Humanist Society of Gainesville - 03/06/2006 Guest: Charles Grapski The Sunshine Law covers public meetings and public records. It was enacted in the early 70’s. I currently have a lawsuit against Bernie Machen for willful violation of public records law. I also have a long-standing dispute with the University of Florida over Florida Blue Key (FBK) - the good old boy system. At one time FBK was the key to political power. It no longer has that kind of strength but still has a great deal of control over judiciary and the executive. Many years ago I had a lawsuit against FBK for defamation of character and the court ruled in my favor. UF claims to be 150 years old, last year. In fact, UF was established 101 years ago this year. Last year was the 100th anniversary of UF, established in 1905. It moved to Gainesville in 1906 from Lake City. Politics has run the education system in the state of Florida and education has been run for political purposes since the founding of the state. Never for education. The University of Florida is a prime example of that fact. In the 1920’s when the university had grown very large, an organization called FBK was established at the university. It was quickly taken over by the political machine that ran the student government that was controlled by the fraternities at the time. It has controlled the student government at the UF ever since - it has never lost control of it. It has absolute power over student government affairs, and budget. It statutorily created student government and university officials turned a blind eye to the corruption. The organization is corrupt and it teaches corruption. If you name a key political figure in Florida’s history, you will more likely than not name someone who was brought up through that system, e.g., Bob Graham. Not that everyone who is a member is corrupt but the system is corrupting. Lawton Chiles was a member. Buddy McKay was a member. FBK is only at UF, not other colleges of Florida. Within a year of being established in 1923, the students that ran it decided to create a good old boy national organization and were kicked out of their own organization as a result, although they don’t say that in their official history, that’s actually what happened. They even have a transcript of the national meeting where this happened. That long-standing dispute is still going on despite my victory in the lawsuit which in 1998 I was awarded a $6 million judgement. The University has pretty much protected that institution and kept it alive, when it should have been destroyed or eliminated by the state of Florida after that lawsuit. They were found guilty of defamation of character in my lawsuit. The organization, as well as two of its members. The university wants this organization. The university is addicted to this organization even though it is one of the reasons why the UF has less power in the state legislature every year. It is more than the students, it’s also the alumni network. The people in the FBK have lost power at the state level but they have not lost control of UF. They control this university for profit. They make a lot of money. The university has now exempted itself from the public records law because it knew it would be put under that with regard to the UF Foundation. So it created a private investment corporation where it gave two million dollars of public money. We can’t see where its going or who we’re investing it in. The chairman of the board of trustees, Many Fernandez, is a venture capitalist. He placed a recent graduate of UF who went to work for him as special assistant for the president of the University of Florida. He’s only 24 years old and he makes $150,000.00 and nobody knows what his job is to do. It’s like a giant funnel—money laundering - public money, that goes into private pockets. That is the reason this university does not provide the kind of quality education that it has the potential to provide. Not because the faculty don’t try, but because the administration doesn’t play fair. Undergraduate education is a nuisance to them, but they have to have it because it’s part of their reason for existence. The FBK thing is still going on and in the last 3 or 4 years, Blue Key, which controls student government, has a $12 million dollar budget coming from student fees which are mandated for students to pay. They’ve started giving themselves at FBK, a couple of hundred thousand dollars every year to build up their coffers. This budget is used to run Gator Growl and Homecoming, which they do a lousy job. There is no accountability for the money. The university, again, turns a blind eye, even though this is absolutely illegal. In order for the money to be legally used, the organization has to be free and this is a dues charging organization. It has to be open to all members of the student body. This is an exclusive society of about 100 students. I have not bought a lawsuit yet over this issue because of difficulties in the timing. This is why I started my public records request, in this case, to find out what actually happened so I can go about challenging the process. I am bringing this suit as a private citizen, but I think it would be better as a class action on behalf of the public. Gary Edinger and Joe Little have been working on the case for a long time, although the university gets in a huff because Little is an employee of the university. He is a tenured faculty member so they can’t do anything to him. In the past they have used dirty tricks