Deile vs. the Civic Association
To the editor:
Councilman Deile, as a former military man and a lawyer brings a strong personal skill set to his seat on the Council. He has shown himself to be an aggressive advocate for HIS causes, very loyal to his friends and presents his case as he sees it. He clearly identifies friends and foes from his council seat and has acted accordingly. We all have seen him do this. Is this what we want in a public official?
However, for the second time in recent months, Mr. Deile is blurring the line between his public responsibilities and his personal agenda. The public spoke out loud and clear against Deile when he tried to restrict a Charter School teacher from speaking out about the councilman. It seems Mr. Deile suggested that the principal of the Charter School should tell this teacher to “tone down his comments” in a blog written by the teacher. Were Deile’s actions for the common good or for his own personal agenda?
Now the councilman is at it again blurring the line between the public good and his personal agenda! He wants to restrict the Cape Coral Civic Association from using the Cape Coral Yacht Club for their meetings, which it has done for over 40 years, unless Civic allows anyone to videotape their private meeting if they choose to do so.
Here is the background. On Feb. 22, the Cape Coral Civic Association held its monthly meeting at the Yacht Club, a public building. The featured speakers were Commissioner Manning and former Public Works director and, at the time of the meeting, private citizen, Chuck Pavlos. It seems that the city manager hired one of his cronies as an expert, who after a questionable investigation accused Public Works, under Mr. Pavlos’ watch, of not being able to account for $5 million dollars of fuel. Mr. Pavlos wanted to explain but was not given the common decency by Council at a public Council meeting to defend his good name.
Civic decided to give Mr. Pavlos the time he needed to explain the situation. There were five councilmen in attendance and about 100 people.
About 15 minutes before the meeting was to begin, a man, carrying what looked like an old, clunky beta-max camera approached the Civic President and flashed an I.D. press pass from the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. He did not ask the Civic president if he could videotape the meeting but demanded that the pass from the Sheriff gave him authority to tape the meeting. He proceeded to set up his camera. After a quick discussion among several board members, they agreed that the individual could stay for the meeting as a guest but he was not to videotape.
At this point, a Civic Board member (for the record it was not Mr. LePera) approached the man and politely stated that he could stay for the meeting, but he could not videotape. This person immediately became bellicose, belligerent and boasted he was going to tape the meeting because he was a member of the press. The Civic board member made it clear, that he could stay for the meeting, but he could not videotape. The board member notified the building manager to please call the police. The video man decided to leave the building before the police arrived.
This man was a personal friend of Councilman Deile and thus all this turmoil at a recent Council meeting to introduce a motion to prevent Civic from using the Yacht Club unless they allowed Deile’s friend to videotape.
Here is Mr. Deile’s reasoning: Since the Civic Association INVITES the public to its private meeting as guests, the meeting now becomes a PUBLIC meeting, in a public building and thus the public has a right to videotape. He claims that Civic gives up its PRIVATE status by the public invitation! Absurd! Further, although the Yacht Club is a public building and there was a public official there, the Cape Coral Civic Association is a private group that entered into a contract with the city to use the facility and paid a fee for that service. Nowhere in the contract with the city does the city demand that Civic give up its right to privacy, or to Civic’s right to limit the public who attend the meeting if it chooses to do so. Further, the Sheriff’s Office stated that the courtesy press pass given to this individual did not grant, infer, nor imply any authority, to this friend of Councilman Deile, to disrupt any “private” meetings as guaranteed by the First Amendment!!
In a 4-4 vote, the Deile motion failed and the community was protected. It will come as no surprise if Deile goes back to the drawing board and comes out swinging with some new legal fiction that crams his personal agenda down the throats of the voters of this town as he has done several times during his tenure.
Perhaps it is time for Deile to leave public service behind and retire to more fruitful endeavors. His inability to see the difference between the public good and his personal agenda is damaging the city and creating unnecessary turmoil around every turn.
F.C. Perry
Cape Coral