Mailer condemned

An allegedly illegal campaign mailer received another push toward an investigation by the Florida Election Commission, after a contentious debate left some fuming at the Winter Park City Commission meeting on Monday.

The Commission had initially been contacted by resident Peter Weldon about the mailer, after he had informed the State Attorney's Office. Weldon was unavailable to comment. (Read the State Attorney's response to Weldon's complaint here.)

The City Commission voted 3-2 to send a resolution in support of the investigation of an anonymous anti-Sarah Sprinkel campaign mailer sent before the March 8 election. Commissioners Carolyn Cooper and Tom McMacken dissented.

Community activist William Graves was listed as the financier of the mailer. At the June 27 meeting, Commissioner Steven Leary said others were involved but remained anonymous.

That mailer accused Sprinkel, who was at the time running for her first Commission seat, of being a former county lobbyist and being funded by “the most notorious developers in Winter Park.” It cost about $5,000, which exceeded the $500 Florida election law benchmark that requires the financier of a campaign advertisement to register as a political action committee. The rules were violated, Leary said, when the person or persons who financed the mailer failed to register and identify themselves.

City Attorney Larry Brown said that whoever receives campaign funding needs to verify the source rather than expecting anonymity.

“If you do receive money, you have to understand from whom you are receiving it,” he said. “If they’re not your relative with a charitable gift-giving motive, you have to verify that.”

Graves defends himself

Though the advertisement stated that it was a paid political advertisement funded by William Graves, Graves would later say he was not behind the advertisement at all, but had trusted then-sitting Commissioner Beth Dillaha and allowed her to put his name on the mailer. Dillaha did not return requests for comment.

At Monday’s meeting, Graves referred to that mailer as “Beth Dillaha’s mailer”, distancing himself from it while accusing the Commission of defaming his character.

“I didn’t write those words and have yet to receive a copy of the mailer in question,” Graves said. “No one has the right to abuse government power by taking defamatory action against an individual with the facts and without the individual in question even being notified to make an appearance in his or her defense. It’s (an) outrageous, highly partisan abuse of power, period.”

When Mayor Ken Bradley told Graves that he was straying off topic from the discussion about sending a resolution to the FEC in support of an investigation, Graves said that he had not been given advance warning of the accusations that were made against him at the June 27 meeting and wanted a chance to defend himself. Graves then accused the mayor of attempting to silence him because the mayor disagreed with him politically.

“You’re not even letting me defend myself?” Graves asked Bradley, shortly before leaving the podium. “I am outraged by what’s happened here today.”

Graves submitted a letter to the Observer that he intended to read at the meeting. Read it here.

Questioning motives

Cooper questioned the motives of those on the Commission who appeared to be in favor of sending the resolution in support of investigating the group behind the mailer.

“I’d like for you to ask yourselves, if the names on these documents were changed to someone you didn’t know, or with whose ideas you did not agree, would you still be comfortable asking this commission as a body to endorse a complaint that was filed by a citizen?” Cooper said.

Though the Commission had not officially accused anyone of wrongdoing, Cooper said that the Commission appeared to have unofficially accused Dillaha and Graves before the FEC had even decided if the complaint warranted an investigation.

“I personally have very serious concerns that we have misused the authority of this Commission by publishing and discussing this … prior to any determination by the Florida Elections Commission,” she said.

She said she would be in favor of a resolution denouncing campaign secrecy. “We should make a resolution in support of transparency in government. I think it is inappropriate for us to be involving ourselves in a challenge or a complaint when no probable cause has been found by the FEC.”

Leary said he didn’t intend to accuse anyone of any wrongdoing, but to push for an investigation to determine if there had been any.

“The purpose behind this resolution was not to show an endorsement of a particular citizen’s complaint, but to show our citizens that when we talk about transparency, we mean it,” Leary said. “We’re asking the FEC to do exactly what they’re charged with, which is to ensure transparency in all elections. When a member of one of the boards oversteps their bounds, I think it’s incumbent upon us to say this isn’t appropriate.”

Sprinkel said she was outraged that Cooper would attempt to stop the resolution.

“I’m appalled, Carolyn, that you even did this,” she said. “I’m amazed that you’d even fight this.”

McMacken said he had difficulty supporting the resolution because of the precedent it would set for future commissions.

“Where I came down to, I think as Commissioner Cooper said, where do we draw the line on this?” McMacken said. “What type of activity warrants this type of action? It’s a huge line to cross, and I really struggle with that.”

He said that the issue opened old political wounds, with residents anonymously insulting each other in blog posts online.

“I go on the blog on The Observer (website), and they say ‘Beth is a self-serving pig,’” McMacken said. “They say ‘hang ‘em high’. Do you want to go home and read that to your kids?”

With the resolution’s passing, Leary said the city will send it on to the Federal Elections Commission.

Bradley said he hopes that’s the end of the City Commission’s involvement.

“We’re letting the FEC handle it for a reason,” Bradley said. “This isn’t our job. It’s theirs.”