PAGE ONE COMMENTARY

Is the Peryam Sex Scandal an Elaborate Conspiracy to Derail His Run for Sheriff?

IF SO, LOTS OF PEOPLE ARE IN ON IT: THE SHERIFF, THE UNDERSHERIFF, A PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR, A BIG PINE WOMAN WHO MADE THE INITIAL COMPLAINT, AS WELL AS HER NEIGHBORS

PERYAM SAYS SHERIFF’S INVESTIGATION CLEARED HIM. THAT IS NOT TRUE

by Dennis Reeves Cooper

By all rights, Key West The Newspaper should never scoop the Key West Citizen on any news story. The Citizen is published every day. We publish only on Fridays. We only have two reporters. The Citizen has a gadzillion writers and a layer of editors on top of that. But occasionally, we are able to break a blockbuster story before the Citizen gets it and they often follow with their own version of the story a day or so later.

But, apparently, the “sex scandal” story we broke two weeks ago about Capt. Bob Peryam— a 27-year veteran with the Monroe County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO) and a candidate for Sheriff— goes beyond scoop. The Citizen has yet to publish it! And that means that US 1 Radio newsman Bill Becker hasn’t covered it either, because he reads most of his news right out of the Citizen.

Our story on Peryam was based on a secret report that had been kept buried in Sheriff Rick Roth’s files for three years. The 2005 report, authored by a private detective hired by Roth, revealed that Peryam not only allegedly had a sexual affair with 21-year-old Courtney Kelley of big Pine Key, he may have also ordered his deputies to harass her family.

KWPD Honored Disgraced Chief

By Awarding Him Badge

KWTN Team Report

When former Key West Police Chief Bill Mauldin was suspended in February amid charges of sexual misconduct, he turned in his badge, gun and vehicle. Following an investigation into the charges, Mauldin resigned on April 1. He left city employment in disgrace, with just his accrued annual leave and sick leave pay and his contributions to his retirement plan. Or at least that is what most citizens thought.

Key West the Newspaper has learned, however, that Lt. Dave Black, with Interim Police Chief Donie Lee’s approval, presented Mauldin with his badge as a going-away present. “It is common practice for the chief to keep a badge as a remembrance of his time with the department,” said city spokesperson Christie Phillips.

Rhonda

A Tale of Two Badges

THE TWO BADGES— Key West cops now have their old badges (left) back. Right: Mauldin’s conch and palm tree badge.

by Rhonda Linseman-Saunders

In one of his first acts as top-cop-for-now, Interim Police Chief Donie Lee has done away with the cheesy Key West Police badges that were the result of a burst of creativity on the part of Bill “Chucky” Mauldin, the expolice chief who quit last month amid allegations of sexual harassment and corruption under his leadership. What a perfect visual symbol of the end of the Mauldin era.

Mauldin joined the KWPD as police chief in April of 2005. By August of 2007, he had apparently run out of tactics to assert any real authority or earn any genuine respect from within his department, so he reportedly ordered expensive new custom badges with conch shells and palm trees on them.

Food Drive Saturday

The National Association of Letter Carriers, in conjunction with the U.S. Postal Service, will be collecting non-perishable food items, like canned meats and fish, canned soup, juice, pasta, vegetables, cereal and rice,tomorrow, Saturday, May 10, to help families in need. Just leave your donation by your mailbox on that day before your letter carrier arrives.

176 FKCC Students

Graduate Tonight

Ninety-five students will walk across the stage tonight, Friday, May 9, at the Tennessee Williams Theater to receive degrees and certificates during the 42nd commencement ceremony of Florida Keys Community College. This year’s ceremony will take place at 7pm at the main campus, and will mark the first over which the new College President Dr. Jill Landesberg- Boyle will officially preside. Boyle began in August of last year.

For the academic year 2007-08, more than 176 students will graduate from FKCC. Some complete graduation requirements as early as August of last year, however not all participate in the May commencement exercise. Of this year’s graduates 30 are from nursing; 18 from business and data processing; six from marine sciences, 14 from computer technology; 11 from corrections and criminal justice and 97 will receive the associate in arts degree for university transfer.

