PAGE ONE COMMENTARY: Background Check: Robin Smith-Martin Exposed as an Inept Businessman, an Irresponsible Investor and a Tax Scofflaw.

A SIMPLE BACKGROUND CHECK ON SCHOOL BOARD CANDIDATE REVEALS THAT HE IS MISREPRESENTING HIMSELF IN CAMPAIGN MATERIALS

KWTN Team Report

School Board candidate Robin Smith-Martin claims he will bring professional financial management expertise to the Board, based on his MBA and experience as a businessman and financial analyst.

But here’s his record:

• As a “businessman,” five years out of his MBA program, he earns about as much money as a fast-food cashier.

• As a “businessman,” he doesn’t file his corporate reports, pay city and county business taxes, or file his tangible personal property tax return with the county.

• As a “finance expert,” he took out a huge second mortgage of $200,000 in 2006, apparently to gamble in the stock market— and he has less than $45,000 left. In essence, he has risked his family home on a roll of the dice.

• On his financial disclosure form, required of all candidates, he claimed the family duplex is worth $550,000— perhaps its appraisal at top of market.

Mayor Cates: Why I’m Voting Yes on the Glynn Archer School Question

The Key West City Charter requires the City Commission to get voter approval to buy or sell property. Mayor Craig Cates is one of the primary proponents of acquiring the historic Glynn Archer School and converting it into a new city hall. A question on the ballot asks for authorization to acquire the school for that purpose.

This week, Cates explained his position in a letter to Key West The Newspaper:

“I feel strongly that restoring the Glynn Archer School and making it our next City Hall is not only the most financially sound decision for our city, but we will also be preserving an important piece of our history.

CAROLYN GORTON FULLER: Hair

EDITOR’S NOTE: Carolyn Gorton Fuller died last August at the age of 88. If you have been a resident of Key West for any length of time, you probably knew Carolyn or you knew who she was. She was not a regular columnist in Key West The Newspaper, but every once in awhile, she would send us a letter or commentary— hardly ever involving a controversial issue. Not the kind of thing you normally see in KWTN. But her humor was so subtle and her writing was, well, sweet. Rarely did something she sent us not appear in print. Over the next few months, we will be re-publishing some of Carolyn’s columns. The following column was first published here in 2002.

by Carolyn Gorton Fuller

One hundred years ago— more or less— (I am now 80) I asked a friend of mine to give me a home permanent. I bought the kit and she did it so well, made the “pin curls” so tight that when, at the prescribed time, I tried to let my hair down, it didn’t come. It stayed screwed up in such tight kinks and curls I looked like a Brillo pad. You never saw anything so horrible in all your life.

I was teaching at the time, high school, and the idea of getting up before 40 art students, as I looked, was too much. I called a professional hairdresser at 6 a.m. and had her try her skills – all to no avail – she finally put on a solution that straightened it all out, and I went off to class smelling like a dog that had been dipped in mange cure and looking like a drowned cat.

Endorsements for Vasil and Bowers

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) has endorsed Don Vasil for County Commissioner, Dist. 4. Vasil is a former member of the Marathon City Council, where he served as councilman and vice mayor. Vasil’s opponent is former County Commissioner David Rice. FOP represents the Sheriff’s deputies in Monroe County.

Judy Wild, a retired school teacher who ran for School Board in the primary election last August, has thrown her support to Barbara Bowers for the Dist. 1 seat. Wild said that before she decided which candidate to endorse in the upcoming runoff election, she met with both Bowers and her opponent, Robin Smith-Martin.

RHONDA: Island Boy Gone Country

by Rhonda Linseman-Saunders

So, we’re still in Michigan and my husband wants to be a farmer.

I’m not overreacting because I know it will pass. I mean, it will, right? It’s just something that happens to little boys— and apparently to grown men from subtropical islands— when they experience real farmin’ for the first time.

Some friends of ours, the Huber family, have a 2000-acre farm in AuGres. They produce sugar beets, soy beans, navy beans, cranberry beans (yes, there’s such a thing), black beans, white beans, wheat, corn, and I’m sure I’m forgetting a few. Since it’s harvest time, we thought it would be interesting to make the trip from my parents’ little farm town to our friends’ little farm town to say “hello” (or “Hi yous guys” in the vernacular) and also to show the little guy some farm equipment in action.

