The Martin County
Defender
The e-newsletter for aware citizens – No. 55
INSIDE STORY:
The whole truth about how two Martin County Consensus entities came to be
In addition to editing this news and advocacy e-newsletter, I have been serving Martin County citizens with my non-advocacy Martin County Consensus. I have been focusing on the future with the intent of leaving the past behind. Unfortunately, some former associates have been spreading false information. So, reluctantly, I am pressed to break my silence by revealing the entire inside history so residents will be honestly informed.
PLANTING THE SEED: Late in 2006, Tom Fullman invited a number of slow-growth advocates to a series of informal meetings. The purpose was to organize an effort to control sprawl and to improve the quality of life in Martin County. We hacked out a list of 15 position summaries that included environmental protection, infrastructure concurrency, airport, and affordable housing, among others. A small leadership group emerged to implement these aims.
BIRTH OF “CONSENSUS” NAME: I conceived the name Martin County Consensus, and told others in the group that I planned to open a post office box and register the name to protect it. On Jan. 12, 2007 I registered it with the Florida Department of State as a “fictitious name,” the legal terminology for such unincorporated businesses as, say, Acme Widgit Company.
THE CORPORATION IS FORMED: The group decided to incorporate as Martin County Consensus, Inc. The paperwork was completed on April 5, 2007, and I was designated in the Articles of Incorporation as the “Incorporator.” The three-person initial Board of Directors included Bill Summers, Lynne Pine and me. Fullman was not included because it was presumed that he would be a District 1 commission candidate, and it would not look good. (Pine, a most principled person, later resigned because she saw the corporation functioning as an election vehicle for Fullman. For good reason, Fullman may not be a candidate.)
FIGHT OVER THE BYLAWS: The first hint of internal tensions came with the adoption of a set of bylaws, a set that would provide for a nine member board. I fought to have all directors elected by the members. Others in the group voted me down by insisting on a self-appointing, self-perpetuating board responsible only to themselves. I thought this elitist, a view not well received in the inner group.
The legally required certification of the bylaws was never completed, opening the current board to questioned legitimacy, but we plunged ahead. Currently, five of the earlier nine directors are no longer with Consensus, Inc. if we are to believe the filing with the state; or four are gone if we are to believe the website of Consensus, Inc.
MEMBERSHIP APPLICATION REQUIREMENTS: The final membership application form not only required applicants to pay a $25 fee, it also required them to answer if they “support all of the Position Summaries.” On a case by case basis, those who did not affirm this loyalty oath type of inquiry could be rejected – and there was rejection. In 2007, there were only a few dozen members.
A STIFLING ATMOSPHERE EMERGES: By mid-2007, the original bonhomie and enthusiasm was waning. There was the imposition of a gag rule that was intended to prevent board members from repeating anything said or seen at a meeting, even if it had nothing to do with Consensus, Inc. or any individual. President Summers (Fullman was chairman, I was secretary) not only insisted that only he could talk to the press as official Consensus, Inc. representative – which was OK – but he said no one could talk to the press even unofficially. I was not about to give up my free speech rights. Also, I did not like the hateful comments flying around about political foes.
EXTERNAL ISSUES BREED DISCOMFORT. When, at a public meeting of the Martin County Commission, President Summers tore up an ad by Commissioner Valliere, advanced on the dais and threw the scraps down before her, some of us were concerned how that affected our image. Most of the Consensus, Inc. directors exhibited a feckless attitude about reaching out to support other allied groups, one of our key aims. For example, when a Jensen Beach group mounted a protest at the bridge and asked for Consensus, Inc. help, only one director appeared. Me.
INTERNAL IMPROPRIETIES: We were fighting hard against the Valliere Rural Cluster Amendment. After board member Dave Shore received a letter from Jim Valliere that his commissioner wife’s support of the WAAM airport position (Shore is president of WAAM) would be jeopardized, he kept quiet about clustering. Perhaps some will think that there is no problem there. Shore resigned from the board, but still kept sitting in on the board meetings as if there had been no resignation. He was able to do this because Summers and Fullman kept the resignation secret from the rest of the board! The three of them did not like it when I told them how outrageous and improper that failure to inform was. How could they be trusted again?
COORDINATION SLOWLY VANISHING: Toward the end of 2007, another person, not a board member, and I arranged for Florida Hometown Democracy co-author Leslie Blackner to be the speaker at one of our forums. Summers said he would arrange a press conference, and did not need my help despite my extensive experience with press conferences. Summers set it up. Nobody came. I did the newspaper ad, extensive online promotion, flyers, etc., and we packed in a full house at the Blake Library on Dec.3.
THE FINAL BLOW: Early in 2008, the proposed FAA agreement for Witham Field became a public issue. Independent of Consensus, Inc., I did a survey of Martin County residents to learn resident attitudes toward the agreement. When Shore found out about it, he insisted I not publish it. As a lifetime journalist, I believed that the public had a right to know the survey results, and refused to spike the piece.
Shore contacted Summers, who called for a special meeting at his house, not the attorney office we usually meet in. When I asked Summers what the purpose of the meeting was, he said he did not have to tell me. So within the week that I sent out survey questionnaires, and before anyone knew the results because they had not yet been compiled, Fullman, Summers and Shore rammed through my removal by a slim majority because I did not obey Shore’s demand to suppress the report. If they had wanted to concoct a barely credible excuse, they could have waited until the report was completed.
SINCE THAT DAY: In the half year since the successful Hometown Democracy forum, the only thing of note that Consensus, Inc. has done is a lunch at which a U.S. attorney said that if we have evidence of corruption, to give it to him. There is nothing there that illuminates Martin County’s daily concerns. Consensus, Inc. used to reach out to everyone, but the posted invitation stated that the lunch was being held “at an undisclosed location,” and that attendance was “by invitation only.”
LOOKING AHEAD: It is more in sadness than anger that I look back on the unfulfilled potential and decline of Consensus, Inc. Condemnation of their board is not all-inclusive. There have been some very competent and ethical people, like Paul Shidel and Jay Honan, with whom I have been proud to work.
There is a sense of relief though because it was stifling for me to have to contend regularly with the antics and petty tyranny of a political cell. I look forward to serving the people of Martin County with my Consensus, whose stated mission is “To promote the free exchange of ideas and opinions.” Currently our efforts are directed toward impartial, non-lobbying surveys that reveal to all residents what our neighbors are thinking about important county related issues. No one else, certainly not Consensus, Inc., is doing that.
Separate and apart from the information Consensus will provide, the Martin County Defender will continue to deliver to several thousand of your computers the no-nonsense informed advocacy and news that have served readers for the past 54 issues.
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Mark your calendars
That indomitable organization that fights to preserve our environment, the Martin County Conservation Alliance, will be sponsoring two candidate debates at the Blake Library at 6:00 pm:
Monday, July 21, 2008 – Candidates for county commission, Districts 1, 3 and 5.
Monday, August 11, 2008 – Candidates for two House of Representative districts.
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Al
Al Forman, Editor 5/19/08
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