AIN’T NO SUNSHINE…
Is George Neugent on the take?
First, George. Second, are the Keys corporate media in full defend-the-powerful mode? Third, are the 60% of voters for George in full denial? Numbers two and three, I’m sure of. About George, what do you think?
George is certainly doing his best to make me believe he has used his votes on grinder pumps and the waste contract to feather his own nest. I reported two weeks ago about the mysterious $ 150,000 increase in his bank account from $ 50,000 in August 2013 to $ 200,000 in June 2014. In print, I asked anyone to explain how it happened. I also sent respectful letters to George’s 16 biggest donors begging them to defend George.
I have not heard a word of defense or explanation from George or his supporters. Realize that public documents like the Financial Disclosure Form exist in order to expose suspicious irregularities like this to us, the public. This is exactly how we would find out about a financial kickback: a public servant who reports only his $ 40,000 government salary, and no gifts, somehow adds $ 150,000 to his bank account at a time when mega-million-dollar contracts have gotten his votes.
But until we get more than inferential evidence, George is innocent until proven guilty. There it is: the stonewall works.
But maybe not completely. Hometown PAC is holding its final campaign forum this coming Monday, September 29 at the Tennessee Williams Fine Arts Center at FKCC from 5-7 pm. Last month, one of their moderators asked George about my charges regarding his attack on the private business he destroyed to give their contract to his friends. At that time, he attacked me as being his opponent’s campaign manager, and “slandering” him. Worse, he accused the woman whose fine business he destroyed of wasting the animals’ money on lawsuits, when it was George and the county who sued her.
This will be a test for Hometown PAC. I will be there. Will they, like the corporate media, ignore the new charges? If they do indeed ask, will they let George get away without addressing a single fact, but rather just attacking me? We shall see.
But the corporate media are guilty, on the face of it, of doing their usual sucking up to power. I am talking about The Citizen in Key West, the Keynoter in the Middle Keys, and the Barometer in the Upper Keys. They are completely ignoring the very serious charges I have brought against George—even the outright appalling disclosure forms. You can access my detailed report, but in brief, George violated a sworn and notarized oath to provide “true, accurate, and complete” information, instead providing information so inaccurate and incomplete that it is in effect untrue.
Even more guilty than George are the corporate media for refusing to cover this violation of his oath. Why these media would choose to provide their readers information about George that is so inaccurate and incomplete that their coverage is essentially untrue is truly sad. Why? Three things I can think of.
First is their fear of offending anyone in power, a side effect of fearing their advertisers. They have morphed from watchdogs to lapdogs. This has even happened to a lesser degree at the New York Times, and at the smaller papers, it has devolved to their offering pretty much toothless coverage of press releases and the police blotter, keeping barely enough material to stay above the advertising handouts.
The second reason is that they have lost the simple competence to do accurate investigative reporting. Remember that I went to Yale Law and have a business PhD. They studied journalism. And their editors have kept them on a short leash for so long that I sadly believe they couldn’t ferret out incriminating documents anymore if their lives depended on it.
The third reason is about me. Even when I provide them with the accurate and sometimes hard to find investigative documents they couldn’t find themselves, they refuse to print it. I take this personally, as a point of pride. Frankly, if I were in their positions, either as writers or editors, I would hate my very existence. I have an educational and professional experience impossibly remote from their own. I have no boss or anyone who edits my writing, and I don’t need a paying job. I sympathize with their distancing themselves from me.
But letting this stop them from using my material hurts only their own credibility. I have a past experience to recount that specifically supports this charge, but first I need to place the ultimate blame for George’s continued rule on the most guilty party.
And that is YOU, dear electorate. I am pretty sure I don’t mean any of the specific “yous” who have read this far. I mean the collective “you” who keep electing folks like George. I doubt a single one of his supporters read past the title, because they don’t like what I’m divulging. The last thing they want to know is anything that means they are wrong.
It’s called avoiding “cognitive dissonance.” They like George. They voted for him. They themselves are good, smart people. That means they wouldn’t have supported someone who attacks innocent businesses, maybe takes kickbacks, and can’t fill out simple sworn disclosure forms. So they stick their heads in the sand and ignore the upsetting information.
A vivid example of this was a similar situation with a candidate a few years ago. A school board candidate was running on his supposed financial expertise from having received an MBA in International Business. But I found out he had failed to file eight business and tax forms in two states, as well as having taken out a home equity loan to gamble badly on risky stocks.
As I did with George, I sent out a plea to people I knew were his prominent supporters to explain why they still supported him. One of the most respected finance guys in town, a former partner in a national accounting firm and treasurer of as many as six nonprofits at one time in Key West, did, as a friend, answer me. He admitted what I reported was true, “but I support him anyway.”
And he is a very rational person. It’s pretty universal. At the national level, we see people elected who have been actually convicted of crimes. I can see George being re-elected here ten minutes before he is censured by the state Ethics Commission and possibly indicted for kickbacks, and not a single corporate journalist or pro-George voter will have any regrets.
