Cape ‘Posse’
To the editor:
In 1943, Henry Fonda was in a movie called “The Ox-Bow Incident.” The story was about a posse, led by the colonel, I mean the Major, who makes up his mind that three men were guilty of a crime and decides they should be hanged. Hank says he does not think that is right and the men deserve a trial and a chance to defend themselves. After the men were hanged, by mob rule, the truth was learned that they were innocent.
It seems we have our own Cape-Bow incident unfolding right here in the city. You see, the Cape posse rode into town and decided Chuck Pavlos, the former Public Works director, was guilty of losing $5 million of fuel during his tenure. The posse put their most astute investigator on the case who easily found the evidence, rushed to present it to Council, after he was paid $20,000 tax dollars, then went public with his findings. Mr. Pavlos’ boss confirmed the “guilt” and later announced he had no other option but to ask Pavlos to leave.
Then, last night (Feb. 22), Mr. Pavlos had a chance to tell his side of the story at the regular meeting of the Cape Coral Civic Association. There were five Council members at the meeting and several former Council members. TV and newspaper reporters were there because this was an important event. Also, interestingly enough, several key folks who rushed to judgment regarding Mr. Pavlos made their presence known. There were more than 100 people at the meeting. The crowd was respectful and interested in what the soft-spoken former director had to say.
It seems that a common record keeping practice of removing the fuel information on a city vehicle from the current data base, after the vehicle is sold, was used. Thus, there seemed to be much more gas purchased than there were cars in service during that time period.
When the TV news reporter aired this story on the 10 o’clock news, the reporter contacted the consultant who made the original, missing fuel finding, for his comment. This is fascinating! He said he must have been given bad information and he wanted to know who “cooked” the books. Help me out: a consultant, hired for his professional acumen, paid $20,000 tax dollars (the Cape only gets the best), who rushed to the Council and the media with his “certain truth”, which trashed Mr. Pavlos’ reputation, and then implies it was not his fault – he was wrong because he was tricked! Absurd!
F. C. Perry
Cape Coral