Brevard Whistle Blower, a website run by former county employee Chuck Maxwell, recently reported that they have been receiving regular emails from an anonymous Yahoo email address attempting to expose waste, fraud, and abuse inside the county clerk’s office. Maxwell did some checking and a little research and claims to have discovered that the person hiding behind the email address is none other than a “close associate of State Representative Mitch Needleman” who has declared his candidacy to challenge current Clerk of the Court incumbent Scott Ellis in the 2008 Election.
Here is a reprint of Brevard Whistle Blower’s November 2, 2007 edition threatening to expose the individual:
An anonymous citizen has been sending messages to county commissioners (and yours truly) attacking alleged wasteful spending by County Clerk SCOTT ELLIS. The mysterious author GOES by the name of “TRUE FACTS SENDER”.
Since one of BWB’s email addresses is “TrueFactsF” and since we don’t value anonymous tipsters very much, we decided to use some of our past “spook” training to track down this joker.
Frankly, he (and yes it is a “he”) isn’t very bright. He was easy to find. He is a close associate of State Representative MITCH NEEDELMAN, who is challenging ELLIS in next year’s election.
BWB has criticized Ellis in the past, as regular readers know, but we think it smacks of “dirty tricks” to do battle with him hiding behind anonymous emails.
Now…uh…let’s see…should we name this guy or not?
YOU decide.
As an example, here is one of the emails originally sent by the anonymous “true facts supplier” back in July.
From: True Facts Supplier [mailto:truefactssupplier@yahoo.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 12, 2007 5:36 AM
To: Colon, Jackie; Voltz, Helen P; Nelson, Chuck S; Bolin, Mary M; Scarborough, Truman G; Busacca, Peggy A
Subject: budget cutsI know where you could come up with around $300,000.00 from the Clerks Office. Get rid of the INTERNAL AUDITORS that Scott has hired all within less then the last two years. Between Carie Exline and Trudie Infantini, they were paid just about $150,000.00 for just the two of them (these are supposedly part timers?!!). Add on that Carie Exline is an empire builder who keeps building her empire and I guarantee you’d be able to shave off at least a few thousand more.
Carie and Trudie are not all of the internal auditors hired. Scott also has hired Doug Baker, Eric and Pete. The five of them are some of the highest paid employees within the clerks office although they are some of the most recent hires (again, all within the last two years). Their supervisor, makes less than Carie and Trudie and he is a long time employee. He may actually be the only one who deserves his pay.
It’s said that the money for the auditors does not come from article V money. If not from there, where? Don’t forget that these auditors are required to do things like take helicopter rides (you’ve got to watch those EELS projects from above you know?) and take road trips to other counties to see how they do things (does it take 5 people?) and they are also on company time when the accompany Scott attending such things as county commission meetings.
Below is the response of Scott Ellis when he received it in July, 2007.
Mr. Truefactssupplier,
You could probably help your cause a little more if you supplied ‘true facts’ (now that is redundant) versus ‘cooked facts’.
The County General Fund does not pay for the auditors. The County does not transfer money to the Clerk for their salary. They do not make $ 75,000 each, not close to that number, and they do not take insurance benefits which would add another $10,000 annually to their expense. The reason their pay is higher than other new employees is the rest of our new employees are generally High School graduates, these auditors are CPAs. They are paid on an hourly basis and are not true salaried.
All salaries are public record and available to you or anyone else, so either you requested their salaries and are lying, or you do not know what you are talking about. The Supervisor is the highest paid of all the auditors, again, an easily requested ‘fact’ if desired.
I checked with our Payroll Department and no one has requested any salary information this year. We only keep that information on board so employees (all county employees) would know if someone were checking into their salary.
As for the EELS helicopter trip, our auditor was invited to take the trip. We did not schedule the trip, she was not the only person on the helicopter, and the helicopter was going up anyway with a number of other people on board. Again, all easily discovered ‘facts’ if desired.
When the auditors attend County Commission Meetings they are on their own time unless they have written a report to specifically cover the issue to be discussed. Eric Munzenmayer will often cover the Budget Meetings and Workshops, as does sometimes Richard Scoles, the Supervisor, on the clock.
We cannot send 5 auditors at a time to visit how other counties do things. We do send people into the field to avoid reinventing the wheel, but the only place all auditors would have gone together would the Internal Audit portion of the Clerk’s Conference. When we travel we only go on day trips to the other counties, these are not long hotel excursions. We have been to Pasco County to see how they handle their Guardianship cases and will be looking at Pinellas County as well. The result of our trips to other counties on Guardianship issues is an Administrative Order now before Judge Rainwater to codify how Guardianships will be submitted in Brevard County.
While it is true the auditors are not paid from Article V (Court Funds) I find it odd you would know this detail yet not know their true salaries and education levels. Few people outside of the Clerk’s Office and some in County Government know much about what Article V even is. I would say given your understanding of Article V, your knowledge of some of the auditors by name, and your knowledge of the EELS trip you are either a County employee or being used by a County Employee to disseminate bad information.
