentals that are nightmarish at best, so I'm more than sympathetic to people who find themselves living next to an ongoing and never-ending Spring Break party.

So I sent the following to Martin and to Marshall Happer, who seems to partially agree with Martin on this point.

Hold on here, buddy. This short-term rental fiasco is your mess, Ed. You created it, you perpetuated it, and you needlessly cost us a couple of million dollars in legal fees and judgments only to end up right back where we started.

If elected, I get a shot at helping to clean it up. Trust me when I say that it is not something I look forward to, and the cruelest thing you might do to me is actually put me in office.

First off, I am NOT ARGUING FOR short term rentals. I am arguing against the continual legal stupidity as perpetuated by our city's legal department to take us down the wrong roads in nearly every legal adventure we find ourselves in. I'm sorry if this seems nasty again, but I am out to win an election and you appear to be trying to make me look bad by saying that you were right all along.
You weren't and you still aren't.

Rose gets a pass from Ethics Commission for going to second job while on duty at Venice Police

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The Florida Commission on Ethics dismissed a complaint filed by me against Venice Police Lieutenant Mike Rose. I am publishing the entire document (PDF file, 18 pages) along with a 2007 investigation into Rose performed by then-Captain Dave Dunaway (later interim Chief Dunaway and now retired) into an allegation that Rose was knowingly selling stolen Shimano reels through his bait shop, Mahi Mac's.

The main allegation I made against Rose was that he was working at his out-of-town bait shop during his work shifts and that he was using city police vehicles to travel back and forth between his two jobs.

Budway's blotter blather

After slamming the late Herb Levine in the press and then boycotting Levine's funeral, Gary Budway objects to being criticized, says anyone who speaks ill of him is slanderous. Then the brown acid kicks in as Budway inadvertently admits to violating campaign financing laws.

click to embiggen
(artwork by Venice Florida! dot com)

Ex-VTL dictator Gary Budway (he wasn't really president as he never allowed elections), after getting bootf**ked out of the Venice Taxpayers League, spent quite a bit of ugly time and breath insulting the late Herb Levine. Budway even boycotted Levine's funeral, but the Gondolier gave him plenty of ink to issue his venal verbiage in an article by Greg Giles on Budway's fictional reasons for dumping the Venice Taxpayers League when, in reality, quite the opposite had happened.

Gondo's Giles copies Herald-Trib article on police chief applicants... including the mistakes

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Do you know how teachers usually catch students copying another's work? The cheater invariably copies the mistakes.

On the morning of Friday, December 17, the Herald-Tribune's John Davis reported that former Sarasota Sheriff candidate Dave Gustafson had submitted his resume to city hall for the police chief position (LINK). Gustafson had attended the city council meeting last week in an effort to find out the ground rules for submittuing an application. I spoke with Gustafson during the meeting, even introduced him to the Herald-Trib's Kim Hackett, while the Gondo's resident CQG ball-washer Greg Giles stood by, uninterested and unaware.

On Friday afternoon, the day after Davis' article appeared in the H-T, both Alan Bullock and Kathy Smith (of the city's Human Resources Department) stated that they had received no such resume from Gustafson.

In Saturday's Gondo, Giles re-reported the dubious factoid under his own byline with no attribution to the Herald-Trib (LINK). The Gondo went on to report on Saturday that several "unknown" candidates had submitted resumes, not altogether accurate information again taken from the Herald-Tribune by Giles and unattributed, as several had simply sent letters of interest, not resumes.

Officer formally accuses City Manager, interim Police Chief Dunaway of retaliatory actions and criminal acts for complaining about hostile work environment

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In a nine-page document (LINK - pops in new window), beleaguered police Officer Demitri Serianni exhaustively documents how the department and City Manager Isaac Turner have violated city policies and the law in an effort to duct tape the mouths of officers who complained to Turner about former chief Julie Williams.

Turner's response so far has reportedly been to privately tell council members that Serianni is a lazy cop.

Budway self-destructs, flies plane into Taxpayers League in attempt to avoid hostile takeover by former board members -- VTL re-births itself in spite of Budway's sabotage

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After his entire Board of Directors resigned to protest Budway's idiotic mismanagement, a group of former board members, including the late Herb Levine, had engineered a hostile takeover by demanding Budway's resignation under threat of legal consequences -- Budway freaked out, called the former board "a bunch of flakes," then tried to destroy the League in an act of political terrorism, ending his childish tirade by blaming the entire world for ganging up against him; unfazed, former board members start re-incorporation process

ref: Gondo story on Budway heroically pushing the self-destruct button on the Taxpayers League (link - pops in new window)

The Venice Taxpayers [League] is alive and well, something that apparently scares the bejeebers out of both ex-VTL dictator Gary Budway and semi-literate newsroom gadfly Greg Giles. After reading Giles' premature article on the death of the VTL, I was laughing like hell. To the casual reader, it appears as though Gary Budway is one very bitter and lonely man while the Gondo couldn't even wait for Herb Levine to be in his grave for four weeks before spitting on it. The Gondo and Budway are behaving as though they are scared shitless that Herb might change his mind about this dead and buried thing he has going.

Nice job, guys. Good to see that the Gondo continues to stay classy.

Now that the Gondo has spun out the fiction, here's what really happened.

