Citizen remains concerned over election

GB News reported my concerns voiced at the town meeting last week about Gulf Breeze City Council's (GBCC) commitment to fair elections. I was struck by a question asking why I had "brought the issue to the council's attention six months after the election." In fact, dating from December, my wife and I have written four letters to GBCC and to Board Members of the Gulf Breeze Sports Association (GBSA), written a Viewpoint in GB News, spoken with Mr. Atchison, President of GBSA, and attended a GBSA meeting to contest the illegal disruption of fair City elections. Why do we continue to raise questions? Here is a sampling:

1) Mr. Schluter, while campaigning for City Council, used his influence as Vice President of GBSA to request, prepare and mail (city-wide) an endorsement of himself using GBSA funds. This violated at least two federal tax codes for nonprofit organizations (www.irs.gov).

2) Mr. Schluter has twice publicly stated that he was not present and opposed the GBSA endorsement. However, minutes of the 4 October 2006 GBSA Board Meeting indicate that he was not only present, but requested GBSA "do some sort of mail out with information regarding sports that he could put some information of his on". The entire text was included in a fact sheet we distributed at the town meeting.

3) If Mr. Schluter did object to the endorsement, then GBSA violated Florida election laws by publicly endorsing a candidate without candidate approval. It must be stupefying to GBSA Board Members that Mr. Schluter now says he objected ("It bothered me when I read it...", Dec. 13 GBCC Meeting) to an endorsement that he requested, organized, and provided information for.

4) It seems (from his interview with GB News) that Mr. Atchison remains uncertain of GBSA's violations. He said "if GBSA did violate any federal tax codes [it] was unintentional". They did, intentional or not, and Mr. Atchison has had several months to verify this. It should come as no surprise that GBSA was not formed or awarded tax-free status to support political candidates. Promising though, is that Mr. Atchison now concedes the prospect that GBSA illegally interfered with a City election and is going to "consult the appropriate professionals". We can only hope that this finally leads to an apology to the community and a definitive public statement to assure citizens that the 'unintentional' will not be repeated.

5) GB Mayor Gilchrist unabashedly declared that it was a fair election, apparently despite State and Federal violations by Mr. Schluter and GBSA. His reasons for this conclusion were unclear, but he appeared to think that any malfeasance by GBSA was justified because the election was "about sports". He thought that maybe GBSA had just gone too far. Interestingly, this is exactly our position.

6) Mr. Eddy contends that GBSA and GBCC are separate entities while Mr. Atchison describes it as a 'preferential association'. In fact, they are contractual partners from which the City receives funding and GBSA uses City property. They are so intertwined that GBSA boldly displayed the GB City Seal on its web pages; Mr. Eddy says whether or not that was appropriate "depends on the context". Maybe the relationship of GBSA with the City also 'depends on the context'. We're together when it suits a purpose; and separate when it suits a different purpose.

We continue to ask questions because of conflicting stories, questionable reasoning and inaction.We have asked GBCC, on several occasions now, to support fair elections. This simply means to denounce unfair election practices, including those of GBSA, and to include language in GBSA's agreement that would void the contract upon further illegal political activity. This cannot be too difficult and will serve to protect the broader community.

It is possible that there is already too much integration and interdependence for the Mayor and GBCC to muster the desire or courage to contest GBSA's election interference. Yet, we feel certain that if the Boy Scouts of America (another nonprofit organization) had illegally used their good name and community funds to publicly endorse and elect Mr. Henderson, the Mayor and City Council would be in an uproar. Why? Because it is simply not fair. Why should it be fair then, when it is GBSA and Mr. Schluter?

Bill Fisher Gulf Breeze