against professors as in the "Chambergate" Case. When Marshall Criser and CB Daniel tried to pressure Dwight Adams to stop opposing the extension of some roads on the north side of Gainesville into a wetland area. The area was not wet year round, but during the wet season, some areas were bulldozed to cover the water. The written transcript is on the web [http://www.afn.org/~thescore/gatepol.html]. UF has done everything in its’ power to ignore and circumvent the public records law. When Bernie Machen came in last year, he had the view that the public records law was bad and he would not let it apply to him at all. He actually made that statement. When I saw that this money was going to be given by FBK to itself, for the control of student government, I contacted Bernie Machen and the Vice President of Student Affairs, Patricia Tellas-Irvin, and I said "You need to stop this transfer of funds under your authority and obligation of Florida Law, to prevent illegal use of student government funds. I got a phone call from the Alligator about a week later, saying, " Have you heard about the ‘Veto’?" I said I had not heard of any veto. Student Government officials were contacted by the VP Office that the funds were being vetoed. Well I thought this was great. I immediately emailed the VP Office of Student Affairs to ask what happened?!! There was no response. This administration doesn’t respond to anyone or Machen very rarely responds. Student Government defiantly declared they were going to give the money to themselves anyway, "You can’t tell us ‘No’". I began corresponding relentlessly with Machen, "Please give me the actual records. If you don’t tell me I will find out." I sent two requests for public records, one to Machen for all documents, memoranda and notes sent to or from him. I did the same with Vice President for Student Affairs Patricia Tellis-Irvin. What I got back from Machen was a direct e-mail saying there are no records responsive to my request "Frankly, Sir, That is impossible because my correspondence with you and your correspondence with me constitutes a public record which I requested. I said to Machen, "Now I know for a fact that these are records. And I know that you think you are exempt from public records law when it comes to emails. You have an obligation to release these records." He continued to refuse. Tellis-Irvin finally produced some records and I went and picked them up. But they were just not adequate. "You did not give me everything, you did not give me my correspondence to and from you. So a week went by and I got a new packet of information which was already a violation of the sunshine law because they swore that the first package was complete. You don’t even have your own memorandum vetoing part of the money. So what happened in these intervening weeks? Instead of actually vetoing the money, Telles-Irvin said, "I’m going to veto half the money and I’m going to let you have the other half of the money." But this made no sense, it’s illegal whether you’re getting a dollar or a million dollars. And we found an accounting error in the PeopleSoft she said, (which now they’re using for any excuse) and $80,000 has reappeared. FBK took this from some of their private accounts, which they’re actually not supposed to have, and put it in to cover that money to pay for Gator Growl and Homecoming, which the money they requested was the entire budget for Gator Growl and Homecoming that FBK puts on which includes renting the "Touchdown Terrace" for their private, exclusive party, buying alcohol, etc. They just said, give us the entire budget. And the University turned a blind eye and I’m trying to find out why. I did a number of public records request for things that the University doesn’t know I have including documents about a guy named "Stumpy Harris" who was former director of the Gator Boosters, former president of the Alumni Association, a major Blue Key member, who anyone will listen to and jump when he speaks. I actually have the correspondence between him and the VP of FBK, who worked for him that summer as a law clerk and his correspondence to Machen stating, "You ought to do this and behold, they get their money!" Machen has not produced that document. Machen has not produced one single document, so we went to court. I knew they were playing this game so at first I just said, "Give me all the documents of this subject matter." They did not give me any, so I asked for all the emails for a particular date to or from Machen. They said they have nothing. But they must have something. You’ve got two emails from me and two emails to me. So you can’t have nothing. It is not legal for him to simply delete the emails. He claims that he deleted all his e-mail but he first sends them to someone to print them out, which they’re not doing either. I even requested the entire computer backup and they said there’s no document response to that request. We did go to court once so far and we got the worse judge in town...Roundtree. He gave one of the most ridiculous rulings, that will be laughed out of appellate court, if it gets there. But we can’t bring it there because in one part of the ruling, he left us with the means to amend the complaint. Machen is not being represented by the general council of UF. He’s got a very expensive lawyer from Jacksonville, who’s area of expertise has nothing to do with public records. Why is a commercial litigator, former president of the Florida Bar, representing the president of the