If you want proof of the decline of journalistic ethics, look no further than the Florida Today.

I had just posted my column about negative campaigns when I stumbled across this beauty on the Florida Today opinion page. Note their concern isn’t with finding the truth and halting the flow of misinformation – they want everyone to be able to spread lies freely, without having to worry about being ‘negatively’ attacked for not telling the truth.

Their motives are clear, as there is no mention of the fact that in the Clerk’s race Needelman was caught red-handed in not one, but TWO confirmed lies told live on the air. Only Ellis’ wry comments in response to Needelman’s allegations are worth mentioning here:

“Stay out of the gutter. Don’t throw mud. Bag the dirty tricks.

That’s our message to Space Coast candidates and their campaigns as the two-month sprint to the Nov. 4 election begins.”
[Read more at Florida Today...]

“To my friends, neighbors, and supporters,

I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to run for Brevard County Clerk of Courts. We all knew we faced a challenge in going against an incumbent for this position. My feelings were strong, and they still are, that we needed a change in this office. Therefore I decided to make the run.

In spite of the challenges we faced in this race, with your help we waged a great campaign, and we got a lot of issues out there for examination and scrutiny that had never before been seen. That was the main goal of this campaign-to show why this office is in need of major repair.

I absolutely believe that because of the light we shed on the issues, the people of Brevard County are the real winners in this election. My campaign will force needed change in that office. Whether by my hand or my opponent’s, it does not matter. What is important is that those changes be made for the betterment of all Brevard citizens.

With that said, I want to express my gratitude to all those who showed confidence in me, those who formally endorsed my campaign, my contributors, and all those who volunteered so selflessly of their time in support of my cause. You all are golden to me, and I will never forget your help and encouragement through this long, arduous and extremely challenging campaign.

Regardless of the outcome, in my mind we are all “winners” because we waged an honest, clean, dignified and factual campaign. If, at the end of the day, you walk away with your integrity, and you know that you have presented issues that are factual and will have to be addressed, then you have done your job.

We are all winners. Thanks for all your help and support. I’ll see you out on the river. I’m going fishing!

Sincerely,

Mitch Needelman
Candidate for Brevard County Clerk of the Circuit Court”

[display_podcast]
Click here for pdf snapshot of Needelman campaign web site as it appeared August 7, 2008

Apparently my coverage of Needelman’s Campaign Web Site HomeTown News Interview “modification” has earned me a spot in the State Rep’s legal counsel’s crosshairs. Here is a post from earlier today from someone called ‘Badge451′ from the Florida Today Clerk of Courts forums who claims to be some type of law enforcement. 

“Here is a bulletin for our Mr. Nye:

You have been an annoyance to me from the very start. Your arrogance and pompous attitude, your self-importance, your smugness when you “thought” you had caught Representative Needelman in some kind of deliberate lie are all revolting and nauseating. You disgust me, as you do so many others.

I was especially outraged by your cowardice when confronted with your own lies regarding all this. Instead of being a man and apologizing because the holier-than-though puppetboy had made a mistake, you attempted to minimize it and pass it off as unimportant.

Well, guess what, it isn’t unimportant. You attempted to ruin the reputation of a STATE LEGISLATOR. You did it in several different forums, you did it with malice and intent, and you were WRONG.

You never saw that information on Needelman’s website, because it was not there. You might have gotten it from some other source, from an email prior to final editing for print in HTN, but you NEVER got it from Needelman’s website.

You doctored that pdf as sure as I am sitting here typing this. You thought you could weave all that crap together, and you almost did it. HTN went along with it to a certain extent, but if you read their article closely, they NEVER said it was originally on Needelman’s website. All they said was that the article they ran and the current website do not match. The reason why is left to speculation. Read it again, Puppetboy, and try not to wet your pants. They did NOT support your allegations.

Not only did you jump the gun by printing what you THOUGHT they said, they never said it. And neither of you… not HTN or YOU ever contacted Needelman for comment before going to press. Another big NO-NO. Additional proof of malice. “Rush to Judgement”, Puppy. And you know what happened the last time somebody did that. They lost, big time.

Further proof of malice??? Here is some for you. I printed every single time you reposted that “report” of yours. I lost count of how many times you did it, but according to my source, every time more than ONCE is additional proof of malice. Ouch. It sucks to be you right about now…

Here is another bulletin for you. Needelman can update his website anytime he wants to, and he does not have to get your permission. No changes were made in this particular content, but if he wants to make additions, deletions, change logos or fonts or whatever, he can do it, because it is his website. So you’ve got nothing to be hollering about in the first place. The fact that you are doing this, and suggesting something improper or illegal just further digs your own grave.

YOU, however, are not privileged to post whatever you want, alter other’s words or writings, or do anything that suggests that someone has done something wrong or illegal without actual proof. Again, I reiterate, even if you could by some miracle prove what you are saying, there was nothing wrong or illegal about it. Just your PERCEPTION of it, which is also wrong, and which is going to cost you a lot of money. I hope you got a good bang for your buck, and a big fat checkbook so you can put your money where your mouth is. Which for you means you would have to sit on it.

