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Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

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Monday, September 25, 2006

Won the Battle ...

The City Council of Marco Island has called for a “special called meeting” on September 28 at 5PM. The purpose is to consider a resolution where “It is anticipated that the Resolution will clarify that there is no intent to seek reimbursement of legal fees from citizens who sign the petition”.

After an initial posting on this blog (“Threats by City Attorney & Others - A Felony - You Decide” 9-20-2006) denoting how city officials appeared to have threatened voters with financial retribution for exercising their right to vote, the citizens of Marco Island became outraged and did what good citizens of a democracy do – expressed their indignation to each other, to the City Council of Marco Island, to the media, and even to state and federal law enforcement authorities.

With such heat that even the City-Council-Can-Do-No-Wrong Political Committee could not dampen, the few reasonable souls remaining on the city council opted to best clarify this matter. Good for them and us, thank you and congratulations.

We presume that the motivation is to assuage the overwhelming anger of the citizen body by claiming it was all a big misunderstanding. We can be equally presumptuous and posit that a felony conviction is perhaps a stronger motivating force, since clarifications by many on this council and nearly all of the staff are decidedly scarce.

So the question becomes ... if a retraction (read: backpedaling) ensues, should the law enforcement pursuit continue? Interesting, isn’t it. Did the words intimidate just one voter? Did the words cause just one person not to sign a petition?

As that decision ferments, we can only hope that some on the council are enlightened as to how they continue to alienate the citizens of Marco Island since governing by threats (or threats through proxy) appears to have backfired.

Then onto the other related questions.

So as to reevaluate their alienation strategy, is the majority of the council going to continue the truly Byzantine decision of pre-paying for legal fees and expenses for council members to fight the recall (read: the will of the people)? Reimbursement a priori – whether they win or loose? Reimbursement whether the three city council members “think” they have to contest the recall through the courts or not (they don’t have to – unless they need to be reimbursed for writing a 200 word rebuttal to the recall petitions).

So as to reevaluate their alienation strategy, is the majority of the council going to continue belittling the efforts of its citizens – just because they don’t agree with those citizens?

The citizens appear to have won the battle, irrespective of how the city and the council spin the retraction. They could appear magnanimous and claim that they have decided not to purse seeking the restitution of the fees and costs “for the good of the community”, or appear to once again hide behind the worst that society has to offer by claiming that they are not seeking the restitution of the fees and costs “based on the advise of our lawyer”, or if a miracle happens “that was a real stupid thing to say, we are sorry and we did not mean it and we are not doing that and shame on the people who said it.”

The last one would sure go a long way to healing this community.

But it is still up to the citizens to show up, express their opinions and views and thereby enforce our representative form of government. And with the grace of good fortune, our elected officials can represent us.

See you there!

5 Comments:

  • VERY Good. Now one other question; Are the CITY council sworn to uphold the law and if they are will they request an indepedant investigation and evaluation of the intimidation?

    I Do not know - can anyone comment?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, September 26, 2006 8:27:00 AM  

  • If I rob a liquor store and shoot the attendant dead, can I claim that I didn’t mean to kill him? Can I keep the liquor?

    The damage was done. One individual is publicly posting the clerk’s phone number and suggesting that petition signers can call to have their name removed from the list before it is submitted. The implication is that they then will not be subjected to monetary retribution. How do you retract that?

    The damage was done.

    A councilman libels the public openly in a meeting and does not even receive a slap on the hand when he confesses. Do you understand why the people are outraged? Now this.

    Please do not attempt to couch your words in your special meeting. Anything short of a full confession will be totally dishonest and simply a new source of outrage for the citizens. Be hopeful that the DA does not get involved. (Truthfully, “Celebrate Marco” was the worse offender, but they were GREATLY encouraged by Mr. Moss’s words and the deafening silence from the city attorney.)

    Thank you to Ms. DiSciullo for having the real COURAGE to call for a new meeting.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, September 26, 2006 1:47:00 PM  

  • “Deafening silence” by the City lawyer? John, I beg to differ. I just watched portions of the 18 September City Council meeting tape that I recorded last week. Yes, Mr. Moss started it all in the guise of seeking clarification by asking the lawyer if Council members “…can seek reimbursement from the committee circulating the petition?” During their little “clarification” session, the lawyer made the situation even worse by saying “We’ll OBVIOUSLY look at whether we can get it against the people who brought the petition…” And the councilors sat silent. Anyone at that meeting, or viewing it later on TV, would have felt the intimidation lingering in the air long after the words ended.

    Linda Shockley

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Tuesday, September 26, 2006 3:45:00 PM  

  • I have another question to ask someone: BEcaue the attorney and the City Manager at the very very least have appeared to have done a crime (a felony in the law printed here) is the City Council aiding and abetting in the same crime if they do not do anything short of an investigation? IF the Council does nothing then they too are under the same suspicion of the crime. Can I be wrong here?

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Wednesday, September 27, 2006 9:19:00 AM  

  • Letter From Mr. Sam Gold to City of Marco Island lawyer.

    By Anonymous Anonymous, at Wednesday, September 27, 2006 4:19:00 PM  

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