university?! He’s also a big FBK member: John Duval. He argued to the court that I mislead the court to the effect that I had all the documents and they gave them to me through Telles-Irvin. They alleged that I just wanted to pester the president of the university and get something from him directly. And the judge bought that. However Machen’s actual statement was that there are no records. Not that I sent them to you through Telles-Irvin. So we’ve gone back and refiled the motion and we’ve asked for a hearing to be held on March 20, 2006. Unfortunately before Judge Roundtree again. The Alligator reporter couldn’t believe when covering the story, that Rountree was exposed the next day for being on a University committee with Machen’s wife and a member of the oldest FBK law firm in the state, Clayton & Johnson, founded by members of FBK. Roundtree was embarrassed but we have not moved to have the judge removed. The attorney for Machen called my attorney and said, "Let’s make a deal: we’ve given you everything [which is not true since I have very damning evidence they don’t know I have]. We’re going to rewrite the policy with regards to e-mail and make sure it applies to the president of UF. We’d be happy to have your input." I’d be happy to do that as if it would solve the problem without litigation. You’ll have to give me all the documents, that letter was just sent the other day. The State of Florida must appoint some neutral person to go in and get the files and recreate what has been deleted. I have made a public records request for the computer backup files and they say they don’t exist. I know they exist, in fact, they have an extra backup in case there’s a natural disaster. There are tough sanctions on Public Records Law, but rarely enforced, because they don’t like to mess with public officials. Ethics Law I have also recently filed an ethics case against County Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut. It’s very rare to win a case on ethics law. We have very strong ethics laws in Florida but they are not enforced. Developer Clark Butler ( of Butler Plaza) gave two $10,000 tickets to Chestnut. It appeared that he was attempting to influence her vote on the extension of some roads near Butler Plaza which had been widely opposed in the community. The ethics commission found her in violation and she received a small fine (about $700). If the law had been followed properly she would have been required to reimburse $19,900 to Clark Butler, which I would have liked to have seen. That’s actually what the statute requires: if you receive a gift of more than $100 you must repay the excess. If the gift was not money you have to repay the fair market value and the total value of the tickets was $20,000. It’s rare for the ethics commission to uphold a violation by a public official. The members of the ethics commission are all former officials and developers. Most of the ethics complaints involve collusion between developers and officials. That’s who’s on the ethics commission which was created by the legislature to undo the effects of the ethics laws which were passed by constitutional amendment. There was no mechanism specified by the law whereby the ethics laws could be administered. Of course, it should have been administered by the courts. This ethics commission was created to get rid of the effect of the law. This is the trend around the country. There are many strong ethics laws around the country but legislators exempt themselves from them. The state legislatures has exempted themselves almost completely. In regard to my class action suit for public records, I am planning to create a 501c3 not-for-profit corporation to be a public records "watchdog." I will do this in the next couple of months. I’ll start with the university and teach people how to make these requests and eventually broaden the scope to any public requests in the community. The public will then have a way to make sure the law is being enforced. Also, I believe the best way to enforce ethics laws is for local governments, county and city, to adopt their own ethics laws to supplement the state ethics laws. Then local state attorneys and courts will be involved in the process. Dirty politics such as push-polls formerly used at the national level are beginning to infect local politics. Push-polls were used in the Alex Patton and Tony Domenech Campaigns. Polls are supposed to be a measure of public opinions. Political campaigns began to use this to find out how well they were getting the message out and what issues are important to the electorate. These are legitimate uses. The problem is that campaigns have found a way to present something as a poll and then manufacture an opinion to sway the people’s vote. Push-polling is hard to define. The current law requires that if the poll meets a certain criteria, then the funding for the poll must be disclosed. The law should, however, band that type of polling because it is NOT polling. And it does harm because it distorts the polling process and makes people wary of participating in polls. Pollsters get a bad reputation. The specific criteria are that push-polls are not designed to get meaningful statistics, it’s usually done in mass quantities, calling on as many people as possible. At the local level, the sample number that will give a meaningful result is much lower. The local community should be the most significant place for the citizens to participate in politics. We have a system that makes it very difficult