The reason you are not privileged to do that on your website, is because you are presenting it as a source of information, you accept advertising, and you proclaim to be a “journalist”. I am sorry to tell you that when you do all those things, you elevate yourself above us mere mortals to an alleged “professional” status, and you are held to a higher standard of conduct than the rest of us; both professionally and legally.

What you post or print CAN be held against you if it is incorrect or a deliberate lie. Especially if there is malice, and in this case, based on all the postings you did on the FT blog, proving malice is a walk in the park. If it can be proven, and it CAN, that you fabricated something and said you saw it on Needelman’s website when in reality it was something you constructed, then you are guilty of libel. You know what the penalties are for that.

That is why actual newspapers and real journalists are so careful about what they say and do. The field is always ripe for lawsuits. Since you mentioned the National Enquirer in one of your posts, you should go and research how much they have paid out in lawsuits they lost because they were not careful about what they printed. The only difference between you and them is that you are a little creep wannabe without a pot to p*ss in, and YOU can’t afford to defend yourself against a libel case. The National Enquirer spends more for coffee stirrers than you make in a year. They don’t care about the lawsuits. They take a calculated risk, and their profits from their outrageous headlines far surpasses what they pay out in legal fees. It is a cost of doing business for them. Not so for you, is my bet. This is going to break you into tiny pieces.

Do you have a fleet of attorneys on retainer like they do?? Do you have even ONE??

The reason I ask this, my little buddy,is that the s**t is about to hit the fan for you. I would brace myself for the blow. You have never seen a hurricane like the one that is about to hit you. Allow me to explain:

You and your leader have been very disrespectful to me and my position as a former law enforcement officer. You have also been very disrespectful to two fellow law enforcement officers, Hartman and Needelman. I have endured the insults, and the jokes pointed at all three of us, and I have allowed this to go on for days. But now I am done, and I have to tell you I don’t get mad, I get even. Ellis thought I threatened someone on this forum before? No. I don’t do threats; I take action.

Let me tell you how that works for me. I have documented every post you and Ellis have made in his various aliases. I especially like the one he did yesterday in which he proved that his twisted little mind will doctor official court records right off the Clerk of Courts website. (That information is already on its way to Tallahassee, by the way. There will be a subpoena to FT for the ISP of the person who did that little trick. If it turns out to be traceable to Ellis, they will address that immediately.) It probably won’t require a lot of action on their part, as he will be out of a job tomorrow. But they may take punitive action and order audits of his records. That would be massive, and I hope in their suit against him he is required to pay the cost of the auditing.

The rest of the information, and the stuff I printed from the website, (yes, all your little comments that prove malice, the repeated postings of your accusations and lies about where you got your information, all of it) has been carefully catalogued and filed. I put it all into a nice big package and delivered it to Representative Needelman late last night. Since I am a fellow retired law enforcement officer, he was more than glad to see me on short notice. The Brotherhood of the Badge is alive and well, you know.

He does not watch the blogs, so he was quite surprised to see what you and Ellis have been up to. He was also both angry and disturbed at the level of “disconnect” both of you seem to be having with reality. He thanked me for my concern, and assured me my time had not been wasted. When I left I was not sure if my information was really worthy of his attention. The blog is, after all, just the blog. It will all go away after the election and everyone will forget about it, no matter which candidate wins. But I was glad that I had at least made him aware of what you were doing. I mean, you have worked SO HARD to destroy this man. He should be aware of your efforts so he can properly “thank” you if he desires.

Now, today is the last day before the election. So I did not expect him to do anything with my information today, because I am sure he is extremely busy with last minute campaign matters.

So you can imagine my surprise when I got a very interesting telephone call about 3:00PM today! It was from Mr. Needelman’s attorney. He was going over the package, and he wanted to verify a few points with me so he was sure he understood completely what you had done.

We chatted for nearly an hour. We went over a lot of the documents I had provided. He has already had one of his investigators do a background check on you, and he shared some of that with me, since I am obviously going to be a key witness in this matter. My, My, you have some deep dark secrets, don’t you my boy???

Well, to make a long story short, he is going to file suit against you. He says this is a very strong case, and he is somewhat amazed at how stupid you have been in making such a trail to your motives apparent in all this. I guess maybe you should have hung out in journalism school for a couple more semesters until they got to the part about legal liability and how to avoid making mistakes that can get your a** sued off.

Actually, he is quite confident you are going down in flames. And he is looking forward to it, as are all of us who feel you are fungus that needs to be sprayed with Lysol. Meet Mr. Lysol, Attorney at Law.

He is a specialist in this sort of thing. I didn’t know that some attorneys specialized in slander, libel and defamation, but apparently they do. In his case, 85% of his cases are like this one, or very similar. And while there is a misperception that public figures cannot sue or be sued because they are in the public domain, that is not true at all. If malice can be proven, if there is motive or intent to ruin a reputation, a career, or cripple someone’s life because of what is said or implied, there are grounds for a suit. Guess what, little buddy?