Now, for my truly devoted readers, the supporting story about the corporate media promised above. For the school board candidate with the disastrous business record, I sent the voluminous documentation to the corporate media before I published it in the old Blue Paper. I thought the information was so important, I didn’t mind if they “scooped” us.
Not one of them published a word. I know they read it, because one of the editors sent me a snarky email saying what I called the county business tax was actually an “occupational license.” After I sent him the link showing the occupational license had been renamed a business tax a year before, that was it, not another word of interest.
Instead, they continued to support the false expert. I can only think it was because of his Keys-ey power: he was family with the most powerful individual in Key West history, the Great Jimmy Buffet. Really. That is all he had going for him. He is leaving the board after, sure enough, continually demonstrating he had not a lick of financial sense. I taught international business once at the MBA level. It is a mostly cultural major. It has nothing to do with finance.
Instead, the Citizen’s then-editor, Tom Tuell, went on the radio to say that there was “nothing to the charges” without answering a single one. This despite the candidate himself publicly admitting my column detailing his actual civil crimes was completely accurate. Meanwhile, the candidate’s response to my charges was even worse than George’s “slander” and “nut-case” cries: he would tell questioning voters, “Phone me,” and then only off any record would he say all there was to it that I was sleeping with his opponent! A complete lie, but it was all he had, like George.
The Citizen saved its slimiest for last. On the Sunday before the Tuesday election, it had a front page above-the-fold headline story clearing their Buffet relative with a pretty photo and a complete exoneration of his business malfeasance as though he had forgotten to file one unimportant license, which he had quickly rectified. Remember, he had blown off eight—and only filed the local one AFTER my column nailed him.
They printed a truly ugly photo of his opponent and wrote two inflammatory charges against her, both of which were untrue (email me if you want the details). She ended up losing by a few votes from way up north in Key Largo where her supporters had not been able to disseminate my column—she had actually been called to accept her victory when the late returns came in.
Perfidy worked. And it probably will again. If the people, the corporate media, and Hometown PAC let George get away with more stonewalling and lying.
Next week: Hey, how’s that Florida Ethics Commission “investigation” going? Rick “studies” the “investigators.” Find out what the air-quotes are all about.
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Voters in FL put their heads in the sand all the time. Just look at the crook they made Governor. Nobody cares about following the money trail as long as they get some of it. Thanks for the article.
Your thoughts about journalists in the tank for politicians and celebrities is something that certainly seems more frequent these days, and for the reasons you cite: They want to be pals and get invited to the parties, they are dim, they are corrupt, they are doctrinaire, etc. Another reason I noted when working as a newspaper reporter is that some of the “journalists” are just cowards, who shrink when face-to-face with egotistic pols, athletes and movie stars, etc., afraid to offend, afraid of a tongue lashing, afraid of not being liked, afraid of being dissed. That is, insecure butt-kissers who crave a pat on the head. Not sure if that is the case here.
By now, I have gathered that Rick Boettger does not personally like George Neugent. The source of his animus seems to begin with George’s “attack on the private business he destroyed to give their contract to his friends.”
That seems purely speculative. I am not sure how Rick could possibly know Commissioner Neugent’s motives. The basis for the action was the result of a critical audit of “Stand Up for Animals” performed by then County Clerk, Danny Kohlage. The audit alleged that SUFA had used county funds on improvements at an out-of-state shelter and that its director had paid over $600 in personal water bills. The director claimed that the improvements were funded by private donations and that the water bills were the result of a clerical error, which she rectified.
In his decades as County Clerk, Danny Kohlage was above reproach. At the very minimum, his audit showed public funds had been misapplied, a fact which would not have otherwise been known. But Rick’s vendetta stops short of including Commissioner Danny Kohlage.
Instead, he has taken an obsessive – compulsive microscope to every aspect of Commissioner Neugent’s private and public life, selectively combing for details to bolster his attack. Public officials are required to file financial statements which reveal their net worth. Boettger points to an increase in Neugent’s assets and contends that it is the result of kickbacks taken in exchange for influencing Neugent’s votes. It’s a totally baseless allegation which reeks of Senator Joe McCarthy, or his current incarnation, Ted Cruze.
Financial disclosure is required by the law. An increase in net worth outside of normal earnings is not evidence of criminal activity. Certainly, Rick Boettger has heard of inheritance.
Boettger has meticulously compiled his copious allegations and filed an ethics complaint. He has now made it his crusade to air those allegations every week in any publication which will print them. Those that won’t, he excoriates with off topic rants to prove their conspiratorial involvement.
The Florida Ethics Commission is legislatively prohibited from commenting on an issue until it resolves the complaint. But that constraint does not prevent the complainant from flogging his allegations every week, as if they were findings of fact.
If Commissioner Neugent was foolish enough to deposit funds in his accounts that were illegally obtained through graft and foolish enough to claim them on his financial disclosure forms, then an investigation will surely reveal that. Boettger has already made this assertion in his complaint. He should refrain from stating it as a fact every week until it is resolved.