Jeffy Gates' moist pants

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Below is an email from me to Jeff Gates, husband of council candidate Jeanette Gates, fired off this morning to all who received his original emails ( both published further below on this page). Jeff sent his off to all candidates, various reporters, and then arranged to have his emails posted on the city email server by sending it to all members of council.

I'm still trying to figure out if he is a listed officer on his wife's campaign. If he is, sending these emails would be a big OOOOOOOPS.

Holic claims he warned bilked investors -- not so, says one of Christensen's victims

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In today's Sarasota Herald-Tribune, mayoral candidate John Holic claims he notified all investors that fired investment salesman Brian Christensen had left the employ of A.G. Edwards (see Ethics charges fly in last days of Venice race by Kim Hackett).

From that article: "We sent a letter to all of his [Christensen's] clients that he was no longer an employee and to contact us about any irregularities," Holic said.

Not true, according to Venice resident Roger Bellehumeur, one of A.G. Edwards' former customers and one of Christensen's Ponzi victims. Bellehumeur, an A.G. Edwards client from 1996 until 2004, stated today by phone that he never received any such letter.

Bellehumeur and his wife sued A.G. Edwards and were awarded $1.2 million, including $250,000 in punitive damages for Edwards' "lack of honest dealings."

A letter to John Holic: Sir, we have caught you fibbing again

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My problem here with Holic, one of many, is that he claims to have all of the answers for Venice yet he is incredibly oblivious to basic facts of recent history. This would be forgivable in, say, fellow CQGer Bob Daniels, who only moved here four years ago, but Holic has lived here for what, 20 years? 30? I forget which of those two numbers he keeps touting.

The point is that the events in Holic's mangled version of recent history all fall well within those time frames and should have been as obvious to him as the name of this town. If, that is, he was paying any attention at all to then-current events. He says he did pay attention, but these kind of mistakes are akin to not knowing who was vice-president under George W. Bush.

Profiles in Dumbassity: How to start a war with the media that you are guaranteed to lose

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Some things need no explanation, they are the result of actions that are incredibly self-destructive and stupid beyond description.

Take, for instance, this email:

From: Isaac Turner, City Manager
To: City Council
CC: Nancy Woodley; Pam Johnson
Date: Tuesday - July 6, 2010 9:16 AM
Subject: Airport Article in Tribune From July 3 [link to article]

FYI - Kim Hackett called me Friday afternoon to confirm information she had been provided regarding airport ALP recommendations which will be provided to the City Council later this month. She stated she had spoken with a member of the City Council and just wanted to verify the facts. Kim had questions about specific details which I would not confirm.

FOP is unified in joyous support of police administration; anyone who disagrees will be made to shut the hell up

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OK, this is where PR goes hilariously wonky.

Remember that FOP vote of confidence I reported on nearly a month ago? The one where a majority of Venice Police administrators voted that they support and are in favor of the VPD administration, while the patrol and beat cops either voted the opposite or didn't vote at all?

The union, nearly one month later, has finally issued the results of their vote of confidence in Chief Williams, this in a press release. Well, they released some of the results, anyway. They're just withholding a few bits of data, like how many voted in favor of Williams' regime, how many voted against Williams' regime, how many didn't vote at all, any breakdown in rank of who voted, and what the actual wording was on the ballot.

So, other than the fact that the FOP's press release was about as illuminating as a police flashlight with dead batteries, it was very nice, incorporating complete sentences, correct spelling and mostly correct punctuation.

Who gave police Lieutenant Mike Rose permission to double dip and how much double dipping did he do?

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(pic, from left to right: Julie Williams, Mike Rose, Mike Frassetti, from Frassetti's reinstatement hearing last year -- Chief Williams was forced to rehire Frassetti after a hearing that determined that charges against Frassetti were the result of a department-created fiction)

Chief Julie Williams is finally speaking out on some of the allegations being levied against her, but her answers are about as illuminating as the silent treatment that she has been giving the media up until this point.

The Herald-Trib's Kim Hackett was finally able to get Williams to repeat to the media the same thing that Williams said to council on May 25: that Police Lieutenant Mike Rose had been double dipping by going to his business while on the city's dime. Williams states that Rose had a supervisor's permission to do so.

This opens up a whole new set of  questions, ones that Williams and staff are still successfully ducking with the aid of City Manager Isaac Turner. Two that immediately rise to the surface: how much double dipping did Rose do and which supervisor gave Mike Rose permission to, well, steal from the city (because that's really what was happening)?

Attorney for "disgruntled" officer accuses Chief Williams of making false statements to council, creating a hostile work environment, more....

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The attorney for Venice Police Officer Demitri Serianni has accused the department's chief of lying to city council (specifically citing the chief's answers to questions asked by Councilman Emilio Carlesimo), of creating a hostile work environment, and, by implication, of falsifying police records.

Winter Park attorney Gary Wilson, of the top-rated labor law firm Jill S. Schwartz and Associates, laid out much of the case that will be made against Chief Julie Williams and her two captains, Dave Dunaway and Tom McNulty, in a packet of documents that was sent to city hall on June 15.

Wilson is threatening the city with a potential lawsuit to be filed later this year if the police department does not mend its evil ways.

I am still analyzing much of the document for veracity and this site will publish the full document with analysis within the next 24 to 48 hours.

At first glance: this is a bombshell, the beginning of the end for Williams and her administration.