Officer Hartman, if you are still reading these, take note. You might want to contact Representative Needelman for this lawyer’s name. I think you could use his services, too.

Well, I hope you enjoy your evening. After the election is over, your life is going to change dramatically. I would venture to say that when they are done with you, you won’t be writing or publishing ANYTHING, except that monthly payment check for restitution to your victim.

The reason I am posting this, aside from my obvious glee in knowing this is going to happen, and I have a part in it, is to inform the rest of you here who support Rep. Needelman and believe he has been mistreated by this cretin, to please contact him at his website and let him know if you are willing to be a witness and give a deposition in this case. You are all anonymous now, so his lawyer has no way of contacting you, and the website will probably be abandoned by FT after this election is over. So please, if you want to be a part of this action against Matthew Nye, post to Needelmans’ website, www.mitchforclerk.com and let him know, giving your name and contact information. After the election is over, Mitch will get the information to the lawyer, and the lawyer, or a member of his staff, will be contacting you to set up an interview. Also, please print anything you see that may be used in the lawsuit. I cannot monitor all the time, and I am sure I may have missed some things. Anything you can hold onto will be helpful. Include the posts that are obviously Scott as well. It all goes to motive and intent.

I am looking forward to this almost as much as I am to Needelman winning the election! Nye, you are going DOWN!!! It’s just too bad this is civil. Nothing would make me happier than to imagine you in a prison cell with a roommate named Bubba who thinks you’re cute and likes to dance.

Thanks,

Badge451″

Stay tuned, and don’t forget to vote tomorrow!

I can tell the disgraced and disenfrocked former Palm Bay lobbyist is back in town as the negative attacks have moved from the (Florida Today) BLOG to the radio, TV, and the nebulous website, mitchforclerk.com.

New to the Needelman website is a “What Ellis Says, What Ellis Did, What Mitch Will Do” section put together minus the Third Audit Protocol.

There are various disjointed statements entitled What Ellis Says, yet there is a curious LACK of quotation marks, perhaps because these disjointed sections have been written by Mitch and his campaign staffers to paraphrase in their words what I ‘said’.

Well, when you say someone SAID something, there needs to be a quote and source and there is no quote and no defined source for any of these comments.

However, being a mixture of fact and fantasy, I will address them.

On the Term Limits issue, Legislative Term Limits passed in 1992.  I ran all of 1992 for the Brevard County Commission.  I did fully support the amendment, but the embellishment contained in what I did is false as my old Toyota truck had a topper, I did not even have Scott Ellis for County Commission signs on it, and in the radio forum Mitch claimed I stood around on corners with a sign for the Amendment when the only sign I had to wave was for the County Commission race.  Local term limits were later enacted and deliberately did not include any of the Constitutional Officers as they were considered Administrative/Executive in nature rather than Legislative.

As for the late night radio show, I do not recall I ever ‘demanded’  Dr. Weldon step aside nor severely chastised him.  The “will of the people” is in quotes, so where is the radio clip with the What Ellis Said?  It’s pretty easy to state in 2008 what was allegedly said anywhere in 2007 when there is no record to back up anything, and without a show date I am unable to provide a playback (like I could provide an image of the Sarno landfill check) to show what really was said (and by who) on the show.

What Ellis Says on the Certification issue is a huge mish mash.  He actually had a quotable answer I had written to him and his aide who surreptiously acting as a concerned citizen asked me the question.

My answer and the question asked, which Mitch and his aide COULD HAVE QUOTED me:

Q: Why have you not obtained the certification for the Clerk of Courts in the 8 years you have been in office?

A: The State certification required 8 weeks of hotel in Tallahasee the first two years. Most of the material covered was material I already had in school (finance, technology) or on the County Commission (budget, minutes).  For the first four years I was in office I did not take a day off, much less have time for 8 weeks off learning most of what I already had.  I inherited a crashed Clerk’s Office and put in countless hours around the clock, it would be poor leadership on my part to go off for weeks of unnecessary conferences while everyone else was struggling with the recovery.
But, hey, that’s not as good a quote for What Ellis Said as the jumble of phrases and comments passing as if it were some quotable commentary or reply written by myself.  What is covered above is we were swamped in work, I was swamped for the first years taking ZERO time off, and I did have experience as a County Commissioner and a Programmer as well as a Computer Science degree and an MBA, and that many of the certification classes were geared to rural Clerk’s Offices.
Satisfactory completion means you go for the eight weeks, there is not a certification exam.  Being certified means you get an extra $2,000 annually in salary, meaning I chose to forego $12,000 to be in our office putting my shoulder to the wheel with my co-workers rather than camped out in a Tallahassee hotel.  As for the other Clerk’s, none inherited anything like the mess we had in Brevard County, a collapse quite well known amongst the other Clerks.

Now the section entitled What Ellis Did is so full of baloney the infamous Third Audit Protocol must be whimpering in some corner after being banished from the Needelman Campaign.