It’s hard for me to tell what his latest rant is even about… George Neugent… Robin Smith Martin… The Key West Citizen?
Mostly, it appears autobiographical. It’s an angry, blow by blow description of unrelated topics that nothing has ever come of. Remove the sentences that include “me” or “I” and there is nothing left.
Gee, Mr Baron, I have read and re-read your comments. It seems that you agree with Mr Boettger more than you disagree with him. You agree that we should wait for the results of the ethics board. Also, you dragged Danny Kohlage,s name into the fray here and then you admit that he doesn’t come into the argument. You apparently are grasping at someone or something good to enter into the argument to make something good stick to Mr Neugent. This is a good ol boy trick and most people don’t recognize the trick . Too bad Mr Neugent is not the good person you think he is.
Thank you very much, Elliot, for being the very first person to defend George Neugent. It is wrong on so many particulars that it is a vivid demonstration of the lack of any coherent defense of George–note, you offer not a single word in his defense, but merely a number of baseless attacks on me.
It is late. I’ll answer in detail in the morning.
And thank you so much, Elliot.
I never claimed that I was defending George Neugent, I was merely commenting that the umpteenth installment of your vituperative screed contains no new information other than off topic references to yourself, a school board member and The Key West Citizen.
Considering the thousands of words that you have already printed on this subject, I am surprised that The Blue Paper doesn’t start charging you for advertising at this point.
I don’t intend to get into a long exchange with you. I am sure that people already know where you stand.
Thank you, Elliot for making my job easier by admitting that you, the only person yet speaking up for George, cannot offer a word of defense for his action.
Instead, you attack me for “obsessive . . vituperation.” Uh, read your own attack on me for examples of vituperation that I have not used. I attack not George the man but his actions, which are indefensible, often with a wry edge.
George is so not my “obsession.” I have a half dozen other similar projects going on at any one time, and my paying job offers technical challenges that take up vastly more of my brainpower than George’s sins do. George is an ongoing story, as long as he is running for office and leading the county.
My so-not-vituperative column may have been too subtle for you. Here is the new information: I tie the surprising $150,000 to possible kickbacks for the first time, admitting that it has been successfully stonewalled. I then point out, again for the first time, how the corporate media ignore investigative criticism of their favorites. I then say this avoidance works because the electorate doesn’t really care about malfeasance, offering a vivid example, also for the first time. I in fact did not mention the past candidate’s name, as you so gratuitously did, because the point was no longer about him, but the media and electoral processes supporting him.
On the national level, Watergate and the Lewinsky scandal went on for years. Conversely, the NYT admits it did not stay on the Bush administration’s untrue allegations about Iraq, to the detriment of our country. Persistence has been a large element of my success in life.
Again, thank you for pointing out you cannot defend George. And please, have at me any time.
It is interesting that the the only defense brought up in these comments is the possibility of an inheritance in regards to the unexplained money. If it were that easy, I would think the subject would say that himself.
Anybody who has ever owned a business would know that the most accurate (and conservative) valuation of that business would be the figure listed as Owner’s Equity on a balance sheet.
Financial disclosure forms caution against speculating on the current value of an asset, but to rather use an established figure.
Anyone who has ever sold a business, probably realizes that the value of a business is significantly higher than the value of its depreciated assets.
Sale of a home, sale of a business, inheritance, there are many reasons why someone’s stated assets could increase by $150,000 over the course of a year.
It’s not intended as a defense, but by itself, the figure proves nothing.
Thank you for choosing to continue the discussion, Elliot. For those who don’t know, Elliot founded the important environmental defense organization Last Stand and accomplished many things for us all back in the ’90’s and 2000’s ( I was honored to be its treasurer for a while). It continues to fight for us, but Elliot may have been the best.
There are very few, maybe only one kind of income not to have to report, and that is as I said in my first disclosure of the $150,000: “He made all of the reporting omissions I reported he made on the 2014 Form 6 , so we have no idea how this remarkable “savings” account could have exploded so wonderfully, while not generating any reportable income. I guess George wants us to use our imaginations. An inheritance? A hot stock?”
George reported no business interest nor home in 2013 that could have been sold for $150,000 in 2014. It is pretty much only inheritances that avoid disclosure as either income or gifts. A state scandal in 2009 was about reported inheritances by Jennifer Carroll. When challenged about the wild fluctuations in her reported assets, she immediately disclosed they were inheritances from her mother and late husband. The scandal was the “sloppiness” of her reporting.
As Conchs1 says, if it were inherited, he would have said so. I do not think he had an inheritance or a hot stock. George is inviting speculation.
“if it were inherited, he would have said so….. George is inviting speculation.”
I think that says it all. Just explain where the $ 150,000 came from and get it over with. Quit stonewalling and respond to your electorate for pete’s sake! Oh, and media, please pursue this if he does not.