NBV Election Season - It's Not The Heat - It's The Stupidity

No sooner than I finish writing about the ECO's and the half truths presented to be "facts" than another ridiculous piece comes around, this one about the mayor.   It purports to be from a group called "United For A Better North Bay Village" Seriously, look in the black print, hold it up to a white light, use a magnifying glass and you will see that printed in the lower left hand corner.

Or don't bother - there is no such group according to the Florida Secretary of State.

The flier informs us that the mayor was censured and that she tried to get Benedict Kuhne to defend her at a cost to the village of $650.   Both these facts are true and well documented but this piece gives you no useful information.  The censure was for stating without proof and then refusing to retract an accusation that the mayor made against her fellow commissioners.  She accused them of criminal acts of conspiracy and collusion and refused to retract the statements.  Then Mrs. Kreps attempted to engage an attorney and have the village pay for it at $650 per hour to do something.   Since there's no defense and no legal action, it's not clear what.   But if you going to write a piece, don't assume a nasty picture and words are enough.   We're smarter than that.

In order to balance this piece out, a new group called "Truth & Transparency" have been sending out odd emails.  They are Transparent in their support of the mayor, but Truth, eh, not so much.

Their main points seem to be:

• The mayor is not a realtor and the vice mayor is so this makes the mayor an environmentalist, a conclusion unsupported by any facts.   Just to be clear, in the five and a half years, the mayor has never once introduced a piece of environmental legislation.  Not once. 
  The realtors she compares to are Jorge Gonzalez, who pushed for the PACE program allowing us to make our houses more resilient and if Florida does not pass Amendment 1, will allow us to install private solar energy while Jackson has led island wide cleanups and fought hard to bring the trash and environment to the forefront.
• The mayor was apparently cleared by the Commission on Ethics on October 25 of making "false statements."  Well, maybe they did.  We have no way of knowing because the CoE, a corrupt organization designed to protect the powerful, does not clear people and no investigation is closed until the board votes on it, which will happen on Nov 9.  Must be leaky.
  
  
• Then there is "Sign Gate" which definitely happened.  The Village code enforcement decided to enforce an obscure regulation and removed all political signs closer than 25 feet from the center of the roadway on North Bay Island.  All signs.
  
  I believe they did this to impress Jodi Foster and it was a stupid move.   Commissioner Chervony is furious and posting all about it.  I imagine the other candidates are too.   It was a disgrace and I wish our code enforcers showed half the initiative in removing obstacles from our sidewalks that they did in this matter.  
  It's the dark implication that "someone must have done this.  Another candidate perhaps?"  Yeah, well it was the Village Manager.  Take it up in the right place. 

So if you haven't voted yet, be selfish.  Think what's in it for me?  Will my town be better with this one or that one?   And ask why this weird distortion?   We're small enough if you need to ask a candidate what they are for or against, you can find several on Facebook or just call them.   It's that simple.

Kevin Vericker

November 4, 2016

Sleazy Lying Scumbags. Hello North Bay Village.

Lurking around in the sewers of Florida politics is the peculiar group known as Electioneering Communication Organizations (ECO's).   These organizations exist for the sole purpose of disguising political agendas that are too dirty to own publicly.  

You've seen 2 of these pieces in the North Bay Village Election cycle.  They came from a group called "Common Sense".  Hey, with a name like that who could be against them?  It's just common sense, right?  

So who are these civic minded publishers who are so concerned with the political future of North Bay Village?  Well, that's a bit hard to say.  

"Common Sense" is an ECO headquartered in Tallahassee, City of Dreams.  Common Sense is registered to Mark Herron and is funded mainly by Floridians For A Strong Future (also registered to Mark Herron, as are dozens of other clandestine ECO's.)   Why two?  Well, it's to make it less obvious who is paying for this.

To understand who is looking out for their own best interest in North Bay Village, follow the money. Look at who contributes to Floridians For A Strong Future.   The contributors are property developers and the lobbyists who represent them. In other words, the same people who benefit from North Bay Village having a poorly run commission that allows them to do what they will.   Not a single resident of North Bay Village gave 10¢ to these ECO's because the ECO's are not citizen focused, they are focused on profits.  Here's the link to the contributors.

This year Common Senses spent money to link Jorge Gonzalez to Donald Trump, which is odd because I don't think Gonzalez and Trump chat regularly, although I haven't asked either of them.  But I'm pretty sure Trump is not interested in North Bay Village.

Another flier by Common Sense exposes that Richard Chervony can be crass.   Perhaps they should rename themselves "Common Knowledge" because that surprises no one.  In fact when I read the flier, I thought "Hmm Chervony seems unreasonably restrained."  The ECO then went on to make the bizarre claim that he voted against local school funding, a weird lie, but what they really wanted you to hear.   Chervony in fact vigorously supported the school funding but did insist on reports on how the money was spent which some found objectionable, especially the mayor.  TIES is now a D school.

If it's not true, then it must be against some sort of campaign law?  Nope.  Not in Florida.  There is zero accountability, which is why ECO's are beloved by skeezy politicians.  

And how the profiteers love our current mayor.  Her disorganization on the dais and her complete lack of interest in zoning issues, along with her predisposition to give rich people whatever they want, is perfect, if what you want is to use a small island city to play real estate shell games.

Just look at our causeway.  None of the developers were going to build there.  They are all hoping to sell and profit by holding their parcels and their magical thinking has made our causeway a sad, desolate ruin.   A better organized mayor with a competence in zoning would be a threat to that but we don't have one.  

And our mayor loves to use the ECO's.  Two years ago, she was supported by ECO's who helped our mayor take a strong stand supporting the right of profiteers to steal from the Kennedy House residents and attacked her opponent Jorge Brito for objecting to this.  That it turned out Brito was right  and multiple convictions followed, including one of the mayor's closest campaign workers, Alejandra Salcedo, is not something Common Sense or the mayor has published.  

Our mayor also used the same ECO to disparage her openly gay colleague for well, being gay at a time when that meant arrest.   So I'm only surprised that this year seems milder but no less dishonest as Connie Kreps continues to enjoy the fervent support of people who enjoy their special profits.  

Hiding behind these dark, clandestine committees is a bad thing.  We are not getting information but carefully crafted scare tactics.  I urge each of you to contact the Mayor at cleonkreps@nbvillage.com and ask her about the mailings.   Does she agree?  Does she approve?  And ask her about her trusted campaign worker's conviction.   

After all, it's only Common Sense.  

Kevin Vericker

November 1, 2016