Yesterday I found myself reminiscing my love affair with the Keys, which began in 1956, when my family stayed at the Ocean Reef Club. Back then, it was a very laid back, rustic, affordable resort. Anyone could stay there, well maybe anyone white. That was the first time I fished the flats, something that would become the engine that drove my returning to the Keys time and time again, for forty years. Much of it was spent staying in the home my father purchased in 1963 on the Atlantic side of lower Matecumbe Key. It was romantic. I longed for the Keys when I wasn’t down here. I often wept when I left and again on returning. But no more. The romance is gone. The sentimentality has vanished. I don’t feel that love anymore, and what came to me yesterday was my getting involved in Keys politics is what killed the love affair. Now it’s mostly just a job, living in the Keys.
I thrashed around a good bit last night trying to get down to the topic of today’s post. Maybe some of what I got up in the wee hours to write will some day make its way into public view. Right now, what seems to be coming forward from last night was a dream at dawn in which our State Attorney Dennis Ward came to me and lamented that I had not made a post today. I awoke knowing that was a left-handed way for the angels to tell me that I was suppose to write about something that had to do with Dennis. More particularly, about something that had to do with crime. But what?
I got to the what when I arrived at Sippin’ Internet Cafe around 9 a.m., very late for me to get started, but it was a long night and I was late finally crawling out of the sack for the last time this a.m. — unless I get a nap in before noon. Anyway, arriving at Sippin’, right off I note Key West the Newspaper (kwtn.com) is out early this week, because of Christmas being tomorrow — Friday is KWTN’s regular publication day. The front page feature, FIRED WHISTLEBLOWER WILL SUE SCHOOL BOARD, caught my eye immediately.
Before reading it, I read the Key West Citizen front page piece, “Fraud’s role at debate,” about the recommendation of what I imagination was of one of the School Board’s bean counters to factor fraud into the school budget, so henceforth the theft of hundreds of thousands of dollars by the likes of the wife of our recently deposed Superintendent of Schools, now a convicted felon out on probation, thanks to a local elected judge, won’t upset the financial applecart in our school system, because the theft already was factored into the school budget. What? We give thieves the green light by telling them we expect them to steal from the school system? Excuse me, but I think I would give serious thought to firing that bean counter, were I the new School Superientendent of Schools.
The only part of the KW Citizen article I liked was this quote from School Board member Steve Pibramsky, who, along with School Board member John Dick, had aggressively pursued allegations of the thievery in the face of severe public criticism from segments of the public (bubbas) and from one School Board member, who was in bed with the Superientendent and his wife. The two other School Board members took a more conservative (wait and maybe we will see) approach that might have, if used by Pibramsky and Dick, resulted in much more harm being done to the school system, if not the outright escape of the thief and her husband, who had promoted her in the first place, against the rules, to a position for which she had no legal qualifications, and then he ignored reports from school system employee Cathy Reitezel of what his wife was doing, and then he tried to cover it all up — or so a grand jury convened by Dennis Ward determined, and then a jury agreed, when it convicted the Superientendent. His wife still awaits trial.
Anyway, here are Pibramsky’s quoted remarks in KW Citizen today: “I think the school district has a vast majority of honest, forthright people. However, the culture has been too political, too steeped in patronage and cronyism. When someone sees something going wrong, they are afraid to speak up for fear of retribution. Good people have to be protected and bad people have to be ousted immediately.”
Amen. However, tell that to Cathy Reitzel, who was the State’s primary witness before the grand jury and later in the Superintendent of School’s trial. Tell that to Cathy Reitzel, who was told to resign or be fired, by the new Superientendent of Schools after he was appointed by Governor Crist. Tell that to Cathy Reitzel, who was fired and now has obtained counsel to sue the School Board, including members Pibramsky and Dick, for going along with the firing of Cathy Reitzel, but for whose whistleblowing and testimony the State might not even have been able to prosecute the old Superintendent and his wife. Read all about that in today’s Key West the Newspaper front-page FIRED WHISTLEBLOWER WILL SUE SCHOOL BOARD piece.
Maybe the School Board ought to ask Governor Crist to fire the new Superientendent of Schools. Maybe the voters ought to fire the School Board for letting Cathy Reizel be fired. Maybe the voters ought to fire the judge who put the old Superientendent of Schools on probation. Maybe the voters ought to quit voting into office Superiententends of Schools who have no teaching degree and have never taught a day of school in their lives (our recently convicted Superientendent). Maybe the more things change, the more they stay the same. Bubba Wubba (politics, cronyism, favoritism, nepotism) still seems to rein supreme in the Keys. Kill the messenger still is business as usual.
Sloan Bashinsky