The reporting function was one of the last functions to be fixed as the first priority of the crashed system and backlog was re-establishing daily operations (a days work in a days time) and knocking down huge backlogs in case dispositions, uncollected fines and tickets, license suspensions, squaring monies with the cities and counties (it has all been estimates) and fixing the general ledger and getting it current.  The reporting function was fixed and the State claimed the error rate was too high, and when we asked what the error rate was for other counties, we got a blank answer.  Now while Needleman claims our answer of we needed to do nothing was arrogant and flippant, the reality is since 2004 we have virtually done nothing and what was not broke at the time of the letter in 2004 is not broke today.

Mr. Needelman complains we fail to meet State Collection Standards for one area yet conveniently fails to state the shortfall (89% versus 90%) and neglects that the other collection rates exceed the State standard.  On top of this, the Clerk is not a Judge and we do not have debt enforcement powers.

This one is so false (and conveniently no numbers are mentioned) in “His courts are a mess of backlogged cases, mismanaged schedules, and failure to meet even minimal expectations from Judges, Lawyers and Citizens.” all I can say is ask a lawyer how much, if any, of this statement has any credibility.

One would think if AFTER EIGHT YEARS of failing to meet ‘minimum expectations’ the State would have already removed me from office, I would have had an opponent in 2004, and the Florida Today would have my transgressions living on the front pages weekly.  None of this has happened because none of the charges are true.

Now here is a whopper that is both not true and in part completely verifiably not true.  Now one may claim “His computer system is still not functional after EIGHT YEARS” and pass it off as hyperbolic exagerration and opinion, but the follow up claim that  “over $500K of ‘consulting fees’ in just the last year alone” has been spent is another flat out fabrication like the lawsuits I allegedly filed against the county and my signature on the Sarno Landfill check.  We are NOT paying consultants on the Courts software, have had little work outside ourselves and the vendor for the last eight years, and in fact there are NO software consultants allowed to work on the Courts program because it is PROPRIETARY software.

One final comment on my oft ridiculed 25 year old degrees.  I survived numerous weed-out classes at UCF in the Computer Science curriculum to get the degree in one of the top two programs in the State for Computer Science.  I worked as well in the computer field during my four years in the Air Force.  I completed my Masters in Business Administration at UCF at night while working as a software analyst for RCA at the Cape. The MBA was difficult at night, but not as hard as the Computer Science degree had been.  Maybe after a few months of this it is time to get personal as Mr. Needelman has a 1990′s undergraduate degree from a flunk-proof diploma mill which taught a few classes at the Sarno Plaza by my house.  There is no comparison in the two educations we achieved.  I am one of the first to state that often one may be well educated but lacking in common sense, and that formal education is not everything, but for someone who brags about a diploma mill degree to constantly knock a real degree from a real university is the ultimate in chutzpah.

Best of all, however, is TWO DAYS before the election Mr. Needelman NOW decides  “Today we begin to post issues and answers for you”.  The man has been in the Clerk’s race for eighteen months and NOW decides to begin to post issues.  He has had the opportunity for months for candidate Forums and events and dodged nearly every one except two (which had no debates) and the joint appearance on the Bill Mick Live show.

I do not blame him. Just like the other baloney issues the last week and the month of despicable garbage thrown into the Florida Today Blogs, had any of these issues been tossed out months ago they’d already be in the Third Audit Protocol Trash Bin, or for the more slyly disappearing phoney claims, down the Memory Hole with an interview re-write.

They did me one better, and at approximately 8pm Saturday night posted the following on their home page:

Editor’s note: It has come to the attention of Hometown News that candidate for the clerk of courts, Mitch Needelman, has posted an “interview” with Hometown News on his Web site, mitchforclerk.com.

Actually, what is posted is a set of e-mailed questions from reporter Gretchen Sauerman, who sent the questions to Mr. Needelman July 22 for a story.

While we were aware that Mr. Needelman had posted the e-mail on his Web site, we were not aware that there are differences between the post that appears on www.mitchforclerk.com as of today, Aug. 23, and the actual e-mail between Mrs. Sauerman and Mr. Needelman exchanged a month ago.

We do not know what Mr. Needelman originally posted on his Web site. We do know what appears on his site today and the original e-mail he sent to us do not match. The main difference is that his original e-mail contains an accusation that his opponent, incumbent Scott Ellis, has ” … unsuccessful (sic) sued the County a number of times in the last eight years.” That statement does not appear today on Mr. Needelman’s Web site.

[Read more at HomeTown News...]

I sincerely hope the voters of Brevard County will question both Mr. Needelman’s attention to detail, and now his character, as this makes the second time he has leveled a serious (and completely false) allegation at incumbent Scott Ellis.

The first time he accused Ellis of being complicit in the Sarno landfill deal by signing the check as Clerk, even though Ellis hadn’t yet been sworn in as Clerk yet. To his credit, he promptly apologized for his mistake after Ellis called him on it.

This time, however, he chose to try to conceal the mistake entirely, with someone claiming to be a paid employee of his going so far as to accuse me of libel for printing comments from his own web site!