O'BOYLE: The Mark of the Beast

by Hal O’Boyle

And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause to be killed as many as would not worship the image of the beast. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand or in their foreheads, that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark or the name of the beast or the number of his name. Revelations 13:15-17

Like a barrel of swill sliding across the bed of a pig farmer’s pickup the debate over national identification cards keeps shifting around in the back of the post 9/11 “security” van. The shifting load in the lumbering SUV of Homeland Security, already wallowing heavily with money and power, has caused a dangerous swerve toward the aged pedestrian of American civil liberty.

ID technology peddlers, cops who want their jobs to be easier, and politicians who can never know enough about our private lives have teamed up to number us like cattle for our own good. Never mind that the Social Security number has devolved into a de facto national ID already ― despite Congress’ explicit intent to the contrary. That’s not good enough to give us all the protection our government wants us to have. We still don’t have to carry the card everywhere. We really don’t have to have one at all. When a nosey clerk demands an SSN you can still just make one up, as I so often do, without adverse consequences.

CONTINUE READING HERE…

Big Reggae Concert Set for November 20

The Rotary Club of Key West has another great festival coming, “REGGAE MOONSPLASH”, and they have a great line up of Grammy winning talent performing:

Ky-Mani Marley, Pato Banton, The Spam Allstars are all contracted to play at the upcoming November 20 festival.

“Reggae Moon-Splash” is aptly named because it will take place under a full moon at Truman Annex Waterfront— the same location the Rotary had The Wailers concert in May. It’s all for a good cause as the festival benefits the Rotary Club’s “College Scholarship Fund” a charitable fund that specifically creates scholarships and funding for local Key West High School students who might not otherwise have the opportunity to go to college.

EVENTS: Christopher Peterson at Waterfront Playhouse

Legendary impressionist, Christopher Peterson brings his stage extravaganza “EYECONS, Las Vegas or Bust” to the Waterfront Playhouse for three nights only, playing October 23, 24 and 25 at 8 pm.

This official Fantasy Fest event will mark Christopher’s final Key West appearances before relocating to Las Vegas. His all-live, no lip-sync show features hilarious parodies of all the great female stars, plus four dancers, overthe- top costumes and Vegasstyle sets. The Waterfront, as one of Fantasy Fest’s premier sponsors, is thrilled that Christopher chose the Playhouse as the venue for his Key West performing swan song.

ART: Wyland and Creative Cohorts Star at “Fantasy of Art”

Event Key West’s Wyland Galleries will present a “Fantasy of Art” Extravaganza, showcasing the latest works of Wyland and six other leading contemporary artists, Oct. 23-31.

Throughout the event, art lovers can meet Steve Barton, painter of vibrant tropical vistas, and David Wight, renowned for his sculpted glass waves, daily and by appointment at Wyland’s 623 Duval St. gallery. In addition, Stephen Muldoon will make his first appearance at the gallery to show his compelling studies of people and seafaring scenes.

Acclaimed surrealist Jim Warren and modern romanticist Adam Rote will join them Oct. 25-31, daily and by appointment, to debut their latest fantasies on canvas. Among them are Rote’s “Mad as a Hatter,” exclusive to Wyland Galleries and saluting Key West’s Halloween festivities.

What’s on at the Tropic

by Phil Mann

Woody Allen is back again, now with YOU WILL MEET A TALL DARK STRANGER. For his fans, or anyone who appreciates a sophisticated diversion, it’s always a pleasure to spend an hour and a half (more or less) with this unique cinematic maestro.

The cast, as usual, is an incredible collection of talent. Woody seems to be able to attract anyone he wants.

So he has Anthony Hopkins (as an aging, long-married gent who thinks a new young woman will solve his problems), Gemma Jones (as Hopkins’ discarded wife), Lucy Punch (as Jones’ floosy replacement), Josh Brolin (as a failed, blocked novelist), Naomi Watts (as Brolin’s long-suffering, financially supporting wife), Antonio Banderas (as a diversion for Watts), Freida Pinto (as a diversion for Brolin… she’s the dusky beauty from Slumdog Millionaire). And there’s also Roger Ashton-Griffiths (as a diversion for Jones).