Free Speech for Thee, Not for We, the People
Editor’s Note:
The following is a guest column the Sun Newspapers refused to print, even though they requested it.
Our source tells us, “in fairness, they said it was too late”. However, the terms of the Western Michigan University deal are still unknown and the cost to taxpayers can’t be determined since the county government refuses to reveal any documents.
We here at SBG think the Sun refused to print the column because of how it makes them look as protectors of this big spending county government. What say you Charlotte County taxpayers?
We’d like to thank those who wrote the letter to the WMU Board of Directors. They probably saved taxpayers $10,000,000, or more, and we are grateful. We need more citizens to be so bold.
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Free Speech for Thee, Not for We, the People
In response to your editorial regarding the Citizens for Wise Growth (CWG) alliance and Western Michigan University’s (WMU) Board, we are amused that our letter created such a kerfuffle. Mr. Patton, the commissioners and your editorial board all seem to have a problem with our 1st Amendment right to free speech. Our solution to this “problem” would be to have the commissioners stop wasting our tax dollars.
Our principles on this, and all points related to government spending, have been unwavering. We wish the county to follow the Constitution. The Framers called this “limited government”. They knew that once politicians get their hands on the public’s money, politicians find all sorts of wasteful ways to spend it. See: Murdock Village, Parkside, baseball stadium, boat races (twice!), sidewalks to nowhere, swimming pools, etc.
When Mr. Patton first tried to spend millions to purchase the IMPAC building in 2012, taxpayers revolted. Yet he and the commissioners completely disregarded continuing opposition to spend $10-$12 million taxpayer dollars in 2014/15 for that building. Which brings us to our second reason to write the WMU board: the trustworthiness of Mr. Patton.
We filmed Mr. Patton as he discussed the WMU project. He claimed it would only cost taxpayers $68,000 annually in lost property taxes. He then claimed he’d recover that in lease revenue. When a citizen stated the IMPAC building alone would cost more than that, he seemed surprised she knew, confessed that was true, but he couldn’t state the final price. When another taxpayer pushed for a total price on the project, Mr. Patton first claimed he didn’t know, then quickly said “$8-$10 million dollars”. We learned from your newspaper a couple of weeks later that Patton was also offering a new hangar and other buildings for WMU. Patton somehow forgot to mention these to the group.
In Gallup’s September poll, “Americans Name Government as the Number One Problem in the US”. Gallup’s June poll revealed 76% of Americans have no confidence in newspapers. With $10 million at risk, we decided neither Mr. Patton, the commissioners, nor the Sun could be trusted to protect our wallets, so we wrote to the WMU Board directly. We remind readers that your editors stated that our letter “likely did more damage than good” and “the timing of the letter…was poor.” We’d like to celebrate that WMU changed their mind on IMPACT and the hangar and that we had a hand in saving taxpayers an enormous amount of our money, but we’ll have to wait and see what Mr. Patton gave away in place of the buildings.
When Mr. Patton announced his departure, the commissioners spent 30 minutes singing his praises. Missing from that love fest was the name of one company Mr. Patton brought to Charlotte County during his four-year tenure. Mr. Patton blamed his “slanderous” critics for his years of failure because that’s what some people do when they have no record of success to stand on. The four-year result with Mr. Patton and these commissioners is, in Patton’s own words, “few, very few successes”. When your editors opined that our group might “shoulder some blame” if WMU didn’t choose Charlotte County, we think you were providing a scapegoat for what would have been Mr. Patton’s last failure.
You also say we “painted a picture of Charlotte County as incompetent” and asked us if we “hurt the image of the county”. Did county commissioners not spend $135,000,000 taxpayer dollars on Murdock Village with absolutely no return on that investment? Did commissioners not spend $30,000,000 on a baseball stadium? We say the government should not be in the property development business nor the professional baseball business. Neither should they be in the university business, especially when WMU boasts a $300 million endowment.
A final point about your editors’ latest tactic in defense of this county government. We laughed at the absurdity of your demand to see our email lists or to provide “hundreds of emails” to the Sun. Your editors are fully aware that email lists are like gold. Nobody gives them away. Your editorial board asked for our lists knowing full well you would be refused. You then used this false premise to attack our veracity in an obvious attempt to discredit us.
We remember the Sun’s deliberate lack of interest in seeing County Administrator Ray Sandrock’s emails with South District Director of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. Those emails proved Mr. Sandrock lied in his August 23, 2013, “Memorandum” to the commissioners. Neither was the Sun interested in seeing Deputy County Administrator Kelly Shoemaker’s “threatening emails that were sent to the commissioners”, as the Sun quoted her to your readers. Those nonexistent emails were used by these commissioners to crackdown on dissenting taxpayers with a dozen police officers at the next public meeting. Taxpayers ran a gauntlet of a policemen doing pat downs, searching little old ladies’ handbags at the door and taking away their water bottles. Your editorial fully supported that crackdown on citizens. How about the county’s Utilities Director getting caught lying on a state loan application and not getting fired? Have our schools not fallen to 48th of 67 counties in the state? We think these things “hurt the image of the county”, not our letter, which no one would have known about had you not printed it.
We’ve repeatedly reminded your editors that your special Constitutional protections are for interrogating the government, not private citizens speaking freely on the issues of the day. None of us remember your questioning this government so aggressively. “Dismissal Without Cause”, anyone?
If the Sun did its job of protecting citizens from this government, taxpayers wouldn’t have to write letters like ours with the sole aim of keeping us from being fleeced over and over again.
Our group doesn’t mind that you are biased in favor of the government. Our problem is that you won’t admit it. When your long-time editorial page editor was hired as Charlotte County Government’s “Communications Manager”, it spoke volumes as to whom the Sun has been protecting all these years.