To give you some insight into the mindset of the folks in the Needelman camp, here is a quote “LostInBrevard” posted on the FloridaToday forum after my call to Bill Mick’s show on Friday morning:

“…and I am waiting to see how you get the general public to know…on the Friday before the election…with no money? What get Florida Today to do it? Oh yeah…they are socialist, why would they help Scott? Umm…make a commercial? Really- and that is the general public? A mail out? No time…but costly (scott has no money)?”

I will let you draw your own conclusions as to Needelman’s intent in regards to this issue.

Here is the audio from the Bill Mick Live show last Friday in case you missed it:
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Hear it straight from the horse’s mouth: 
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I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t heard it myself – Mr. Needelman acknowledged he controls the content of his campaign web site, and flat out lied when he said nothing on that site had changed in regards to him alleging incumbent Scott Ellis has unsuccessfully sued the county a number of times in the last eight years.

Here is a snapshot of the HomeTown News Interview on his web site from two weeks ago:

Here is a snapshot as of yesterday:

I have consistently asserted that Needelman has been waging a smear campaign of half truths and outright lies against incumbent Scott Ellis. I hope this failed attempt to conceal another false charge he levied against Ellis proves to the voters of Brevard County that Mr. Needelman has lost his way, sight of the truth, and possibly his mind. Heaven help us if he succeeds in his bid for this office.

Editor’s note: Fair is fair. When I asked my question on BML, and later when I originally posted this, I had transposed the verbiage from the pdf and stated Needelman said the current clerk had sued the county eight times. It actually says “the current clerk has unsuccessful (sic) sued the County a number of times in the last eight years”.  I regret the mistake, and have corrected the error here on the site.

BTW….

Maybe the journalist drop out should have stayed in school if he was planning on operating a site until he learned how to properly quote people.

This is from spacecoastpolitics.com

“The current Clerk is obsessed with watch dogging the operations of our County Commissioners to the extent of “short changing” other responsibilities. When government sues government (the current Clerk has unsuccessfully sued the County a number of times in the last eight years), we as taxpayers are the big losers regardless who actually wins the suit. One must not only be fiscally conservative but also fiscally responsible. There is a fine balance between prudent management and compulsive behavior to the detriment of everyone.”

Well, that’s a great issue and a great sermon but unfortunately for Mr. Needelman it is blatantly false. (Maybe this is fasle because Mr. Needelman did not say it – you added it for your own pleasure – isn’t that slander?)

Now this is the actual statement from Mitchforclerk.com

The current Clerk is obsessed with watch dogging the operations of our County Commissioners to the extent of “short changing” other responsibilities. When government sues government we as taxpayers are the big losers regardless who actually wins the suit. One must not only be fiscally conservative but also fiscally responsible. There is a fine balance between prudent management and compulsive behavior to the detriment of everyone.

I am the “journalist dropout” WeNeedMitch is referring to. And no, WeNeedMitch, what YOU have committed here isn’t slander (verbal), it’s LIBEL (written word). More on that in a second.

When Needelman began posting these interviews and endorsements on his web site, I thought it might be a good idea to make pdf snapshots of the information on the site because the Needelman supporters on the forum, like WeNeedMitch, have a tendency to go back and rewrite their posts after the fact so they can make it look like you are misquoting them. Lo and behold the apples don’t fall far from the tree.

Here is a pdf snapshot I took today of the Hometown News “Interview” on his web site:

Here is what it looked like on August 7, 2008 (the line WeNeedMitch is saying I or Mr. Ellis added is in the first paragraph on page two):

As you can see, the quote was there from the original interview when I took the snapshot on August 7. Apparently Mr. Needelman just decided it would be more expeditious to remove it from the web site than it would be to face the fallout from another whopper like the one he told on Bill Mick’s show a couple of weeks ago about Ellis signing the Sarno Landfill check, even though Ellis hadn’t yet been sworn in as Clerk.

The ease and frequency with which the Needelman camp throws out inaccurate information, and in this case not only covers it up, but accuses myself and Mr. Ellis of fabricating it in the first place, is disturbing, to say the least. Needelman’s entire campaign has been about how he is a man of character:

WeNeedMitch Florida Today forum post excerpt from August 8, 2008:

Mitch tells the FACTS then provides documentation to back it up. Therefore he doesn;t go around making things up as he goes. He and his staff take thier time to research everything – How do I know this because I have worked with him and believe him to be a man of GREAT CHARACTER.

And just who is this WeNeedMitch? Just another avid supporter? Nope. On August 10, WeNeedMitch gives us a clue as to his/her identity:

I work for Mitch and I absolutely love it!!!! I love what I do I love that I can go to him with any issue work or personal and he is caring and understanding. I have been loyal to him as he has to been loyal to me.

So here we have a Needelman *employee*, not just a supporter, accusing Mr. Ellis and myself of fabricating a statement included in an “interview” that he, or someone in his camp, deleted after Ellis called him out on it. He has character, alright. Not to worry, though, because (from the apology to Mr. Ellis in regards to the Sarno Landfill comment):

My campaign team follows a strict verification protocol for every piece of information received. It is checked and rechecked before release to the public. Somehow this issue did not go through this process before being released.

