Posted on 03/18/2007 11:14:36 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The political scandal that has engulfed Central Florida's toll-road agency, most powerful attorneys, biggest developers, best-known political activist, the Orlando Magic and a host of others started in an unlikely way: with a trespassing dog.
When David Strong of Winter Park discovered that a neighbor's dog had done his business on Strong's lawn one too many times, he scooped up the evidence and, in a fit of anger, smeared it on the dog-owner's shirt and neck. Strong was charged with misdemeanor battery, took an anger-management class and performed community service, then forgot all about it.
At least until he entered the 2006 race for mayor of Winter Park. That's when an anonymous political attack ad turned up in thousands of voters' mailboxes. The flier reproduced the police report of the 1999 arrest, with the officer noting the offending stains from "a green-brown substance" with the "odor of excrement."
The flier likely would have simply been written off as a decidely literal example of dirty politics, if it had not been anonymous. State law requires that political advertisements carry a note that identifies who paid for the ad.
So, the office of Orange-Osceola State Attorney Lawson Lamar launched an investigation to find out who was behind the mailer - - and that investigation expanded wider and wider until Central Floridians were able to glimpse the seamy underbelly of local politics, land development and those who profit from them.
Here's how it went down:
With prosecutors on his heels, Doug Guetzloe admitted to sending the Winter Park attack ad. The talk-radio commentator and anti-tax activist paid for the mailers himself at a cost of about $15,000, his lawyer said.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
With steel girders reaching more than 55 feet in the air, the new $24.3 million headquarters of the region's toll-road agency is taking shape next to the busiest stretch of State Road 408.
But while the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority sees the new 81,000-square-foot building with its three-story atrium as a symbol of progress and the future, motorists such as Kevin Mueller see it as evidence of the embattled agency's extravagance.
"It sticks out like a sore thumb -- like a castle on the hill," said Mueller, an Orlando software engineer who has watched construction progress as he slows to pay the 75-cent toll on his commute. "I don't know if they need it or not. I just thought it sends the wrong signal."
The new building is four times the size of the agency's current headquarters. And while it will be open to the public, it will be mostly office and meeting space for use by expressway employees and their contractors.
The building's size and cost, and the authority's decision to provide office space for its contractors, make the headquarters seem like a mistake to the authority's newest board member.
"If I were looking at this from a pure business decision, I wouldn't have done it," said Harvey Massey, who was appointed to the authority by Gov. Charlie Crist in February.
For more of the story: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/growth/orl-xway13x07mar13,0,4008301.story?coll=orl-news-growth-headlines
Interesting, I wonder how many other talk show hosts get paid to keep their mouth shut or to support or oppose a position.
Oops.
Maybe we're in the wrong busine$$. /s
""If I were looking at this from a pure business decision, I wouldn't have done it," said Harvey Massey, who was appointed to the authority by Gov. Charlie Crist in February."
But since its only tax money I say lets go for it!!!
Politicians are making it harder and harder for the public to have any confidence in them. Too many of them have gone over to the dark side--with a seemingly insatiable thirst to have their palms greased.
I don't think it's so much the toll road concept that breeds this corruption as it is the morally debased people that seem to gravitate to such agencies.
Wow! I didn't know newspapers still did this muck-raking stuff! That leads me to my next (rather cynical) question: I wonder what political party Guetzloe is affiliated with...
Hard to tell these days...
I am well acquainted with both ''Kip'' Marchman and Hal Kantor. The former is an honest, decent fellow and excellent public official; the other fellow is not any of those things. The law firm is a haven for hacks and servants of arrogant monied interests that make Orange County, Orlando and central Florida take on the look of Manhatten as they drain the big bucks from developers/bad guys. Mr. Kantor and the firm are the quintessential example of the worst that a once proud profession offered to the community it serves.
The talk show bum is roughly the equal of a social bottom-feeder.
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