KWPD Chili Peppers

Raise $9400 For Cancer Research

CHILI PEPPERS— Brittany McGaughan-Shirley, left, and Mary Canalejo, right, pose with Interim Police Chief Donie Lee. Chief Lee was instrumental in restarting the Chili Peppers II’s fundraising efforts after the death of Susan Solares.

The Key West Police Department’s “Chili Peppers II” Relay for Life team won top honors at the Cancer Society of America event this past weekend.

The Chili Peppers, coordinated by team leaders Crystal Bravo, Mary Canalejo and Brittany McGaughan-Shirley, earned the title of Top Small Group Team at the event after they raised an astounding $9,400 in just two weeks.

Letters

City Is Destroying Historic Hawk Missle Site

Dear Editor,

What is the City doing destroying an historic site! The Hawk Missile Site at Hamaca Park is an incredible historic place. It is the last intact, public acessible missle site from the Cuban Missle Crisis. I regularly walked out there and would reflect on that time when I was a child living in Key West.

Just a year or so ago, the Hawk Missle Site Veterans Association, John Jones and I discussed seriously turning the site into a museum! What a wonderful attraction for the City of Key West.

Now, it is being gutted, flooded and destroyed. I wonder if anyone thought to take detailed photos of the layout before it was “dredged and filled.”

All of the uproar over saving invasive pines at Fort Taylor, and a truly historic site is being eliminated.

Sometimes I wonder if Key West is going back to the old days when the dredges ran night and day! It took a very brave Federal judge to put a stop to the destruction of the Keys.

Maybe we need some help in that regard again.

Robert Cintron
Key West

OPINION

Jim Scholl’s Ethics Letter

by Dennis Reeves Cooper

If you are a City Hall watcher and you have been wondering why our relatively new City Manager, Jim Scholl, often seems to be ineffective, here is at least part of the answer— a four-page letter from an Ethics Counselor with the Department of the Navy telling Mr. Scholl, who formerly commanded the Naval Air Station here, that the scope of his employment with the City is “restricted.” We suspect that the degree to which his employment as City Manager is really restricted depends on how he and/or others interpret the letter (which we have reprinted below).

We do know how Mr. Scholl interpretsthe letter when dealing with the press. He simply says he can’t talk about anything dealing with the Navy. That is very convenient when we try to ask him about his alleged criminal collusion regarding why he, while he was the base commander, changed the flight path (AICUZ) of those loud Navy jets to move the noise away from an upscale neighborhood and over to a less-than-upscale neighborhood. Some say it was in return for a promise to help him become City Manager when he retired. But he says this letter from the Navy prevents him from answering any questions about his very questionable AICUZ decision.

ON THE SONNY SIDE

Healthy Keys, We’re Coming Closer

by Charles “Sonny” McCoy

The environmental future of our Keys dominates the planning process, or at least it is given high consideration. The waste generated by an expanding human population and an increasingly effluent economy is changing the dynamics of how nature has processed animal and plant decay in the last few million years. These changing dynamics and concerns for disease transmission and other health problems has accelerated the need to process human waste in a more expeditious and in a more healthy way.

There are available to us ways to break down the constituent parts of human waste so that we can make clean, potable water and other usable material for reuse in a short period of time and that is what the sewage treatment process is all about. We are in the process of sewering the keys; but it is expensive.

Fascism With A Smile

by Hal O'Boyle

My last article suggested that readers who wanted to see all the elements of ham-fisted fascism in full operation need only visit an airport. Shortly afterward, I got a note from a Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employee. She politely defended her agency and her comrades.

I felt lousy that O’Boyle’s inner smart ass had squeezed off a thoughtless screed against a group of hard working public servants. My correspondent reminded me that most of those in her position are friendly, polite, and conscientious. She’s right. The rude, sarcastic agent I met in Ft. Lauderdale is the rare exception, not the rule. TSA agents are our friends and neighbors, coaches, scout masters and den mothers. They provide an important service and want to do so as well as they can. TSA agents are just doing their jobs. With understandable pride, she closed by inviting me to fly out of her airport to see the TSA at its best.