I take full responsibility for this error.

To prevent recurrence of this oversight I have implemented a third audit protocol that will test each item yet again before certifying it for release. All information scheduled for future release has been re-examined under this new policy and found to be accurate and true.

Our voters can be confident that the information coming from my campaign is truthful and relevant to the race for Clerk of Courts. The information is based on documented information checked and double checked and you can be assured it is factual.

I feel SO much better now knowing that third audit protocol is in place. As you can see, the apology rings a little hollow the second time around, which is probably why they chose to delete the comment instead of acknowledging it.

I sincerely hope the voters of Brevard County see through the trickery and deceit of the Needelman political machine. One can only wonder what sort of games Needelman will play with taxpayer money should he be elected as the comptroller of the county.

Contrary to Mr. Needelman’s comments  below on the DHSMV report conducted by the Clerk’s Office, the number of officers mentioned by name in the report is ZERO.  

The entire report is pasted below, as well as the rules for Third Audit Protocol fact checking allegedly implemented after the “Scott Ellis signed the check for the Sarno Landfill” tale was exposed by the simple fact I was not the Clerk at the time of the sale.
Here’s the link to the report, a few pages of quick read:

http://199.241.8.125/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=3201 

Like the ‘error’ on the Sarno Landfill check commentary, it is not a simple erroneous remark missing a date or an item, but after the error is pronounced it is fully expanded upon by a lecture of how Scott Ellis does not know what he is doing. 

“‘But Ellis’ audit, Needelman said, was a biased report conducted by an improper agency and unfairly attacks police instead of focusing on internal issues within the clerk’s office that could ensure suspension notification information reaches the state in a timely manner.

A good leader would’ve been looking at working with the (DHSMV) to see where the breakdown was instead of looking at particular officers to try to hang them,’ Needelman said.”

We did copy the report with recommendations (no press release) to local Law Enforcement and the DHSMV a year ago. We worked with DHSMV in Tallahassee. I do not know from the comments above whether  Mr. Needelman is  willfully wrong or the result of never reading the report  willfully ignorant. 

However, it is a disturbing pattern when someone is grossly overconfident in their error and then begins to lecture and preach on the subject.  Before one gets on the soap box over an issue one ought to take the time to try tp get it right, or at least get close.  It is a dangerous character trait should one be placed in a position where many of their decisions have little checks and balances and must be well thought before action is taken.

For example, as Mitch wrote for the Hometown News: 

“The current Clerk is obsessed with watch dogging the operations of our County Commissioners to the extent of “short changing” other responsibilities. When government sues government (the current Clerk has unsuccessfully sued the County a number of times in the last eight years), we as taxpayers are the big losers regardless who actually wins the suit. One must not only be fiscally conservative but also fiscally responsible. There is a fine balance between prudent management and compulsive behavior to the detriment of everyone.” 

Well, that’s a great issue and a great sermon but unfortunately for Mr. Needelman it is blatantly false.

I have asked their campaign to subject the above statement to the Third Audit Protocol and simply IDENTIFY the lawsuits the Clerk’s Office has filed against Brevard County.  OK, maybe even like Diogenes or Lot, how about just naming ONE SINGLE LAWSUIT (“the current Clerk has unsuccessfully sued the County a number of times in the last eight years”) filed by the Clerk against the County?  They cannot produce one because such lawsuits do NOT exist.

The above is not a simple error but a fabrication designed to lead into a lecture on how the Clerk is costing the taxpayers a bundle.  It is a willful error designed to be the lead into the phoney issue, and this campaign has been filled with such tales either of whole cloth or attributed to those who never said or did such things.

I guess I am being negative now and rather should simply allow my opponent to fabricate tales at will while I present him flowers. Odd how one candidate may say whatever they choose without a shred of fact, but when I dare to present the facts, or ask for the facts, I am being negative.

In May of 2000 Brevard County purchased property for a supposed landfill expansion for $7.2 million, land alleged to be critical to the future of the Sarno Landfill. 

The deal was rushed through in weeks and was passed via the Consent Agenda with no public discussion.  The sellers had an option on the land, such that they bought it in the morning for $1.2 million and sold it to the County for $7.2 million in the afternoon.
  

The deal became infamous, everyone said they did not know or did not understand, and the land rapidly was known to be SURPLUS and not necessary.  No permits were ever pulled and no dirt ever turned on the site.

For another few years land buying became heavily scrutinized with an assortment of ‘safeguards’ put into place to ‘make sure’ the Sarno Landfill was never repeated.  However, passage of a second EELS Referendum in 2004 and a subsequent bond issuance in 2005 made the allure of tens of millions of dollars too powerful to keep the land buying controls in place.