to beat the incumbent. We have a national rate of about 95% incumbency protection plan called gerrymandering. In the state of Florida, we have a nearly 100% rate of incumbency. In the last state election, 100% of the incumbents were returned. Of the 4 state house districts in the county, district 23 is the only democratic district. District 23 has almost nothing in Alachua County except UF Campus and the democratic block of voters in the Golfview neighborhood. The rest of District 23 is in Marion County where the republicans are very strong. ******************************************************************************************************** Humanist Meeting Sept. 12, 2005 guest: Jon Reiskind, Ph.D, UF Dept. of Zoology Historical perspective: Evolution definition: originally, an unfolding or development, as in embryological development. Later, descent with modification (not natural selection or speciation) Linnaeus grouped animals and plants according to morphological similarities, without intending to imply evolutionary relationships. Erasmus Darwin (grandfather of Charles) wrote lengthy poems in the 1790's which hinted at some ideas of evolution of plants and animals. William Paley (early 19th Century) wrote that the diversity of life demonstrated the powers of God as Creator. He believed that diversity itself was evidence for the existence of God. In the early 19th Century "scientist" was roughly equivalent to the term, "natural philosopher," e.g., Buffon and Lamarck. Some of these natural philosophers proposed theories for the origin of species such as the idea that individual archetypes were created and diversity resulted from the deterioration of these forms. Lamarck proposed the idea of "inheritance of acquired characteristics. Charles Darwin embarked on the HMS beagle as a "gentleman companion" on a voyage to South America (1832). Darwin developed two basic ideas: 1. The theory of evolution - variations in the appearance of organisms reflect their relationship to other organisms. 2. The theory of natural selection - environmental stresses and predation result in the survival of better adapted individuals. Darwin read widely and gathered information from many sources: Malthus - sociological economist breeders of pigeons, dogs, sheep, etc. Darwin studied and wrote scientific papers on barnacles, insects, and ecology. Darwin's first two books were about geology. These ideas contributed to Darwin's development of his theories on evolution: - superfecundity -there are more individuals born than can survive. - Even within a species there are individual differences. - These individual differences can be inherited. - These individual differences that can impact an individual's ability to survive and reproduce. The theory of evolution by natural selection is one of the best documented theories in scientific thought. CD was probably unaware of Gregor Mendel's experiments on genetics of pea plants. When Mendel's work was rediscovered in the early 1900's, early researchers thought that the action of mutation itself could explain evolution and the Darwin's idea of natural selection had been refuted. By the 1920's scientist began that mutation was actually essential to the process of evolution. ---------------------------- Today: The real debate is between "science" and "non-science." Scientists believe that natural phenomena have natural causes. Science is always tentative. Falsifiable. Science is self-correcting. Science is a godless process. reliance on the supernatural for explanation is not a part of the process. A scientist can be religious or non-religious. Most simply dont think much about religion, at least, in the context of their research area. (Steven Weinberg) Advocates of intelligent design say that living organisms are just too extradinarily complex to have evolved in a step-by-step process. There must have been a "Designer." Like a deus ex machina, this intelligent design will explain everything. This is a "cop-out" and has no place in science or in the science classroom. The push for ID to be taught in the classroom is funded by religious fundamentalists. The advocates of ID claim to want alternatives to mainstream biological science to be taught. Do they also want astrology to be taught as an alternative to astronomy and alchemy as an alternative to chemistry? They say they want students to be able to hear both sides and make up their own minds in regard to scientific controversies. Although this touches a popular nerve this is really just a contrivance. Howard Dean took a strong anti-ID stance on Face the Nation (August 14, 2005); says current administration misusing 'facts' in science and science education as in their other policies (e.g., Iraq War 'evidence') Republican War Against Science - Chris Mooney After WWII and the discovery of nuclear energy and modern pesticides, many thought science would soon solve all problems. Science has tremendous potential but it has not answered all of our questions. History of science books: Thomas Kuhn - The Structure of Scientific Revolutions Ernst Meyer - One Long Argument: Charles Darwin and the Genesis of Modern Evolutionary Thought Rick Santorum attempted to eliminate NOAH before the Katrina disaster and replace the work of predicting storms with a private company ( in which he had an investment). Are we headed toward a "dark age" when reason is rejected and ideology rules? This is what happened in the time of the Nazis and also during the cultural revolution in China.