Monday, Nov. 7
Focus Area Community Meeting & Input Session – Employee Engagement & Culture – 3:30 p.m., Maritime Place, 350 W. Cedar St., First Floor Conference Room
Wednesday, Nov. 9
Focus Area Community Meeting & Input Session – City Construction & Development – 3 p.m., City Hall, 222 W. Main St., Whibbs Conference Room, First Floor
Thursday, Nov. 10
Focus Area Community Meeting & Input Session – Environment – 1 p.m., City Hall, 222 W. Main St., Whibbs Conference Room, First Floor
Who is “Alex Smith” and why did the Political Action Committee (PAC) – set up to support D.C. Reeves’ campaign even before he became a candidate – pay Smith $4,000 on October 17 to be the “lead staffer” for the city’s Mayoral Transition Team? Does D.C. Reeves know? Does Tim Kinsella know? Does anyone in the city know? To whom does Smith report? Who is going to take receipt his public records when the transition process ends? There is no mention at all of Smith on the city’s web portal for the Mayoral Transition Team. The PAC that still is active was set up specifically to support the election of Reeves who was plainly described in its paperwork as a Republican. Reeves’ address given in the paperwork forming the PAC was given as the Studer Community Institute. The PAC has only donated money to Republican candidates to include Governor Ron DeSantis ($1,000). Reeves got his $1,000 many, many months ago but the PAC did not disclose it on any of its campaign finance reports. “After” Reeves was elected, the PAC made four more donations to Reeves. Those are documented by the PAC but not by Reeves. Smith was one of Reeves’ two campaign managers the other his girlfriend Sydney Dawson paid an awesome amount of other people’s money to do “something” to include photography and maybe babysitting too. D.C. Reeves managed to get elected while not spending any of his own money – zero dollars. He is going to be my best evidence for a charter amendment to prohibit dirty money in city campaigns like the PAC involving his father and brother. Also, the campaign season needs to be shortened as in Gulf Breeze and Milton and we need to limit the amount of money that a candidate can spend or provide public financing so that you don’t have to be a millionaire to run for mayor like the past, current and future mayor. After Reeves takes office, we will map out all of his special interests’ campaign financiers to include those granted seats at the table on the Mayoral Transition Team. The final plan will include recommendations but we’ll have to work hard to find out who really asked for certain things to include the man behind the curtain Quint Studer. This morning I heard non-city resident Rusty Branch say on Andrew McKay’s radio show that he didn’t want the city council to have input on the transition. Hayward and Robinson made the same mistake and both were miserable failures with Robinson in 2020 describing Hayward’s eight years as chaotic. Robinson’s tenure as a lame duck after two years was so bad that Reeves is fortunate to be starting at rock bottom. There’s nowhere to go but up. It can’t get any worse. Reeves could go it alone but a better approach would be to work with vice try to dominate the council like his predecessors tried with increasingly less success.