The first Sarno Landfill repeat, almost exactly the same sequence of events, occurred in the Spring of 2006.  The seller had an option to buy 125 acres of land across Parrish Road in Titusville for $2.2 million.  The land included a southern 85 acres so riddled with wetlands, gopher turtles, eagles nests, and indian mounds as to be practically (economically) unrealistic to develop, while the north 40 had potential for a subdivision. 

The Brevard County EELS program negotiated with the option holder (against their own rules), placed the purchase on the Consent Agenda (against their own rules) and would have passed it as silently as the Sarno landfill had the disruptive Clerk of Courts not appeared to pull the item from Consent for discussion.

In spite of being told various land buying rules were being violated, the County Manager claimed the rules did not apply to EELS (not so) and the County Commission rammed through the deal paying $3.6 million for the economically non-viable south 85 acres and left the developable north 40 with the option holder!  We challenged the appraisals (to no avail) and pointed out various major errors of development assumption by the appraisers (to no avail), asked for delay in the purchase (no way) and thus the latest round of purchases picked up where the Sarno landfill left off, millions made (plus 40 acres) on an option.

Through various purchases we again and again challenged appraisals wherein properties were being bought for more than double their 2005 peak prices (developable) or some properties just outright undevelopable (cows could not even use them) water and marsh.  At best we achieved a few purchase delays, but, EVERY SINGLE DELAYED PURCHASE came back at lower prices (still way too much) saving the EELS program millions of dollars.  Of course, oddly enough, we received the scorn of the EELS program supporters who were actually being gifted with many more millions of dollars to use to by properties.

Tens of millions of dollars later came the near final purchase of the 20 year bond, a $25 million buy of  mix of woods, pasture, and wetlands in Scottsmoor.  We had successfully challenged the western portion purchase (AG Ventures) in November of 2006 by pointing out the obvious fact the state certified appraisers missed, that being since the western portion was a part of a large Planned Unit Development (PUD) if the County bought the AG Ventures portion the County would be on the hook to satisfy various utility requirements for the east side, the Scottsmoor Partners.  We asked for a time certain, Commission Chairman Voltz refused, but by Monday the deal was removed from the agenda.

Scottsmoor Partners knew the bottom had fallen out of the housing bubble and joined with AG Ventures to also sell their land to the County, and, like AG Ventures, they would sell for far more than they had paid for the land back near the bubble peak in 2004 and 2005.  We again challenged the appraisals and the first joint purchase item was defeated, but far from dead.

Months later two purchases we had severely questioned, Scottsmoor and the Boyd/DiChristopher swamp mosquito impoundments, were back in the game.   The Merritt Island tidal salt marsh was purchased for $2 million ($1 million less than 2006) and only the $25 million Scottsmoor properties remained.

I can recite the litany of reasons we gave as to why the appraisals were grossly incorrect, reasons we had presented on numerous other purchases in the last two years.  There were no good comparable land sales because nothing was selling, not exactly the sign of any great demand.  Every delay made resulted in prices falling further, and unlike the rapid rise/fall of the stock market, real estate was heading down and had been doing so for almost THREE YEARS, the question of ‘timing the market’ was moot.  There was no danger of development, nothing was being developed, the housing market was dead.  This was no wildlife corridor from the Indian River to the St. Johns River, I-95 effective squelches any such corridor for whatever critters may roam far and wide.  Prices on every single property except that desired by EELS had fallen over the last three years.

Finally the point was made that the rush to purchase land for more than double its purchase price in 2004 and 2005 was another financail windfall for the sellers.  If we would just be patient prices would continue falling and the properties could be purchased for millions of dollars less.  No use, of course, and the land was bought for $21 million (a drop of $3 million) 5-0.

This purchase marked the end of most of the 2005 EELS bond dollars.  As should be fitting a full circle, one seller of Scottsmoor previously sold us the Sarno Landfill, the other seller previously sold us the Parrish Holder property.  While both are known as developers, the main development we have seen is developing an alliance with the environmental community to provide cover for the windfall profits made with all of these sales. 

Perhaps in the next few years as calmer heads review the monies paid for these lands, the name shall be changed from EELS (Environmentally Endangered Lands) to FEDS (Financially Endangered Developers) to better represent the mass squandering of the dollars by overpaying tens of millions for land that could have been purchased for a fraction of the prices paid.

http://www.floridatoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080806/NEWS01/808060329/1006

1,500-acre land deal OK’d

County EEL program commits $21.1M to protect northern corridor

BY JAMES DEAN • FLORIDA TODAY • August 6, 2008

Jubilant environmentalists cheered Brevard County commissioners’ unanimous approval Tuesday of land purchases that experts said would secure a critical conservation corridor between the
St. Johns River and Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge.

The commission approved three deals allowing the voter-approved Environmentally Endangered Lands program to acquire more than 1,500 acres in Scottsmoor for $21.1 million — land the program had pursued since the early 1990s.

“We’re thrilled,” said Dave Breininger, a member of the scientific committee that advises the EEL program on properties to buy. “These kind of reserves have greater value when they’re part of a network. We’ve been working on that network for a long time.”

