At least two positive mailers have hit voters mailboxes this week. One, paid for by the Orlando-based group, Council for Stronger Neighborhoods, highlights City Council candidate Will Newton as a “career hero” having spent 23 years as a firefighter and EMT.
Another SunCoast Police Benevolent Association PAC mailer urged voters to cast a ballot for Newton. It also features City Council members Steve Kornell and Charlie Gerdes, who face re-election this cycle.
Pictured on that mailer is City Council vice chair Amy Foster, who has endorsed all three candidates. She’s quoted supporting Kornell and Gerdes because they work well as a team and closes with asking voters to ensure Newton is the newest member of the team.
Meanwhile, the tone in Newton’s campaign and that of his opponent is anything but rosy.
Each campaign is fighting bitterly to deflect allegations of fiscal incompetence.
On the Newton side, supporters for his opponent, Lisa Wheeler-Brown, are holding his feet to the fire over a more than $30,000 tax lien paid off in 2012.
The campaign dismisses any negative allegations, explaining that there was a dispute with the IRS over income earned as a 1099 employee while working for the city’s firefighter union. When the dispute was settled, Newton paid what was owed.
Seems to be pretty open and shut, but Newton’s critics are still questioning whether he’s being honest. The campaign has released very few details on the issue.
Meanwhile, Wheeler-Brown is battling her own list of woes.
Early in her campaign, Wheeler-Brown answered to a checkered past in which she incurred charges for retail theft and passing a worthless check. Wheeler-Brown was open about the transgressions and explained they were mistakes made when she was much younger and that she learned from them.
Later, Wheeler-Brown came under fire for using campaign funds to pay for personal dental work. That launched a flurry of other findings of campaign finance mishaps. The dental expense went unreported for six months. Instead, the expense was listed as office space.
When it was later corrected SaintPetersblog found out Wheeler-Brown had also failed to report in-kind contributions and that contribution may have been illegal because it came from a nonprofit organization.
The blunders led to an official complaint to the Florida Division of Elections claiming Wheeler-Brown broke several election laws.
And then the latest blow came just this week when it was reported Wheeler-Brown created a foundation in her son’s name following his 2008 murder.
An investigation into that foundation found no tax documents filed with the IRS or the required paperwork filed with the Florida Department of Agriculture.
The campaign claims there is not a paper trail because Wheeler-Brown failed to raise enough money to obtain 501(c)3 status. What money she did raise, the campaign says, was used to help incarcerated people.
However, the campaign will not say exactly how much money was raised or where it came from. When an online database of businesses and nonprofits listed an estimated revenue stream of $81,000, they claimed only that nowhere near that amount had come in. In an email, Manta.com explained the figure is an estimate based on industry averages.
The latest issue has prompted one City Council member, Amy Foster, to say enough is enough.
“Could it have been a rookie mistake? Quite possibly,” Foster said. “But taken in context with other concerns, it does give me pause. I’m not sure if it’s judgment or attention to detail, but both are required for this position.”
And yet another potential red-flag for the campaign — the foundation now being scrutinized was actually awarded by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Wheeler-Brown created the Cabretti Wheeler-Fortner Foundation, where she spent countless hours educating youth and the community about the lasting effects of violence, campaigning and promoting nonviolence, engaging neighborhoods to improve police and community relations and coordinating vigils to pray for the healing of victims’ survivors and their families,” reads a press release from 2013.
Wheeler-Brown’s campaign claims there was only a small amount of money raised and it was donated for a one-time effort. Yet the DOJ writes about “countless hours.” It begs the question, could Wheeler-Brown have misled the DOJ about her foundation’s purpose?
After all, a Facebook page set up for the foundation lists its mission statement as ensuring that no mother has to lose a child. What does that have to do with helping people in jail?
Or could it just be that the DOJ misspoke and was actually referring to Wheeler-Brown’s own activism? She is widely credited for breaking down the community’s no snitching code of silence following her son’s murder, an accomplishment that cannot be overstated.
Whatever the case may be, both campaigns are withholding information that could clear up misunderstandings. What voters are left wondering is whether the absence of that information means the campaigns are hiding something.
But the positive mailers are a nice detraction from what has become a campaign chock-full of controversy.
