“I cannot investigate the stolen election"-Candidate Banned From Hometown

[kpete]

Judge bans House candidate from own hometown
Florida House candidate banned from City of Alachua by judge

Miriam Raftery
Published: Tuesday July 18, 2006

“I cannot investigate the stolen election,” Grapski told RAW STORY.

In an astonishing turn of events, a judge has banned Charles Grapski, Democratic candidate for the Florida House of Representatives in the 23rd District, from entering the city of Alachua – his hometown – where Grapski had filed a lawsuit alleging election fraud by city officials in a city commissioner’s race.

The ban occurred after Grapski was evicted by police from an Alachua City Commission meeting at which he attempted to have several items removed from a consent calendar – a list of non-controversial items that can be voted on without debate.

Mayor Jean Calderwood ordered police to remove Grapski when he invoked a parliamentary procedure – a point of order which he says they refused to recognize – and then made a parliamentary inquiry asking what the rules of order are that a citizen may invoke who sees the Commission breaking the law. Grapski contends he was attempting to prevent commissioners from violating Florida’s Sunshine Law, which requires public input for controversial measures.

more at:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Florida_House_Candidate_Banned_from_City_0718.html

[napi21]

1. Good lord! When something weird happened, it always used to be in

Ca. and everyone would simply say..."only in Ca!"

When it comes to political oddities, it seems like it "ONLY IN FL!"

[peace frog]

5. As FL goes, so will go the rest of the states

and sooner than you might think.

[Kurovski]

2. A very dramatic story with some creepy implications.

K&R.

[man4allcats]

3. Not that legalities matter much in today's America,

but in point of fact is it even legal to ban a U.S. citizen from going anywhere in this country? Of course there are such things as restraining orders for stalkers and the like, but the last time I heard of anybody being kicked out of town was on a "Gunsmoke" episode, and even Marshal Dillon was disinclined to take such steps without considerable provocation. Dodge City circa 1870 aside, I cannot but wonder if this is legal in America today.

[MissWaverly]

10. too bad I didn't look closer at the bad guys

how was I to know that they were just democrats that wanted to vote!

[man4allcats]

11. No, it wasn't that. They were evolutionary biologists,

and you know that won't wash in Kansas. :-)

[MissWaverly]

12. dang, I thought maybe they were talking about global warming

[madfloridian]

4. Recommended for Charlie...

He needs for this to get attention. He was at DemFest this week-end, talking about it. I think he has been at the Bloggers Breakfast at all 3 DemFests.

[ThomCat]

6. This story keeps getting worse.

I hope Grapski finds a way to nail some people. That whole situation is just getting more and more arbitrary and illegal.

Why isn't the State marching in there to clean this up? (Come on, Jeb. This has to be too corrupt even for you.)

[fooj]

14. Nothing is TOO CORRUPT for those treasonous, rat bastards.

Nothing.:grr:

[madfloridian]

7. "The Dirty South" Earlier coverage of this issue in LA City Beat.

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/madfloridian/124

Some of us tried to call attention to it, but is dropped pretty fast.

http://www.lacitybeat.com/article.php?id=3881&IssueNum=157

"Over in Florida, where the politics are almost invariably lousier, no such indignity has been spared a state assembly candidate by the name of Charlie Grapski. Grapski, an energetic proponent of ethics reform and a political scientist who teaches at the University of Florida in Gainesville, found himself under arrest last month for the heinous – heinous! – offense of tape-recording a conversation with a public official in the small nearby city of Alachua.

The tape recorder had been sitting openly on a table throughout the conversation, according to everyone present in the room, and did not appear to cause undue concern to the official, City Manager Clovis Watson, even after he acknowledged it. No matter: When Grapski returned to City Hall a few days later, he was slapped in handcuffs by three police officers summoned by Watson, told he would face third-degree felony charges for taping Watson without his express consent, and hauled off to the county jail.

That’s a curious turn of events for a candidate for public office – at least one who did not, in fine Floridian fashion, get drunk in public, or crash his car into an elementary school playground, or get frisky with a dancer in a strip club. More curious still is the fact that Grapski’s main opponent for the state assembly seat, Bonnie Burgess, sits on the City Commission which has hiring and firing power over Watson.

Grapski has been railing for years against what he denounces as a good-ol’-boy network running Alachua, and has based his assembly campaign largely on his desire to open up its inner workings to public scrutiny and clearer ethical standards. In other words, his arrest looks like the worst kind of dirty politics: a piece of pure nastiness by a network of political operatives determined to prevent him from disturbing their cozy existence. Burgess denies any personal involvement in the decision to arrest Grapski. On the other hand, it is no secret that the people who made the arrest are all supporters of hers."

[rumpel]

15. yes, and I also did some digging at the time

Remember VR?

The Good Ol Boys Club appears to have members throughout.

Now, on who runs the company, not much was found:
There are 2 registered companies by a similar company name in FL. The company in question is: VR Systems Incorporated was established in 1992, listed officer's & directors are Jane M. Watson & David S. Watson
http://www.sunbiz.org/scripts/cordet.exe?a1=DETFIL&n1=V56052&n2=NAMFWD&n3=0000&n4=N&r1=&r2=&r3=&r4=VRSYSTEMS&r5=
There is also a Watson Family Limited Partnership, same people.
Another(?) Ms. Jane M Watson ran a company with a Mr. Vince Arrigo, who appears to be a developer in Saratosa.
Mr. Arrigo is the only person I was able to find anything on for political contribution. Campaign contributions to a Mr. Wayne Poston (Mayor, City of Brandenton)
http://www.votemanatee.com/PDFClass.asp?idnum=81&period=65
Mr. Poston has entered into some campaign violation consent decree with the Florida Election Commission in 2002, Tallahassee.
Poston: Development, Photo op with Katherine Harris
http://harris.house.gov/Photos/?PhotoID=7980
Poston: interesting case in the Florida Supreme Court, about the "Good Ol' Boys Club" in Manatee
http://www.firn.edu/supct/pubinfo/summaries/briefs/00/00-703/Filed_09-26-2001_acAddendumMotApp.pdf

on edit: have corrected the links

[mom cat]

8. ACLU!

[madfloridian]

9. More on this topic, with background, at Kos

Renee in Ohio has been posting this at the HEP for ages. She has a detailed post at Daily Kos today.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/7/18/172952/280

Charlie has never been charged, yet he is refused entry to the city. Until after the elections? Or something like that. Ding...that makes bells go off.

More background from HEP about Charlie from June.
http://howardempowered.blogspot.com/2006/06/latest-from-charlie.html

[Trillo]

13. About local judges, and local judicial candidates,

and outside the logistic of election fraud, there is very little information for voters about judicial candidates in my state and county.

Whenever I've tried to investigate the judges on a ballot (in California) to determine which one to vote for, I have often experienced extreme frustration from that knowledge-acquisition process. Sometimes there is no information, other times there is only derivative information in a few news articles I was lucky to find, at still other times there is only an organization or two that endorse a candidate. I have never been confident about a vote I've cast for a candidate wanting to be a local judge.

Perhaps that lack of information about local Judicial Branch candidates--that I find frustrating--is by deliberate electoral design.

[elehhhhna]

16. "papier, bitte?"

[formercia]

17. Town governments can be a racket

Justifying their existence by spending our tax dollars. I could go on for hours.....