Conspiracy Theory?

Glisch alleges non-existent ethics violation against Infantini; Florida Today moves from reporting on campaigns to working for them

Not unexpectedly, the Florida Today calmly endorsed Mr. Geier and Mr. Fisher for the County Commission earlier this month (read Florida Today endorsements here).

From this point there are three paths generally taken by the Florida Today: Slam the living tar out of the opponent, pat the opponent on the back while you dismiss them, or simply state briefly the opponent is unprepared and move on.

Clearly below both Ms. Infantini and Mr. Shealy, each of whom is more familiar with County Government than their opponents combined and even certain sitting Commissioners, were dismissed as unprepared and unknowing. This is untrue, of course, because the proper tag line should have been Ms. Infantini and Mr. Shealy MUST be completely clueless because they completely disagree with the Florida Today Vision for Brevard County. Such Vision is highlighted by the Florida Today editiorial (below) requesting voters to say no to the proposed County Tax Cap (after all, it takes courage to raise taxes, you know).

I did not think much of the endorsements (being a perfect 5-0 in Florida Today non-endorsements myself) until I heard a strange set of comments from Mr. John Glisch (Florida Today Editorial Board Member) on the Bill Mick Show (WMMB) on Wednesday.[display_podcast]

Mr. Glisch commented that he found Ms. Infantini to have ‘evaded’ the questions, a euphemism for not giving the ‘right’ answers, and then moved on to attack her by saying she had committed an Ethics Violation on an attempted EELS sale and that I personally had reprimanded her for the attempted action.

Deja Vu Election Year 2000 for Scott Ellis. The Florida Today slammed the living tar out of me in their alleged endorsement of Weasel Kershaw for the Clerk of Court. Included in the slam were a few comments about actions I had voted upon as a County Commissioner. They were strange votes picked, one being my vote against a Solid Waste bond (the minutes show I wanted a shorter debt repayment on the note).

These were votes that there was NO WAY the Florida Today Editorial Board, of which Mr. Glisch and Mr. Bob Stover were members, could have known.

When I went to the newspaper to raise some hell with Mr. Glisch and Mr. Stover (I had requested to see Mr. Mike Coleman, the Publisher) over the slipshod personal slams and ask for their evidence (none existed, as usual) I brought up these obscure votes. Neither really knew anything about them, and when I saw these same issues in Weasel Kershaw flyers I then knew whose campaign had fed the information directly to the editiorial staff.

Fast forward to 2008 and here we go again. Mr. Glisch makes a few statements which could only have been fed him by the Geier campaign, which is being assisted by a few of the very same people who had directed the Kershaw Sleaze 8 years ago.

First off it is a statement of fact, not opinion, when one accuses a government employee of an ethics violation in the performance of their duty. The FACT is not only was there no violation, there was no charge of a violation, there was not even an official request for investigation of a violation. The comment was a false accusation given as a statement of fact, not opinion.

If the Florida Today truly believed there was an Ethics Violation, where was The Watchdog and where was the formal Complaint to the Florida Ethics Commission?

The second comment was one which was false under any circumstances, as alleged fact or opinion, and could ONLY HAVE BEEN GIVEN TO MR. GLISCH BY THE GEIER CAMPAIGN. Mr. Glisch stated Ms. Infantini had been reprimanded by Scott Ellis, Clerk of Court, as Ms. Infantini’s boss. There was no reprimand. No one has requested Ms, Infantini’s personnel file, but had they done so they would have found no reprimand or any other kind of disciplinary action ever taken over any issue.

Once again the Editors of the Florida Today move beyond advocacy (very impartial advocacy, they’d assure you) to being a campaign mouthpiece for those whose ideas they support and against those whose ideas they abhor.

Where in the world would John Glisch get the information to make a statement that I had reprimanded Trudie Infantini? It has never been alleged in any newspaper article nor I’m sure was it ever brought up by Ms. Infantini in her interview. NOBODY has ever asked me the question and NOBODY has requested copies of her Personnel file, so where did this comment originate?

What I did chew Ms. Infantini out for was in trying to deal with certain County personnel as if they were honest and above board when I had warned her certain people were not trustworthy. I reminded her to skip her instincts and talk to me before she would meet with County Management.

After a few very hard lessons learned, including one where the EELS Director fed ‘information’ to Mr. Mozo of the SJRWMD (the same who wrote the paper on me a few times and e-mailed our entire office the day before the election) to come in to a workshop AFTER I had left and just slam the heck out of Ms. Infantini with no one there to defend her or our work, she came to realize I was correct and many of the upper staff were not to be trusted.

This was NOT a reprimand, it was an encore lesson of a lesson I had previously taught. Not only that, but this was a few verbal discussions about how to deal precisely with the staff, maybe some e-mails (never requested by John Glisch) and no more.

Mr. Glisch has absolutely NOTHING in his possession to make the statements that there had been a violation of ethics and/or an employee reprimand. NOTHING. That is, nothing from the Clerk’s Office.

Now I do not care how one sided the Florida Today Editorials are, I expect nothing better, but when they move from simply raining fire and brimstone on believers in less government to parroting the campaign propoganda of the Big Goverment opponents they have moved from campaign commentary to campaign workers. And I do expect more than that even from a one sided newspaper.

It is a shame it is so late in the campaign because Ms. Infantini should demand of the Florida Today Publisher the basis in fact for the statements of its editors. My bet is they have nothing they will produce, after all, showing the information came from another campaign rather than a news source just may slightly mar the appearance of journalistic integrity!