During two hours of discussion, speakers argued that the land bisected by Interstate 95 linked a swath of conservation areas that had statewide importance for bio-diversity and water quality. But as with other recent conservation purchases, the county was accused of paying too high a price.

The total cost fell by $3 million since November, when commissioners — at the urging of
Clerk of the Court Scott Ellis — requested updated appraisals to capture falling real estate values. Ellis argued Tuesday that commissioners could take better advantage of the market “free fall” if they were more patient.

“Every single purchase that has been delayed has saved millions of dollars,” Ellis said. “There is no danger of development.”

Scottsmoor resident Kim Lucks also feared acquisitions would lock up so much land that growth in the county’s northern end would be stymied.

“That’s not growth, that’s death,” he said.

But more than 30 public speakers disagreed, and urged commissioners not to try to time the market for a better deal.

“You’ve got a wonderful window of opportunity that we may not have when the pendulum swings again and things get rocking and rolling with land development,” said Brad Smith, a landscape architect and planner from West Melbourne.

The EEL program’s cost for the properties — owned by three development firms, AG Ventures, Honeybrook Development Corp., and Scottsmoor Partners — was about $18.1 million after factoring $3 million contributed by The Nature Conservancy, via a federal grant.

Officials said they’re confident the purchases will qualify for additional state reimbursement through the Florida Forever program.

Commissioners were satisfied the deal was fair and stressed that the voter-approved money cannot be used for any other purpose.

The EEL program now has about $8 million left for acquisitions, with the potential to bond another $15 million.

Commission Chairman Truman Scarborough put the purchases in a sweeping historic context, noting that leaders had often been criticized for historic land purchases, like the Louisiana Purchase, but later credited for their foresight.

“I don’t know what’s in the future, but I have a belief that this feels right, and you don’t always have an opportunity to move forward,” he said. “I’d like to think that we are doing something not just for the people of Brevard County, but for what is going to occur along the East Coast of Florida, and along the East Coast of the United States.”

Contact Dean at 242-3617 or jdean@floridatoday.com

The Florida Today shockingly has endorsed Mitch Needelman for ‘change’ for the Clerk’s Office. Perhaps the biggest shock was the endorsement did not burn all of its print with a Scott Ellis slam and what was sent my way was at least related to the office, even if it was off the mark.

The endorsement faults me for interfering with the County’s business (parks and EELS), without explaining these issues, as well as the need to “work closely with commissioners to keep county government running effi-ciently”.

Flush with Housing Bubble induced revenue, the County attempted to issue a second bond debt from the Parks Referendum of 2000. However, the language of the 2000 referendum clearly limited the total bonds to about $73 million, and said amount was already issued. We informed the County a second bond issue could not be accomplished without a second referendum as required by State law. The County placed the bonds on the ballot and the issue narrowly passed. The bonds were issued.

Now about those “funds to complete vo¬ter-approved parks and recreation projects”, the County initially claimed it needed another $36 million to ‘finish the job’. By the time of the ballot question this escalated to $41 million, and in one whopper of a pathetic joke on the voters of Brevard a few months after the referendums were passed the County issued $82 million in bond debts for the parks. Well, the voters were promised, if you throw the County many more dollars all the projects will complete in two years! Five months remain on that two years and some of the projects have yet to even break ground.

A new Clerk cannot work closely with Commissioners to keep County Government running efficiently when it is not running efficiently now. What is really desired, by the Florida Today and advocated by former County Manager Tom Jenkins, is a Clerk who simply dots the ‘i’ and crosses the ‘t’ and never asks what the word is supposed to be. The same issue arises with the EELS program.

Brevard County since 2006 has overpaid tens of millions of dollars for land. The EELS program has morphed into a massive bailout (with great profits to boot) of failed developments from the popped housing bubble and properties which have been virtually unbuildable for over fifty years and will forever remain so. The Clerk’s Office is expected to dot the ‘i’ and cross the ‘t’ and never question why cow pasture and swamp has doubled in value since 2005 when all other buildable properties have fallen by half.

The ‘shift of focus’ argument is as well advocated by Mr. Needelman, both he and the newspaper continaully ignoring the fact that Internal Auditors represent LESS THAN ONE PERCENT of the Clerk’s workforce. The problem is these individuals are highly motivated, highly dedicated, highly educated, and the numerous reports written have gored several sacred cows. It is hard to de-focus one percent and have a whole lot more than zero.

There a few light compliments about resuscitating the office from a near death disaster with the help of hundreds of hard working employess who now after coming out of one heck of a miserable technical and managerial experience are suddenly ‘demoralized’ and awaiting Mr. Needelman to revitalize them.

While the County and State cry the sky is falling over revenue reductions in single digits the Clerk’s Office has had falling revenue of over 20% with nowhere near the weeping and wailing, yet our success and others fiascoes have “sorely reduced the credi¬bility of the office as a financial watch¬dog”?

The Clerk’s job is not a few months and leave others to direct the ship, it is a beyond full time hands on effort requiring financial, technical, managerial, and people skills. One may reduce that workload, however, with the go along to get along operations advocated by the Florida Today.