- Sunday, November 20, 2011
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- Sunday, September 11, 2011
- Sunday, July 10, 2011
Sometimes a byline is just wrong. Credit for this week's story should go to Lopez and Marquardt.
It was their words that flew out like endless rain last week, to slip away across the universe (those words are Lennon and McCartney's).
The producer's credit for Monday night's sounds of laughter, shades of life (Beatles again) goes to Hometown! PAC, organizers of the District 6 candidates' forum at the VFW.
The two male leads, both in their 50s, both residents of Bahama Village, were Clayton Lopez, the incumbent commissioner, and his contestant for the District 6 seat, Jim Marquardt.
We live in testy times right now, when a Congressman can yell "You lie!" to the president during an address to a joint session because he thinks he's in a town-hall meeting somewhere. In the Keys we have our own trouble shouters and the stuff that sails out of their mouths is often more than most of us would ever dare, or care, to print.
The level of tantrum reached on Monday at the VFW, on the other hand, was high enough to bear repeating. If only for its own sake (as in reality TV). Or, if you prefer, for what it can teach us (still unknown at this point).
The action begins with the moderator asking the two candidates, Lopez and Marquardt, if they have any ideas on what to do with the Truman Waterfront property, now that the city promises two more years of plans to be crafted and approvals finalized. As you'll hear, behind every question and within every answer lurks a camouflaged elephant, the Bahama Conch Community Land Trust upon whose board Marquardt (who also lives in a BCCLT-renovated house) once served as president.
Commissioner Clayton Lopez responds to the Truman Waterfront question: "Actually I think we're already starting to use it. I propose that we get a soccer field, OK? And that's something that came out of a workshop, again listening to what the people wanted. And we got that, and that's one of the things I think that is giving people a glimpse of what's to come. As far as uses until something is done, I don't know that I agree with everything or any of the proposals that we've already seen. I don't know that I'm actually against any of them, but we haven't had a solid proposal for anything as yet to look at."
Candidate James Marquardt responds: "I think health and safety is the most important thing, number one. The study done for the six-and-a-half acres found that there is some pollution out there. We don't know the extent of the pollution so before I'd say yeah, let's go play soccer on the field with our kids, I'd say what's under the field that could make us sick--"
"There you go again, Jim!" yells Lopez. "Misleading the people! You're misleading them into thinking we're talking about the same piece of property. The piece of property where the contamination is has nothing to do with the area where the soccer field is. Stop misleading the people!" (Cheers) "That is true, that is true, it is not the same piece of property--"
"Mister Lopez!" calls the moderator.
"--and nobody, nobody has come up with a concrete proposal that we can go on for anything!"
Marquardt gets to continue: "I see Mr. [Scott] Frazier is still here with his camp and everyone knows what happened there, coming into my house and intimidating me. I do not operate by blackmail. Whether legal or not, what he did, it was wrong. He [Lopez] is still with this gentleman. That goes to character. That goes to trust. That goes to who do you want for the next four years?
"I'm not about that. I'm about the people. I think there's primary areas that should have happened. I think you, Mr. Lopez, should have been more proactive in seeking a solution to the situation rather than screaming from the dais, No! No! No! and then saying, Yes, Yes, Yes and then saying No! No! No!
"Being proactive and mediating the issue with the BCCLT would have been more productive than what you just did right now. You [Lopez] have come to one meeting in 10 years. One meeting in 10 years, that is not proactive. So my issue really is about--"
Lopez interrupts.
"Are you trying to take over the mic?" asks Marquardt.
But Lopez gets his chance soon enough, and he runs with it. Here it is:
"I've got this opponent," he explains, "because of what's been going on with the organization he's been involved in and my attempts to stop it.
"You already know about the $25,000 bonus to Mr. [Wheeler] Winstead and how he scurried out of town when things got a little hot.
"You already know about double billing the city $102,000.
"You already know about the executive director channeling hundreds of thousands of dollars to her son's unlicensed construction company.
"Who was [BCCLT] president at that time?
"Did you know that thousands of dollars of undocumented cash payments went to the son, $5,000 cash at a time, supposedly to pay undocumented workers $20 an hour?
"Guess whose campaign [poster] is on his truck.
"Did you know that while the executive director was sending all the land trust's money to her son's company, she was also the treasurer of that company?
"Who was the president of the land trust at that time?
"Did you know that new shutters on a dilapidated building doesn't qualify as a renovated building? Did you know that when they [BCCLT] have renovated buildings, they brought in furniture and as soon as somebody moves in they have it shipped out and all of a sudden the new appliances and everything begin to disappear. Switching appliances and furnitures [sic] for inspections and replacing them with substandard items does not qualify. And who was the president who allowed all that to happen?
"When I started asking questions, I started getting no answers and I started saying, No! Enough! That was when I'd had enough. Then the [BCCLT] executive director gets mad at me. Suddenly I'm the enemy and they took out a full-page attack ad on me -- how much does a full-page attack ad cost these days? Paid for with your TIF money [tax increment financing]. The board of directors didn't even know it until the next day--"
"Commissioner Lopez," calls the moderator, meaning his time is up.
"--This is our TIF money! This is your TIF money!"
"Commissioner--"
"Don't be gullible!" cries Lopez.
"Sit down!" call several voices. "C'mon!"
Lopez rails away -- "Don't think that this land trust will--" until his microphone is cut. Unamplified his voice carries across the crowd, louder and more insistent with each syllable, and the crowd chants back.
"My opponent is running because he says he's accountable!
"I ask you to do that! Hold him accountable!
"Hold him accountable for what he should have done as president!
"Hold him accountable with your vote!"
Way, way deep in the background, and on and on across the universe as well, could be heard a higher song, the murmur of the Beatles going on about words, words "flying out like endless rain, they slither while they pass, possessing and caressing, exciting and inviting."
Restless wind inside a letter box ... Could that be all this is?
mhowell@keysnews.com