I am sure there are County employees unhappy with our analysis of the Cody Pay Increases, and the EELS audit, and a number of other reports we have written. If you disagree with the reports written you are free to discuss and dispute them. To date you have yet to do either.
Perhaps if you had a little more courage you could attach your real name to your ‘true facts’ you are supplying, or even take the time to validate a few of them. You could even have copied myself with your ‘true facts’, but after all, the truth may disagree with the tale you have woven.
Scott Ellis
Now that Maxwell is alleging he has uncovered the identity of the assailant, and more importantly, seems to have information that links him directly to Mitch Needleman’s campaign, one wonders what is preventing him from revealing it. The question of who the person is, and their relationship to Needleman, seems to be of paramount importance.
Should Maxwell spill the beans? It sounds like this person is both uninformed and vindictive. This isn’t just a private person sending emails to the county regarding concerns over regulations or funding. It is a close associate of Ellis’ likely opponent in the 2008 election for Clerk of the Courts who is just sending wholly incomplete and untrue information in an apparent attempt to smear Scott Ellis.
14 comments.
on November 14th, 2007 at 10:32 am
Thank you for asking for clarification regarding this report. I have seen it and have spoken to Frank about it. There are numerous errors in Mr. Maxwell’s report.
How Mr. Maxwell came to the conclusions that he reached is unknown. I’ve been assured and Frank has offered to have his hardrive checked to prove that he is not True Facts Sender. In fact he has received emails and the emails are not from True Facts Sender but they are from someone in Scott’s office that is the using the name True Facts Supplier.
Another obvious error is that, as you know, the official email address for our office is @myfloridahouse.gov. Frank’s email is
frank.montelione@myfloridahouse.gov. Frank has never contacted Mr. Maxwell except to try to correct him in his assumptions. True Facts
Supplier has informed Frank that she (yes, in one of her emails she refers to a conversation in a ladies room) was willing to divulge who
she is IF he put in writing that he would not divulge her identity.
That email was sent prior to Maxwell’s second story in which he still names Frank as the anonymous emailer.
What I find ironic is that Mr. Maxwell, a well known whistle blower, has found fault with this anonymous employee’s whistle blowing instead of
supporting her.
Warm Regards
Mitch
on November 18th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Like him or not, Brevard Clerk of the Court/Comptroller has done a first rate job bringing that office up out of the depths. Mr.
Ellis has also been a great champion for the taxpayers, attempting to defend against a tax and spend commission suffering from acute staffitis infection.
Smear campaigns against a person who tells things as they really are, are not uncommon in politics.
Shedding the bright light on the smearer is the right thing to do. Let the chips fall where they may and justice prevail.
on November 20th, 2007 at 11:26 am
Absolutely!
on November 23rd, 2007 at 5:48 pm
Please check today’s (Nov. 23) Whislebolwer. I am not and never was the annonymous emailer and Mr. Maxwell has made a coorection.
on November 27th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Perhaps the correction should be, Frank, you forwarded the ‘anonymous’ e-mailers comments to Mr. Maxwell in the hopes of embarrassing myself and the Clerk’s Office rather than the allegedly ‘anonymous’ e-mailer sent them directly. I requested copies of the anonymous e-mails you supposedly had and was told by the State they do not exist. Now if you instead received them at your home e-mail, how in the world would any random anonymous Clerk’s Office whistleblower (as described by Mr. Needelman) have your home-e-mail address? Or perhaps Mr. Maxwell has been correct all along and you have created various e-mail accounts to inter-mail yourself and others ‘anonymously’. Mr. Needelman said above he saw the e-mails yet your office states they do not exist. How can that be?
on July 8th, 2008 at 6:48 pm
I have known Scott Ellis for quite a few years and he is both a man of integrity and a man that isn’t afraid to put himself on the line for the people he serves.
Pastor Baron Eickhoff
Calvary Chapel Space Coast
321-638-4464
on July 10th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
I don’t have a dog in this fight but I would remind the pastor that there is separation of church and state for a reason.
on July 11th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Debbie, are you sure you know what you are talking about? A pastor can openly recommend, support, denounce, or campaign for any candidate as loudly and boastfully as you and I. His job in no way precludes him from any part of the entire political process. Are you saying it should? Are you at all implying that, say, a strip dancer, has more right to voice her opinion about a political race than a pastor? Not only is that preposterous, it’s hilarious.
Separation of church and state is highly misunderstood idea. But of all things, it doesn’t muzzle pastors. And quite frankly, if anyone’s going to have an open voice on elections, I’d argue all day that pastors should have the right of first refusal. Thankfully, we all have equal rights to participate.
on July 13th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Debbie,
Whether you have a dog in this race or not, you should be defending Pastor Eickhoff’s right to speak on this matter. One day you may have a religious affiliation and your right to speak may be called into question by someone. Where will your wish to be denying religious people their right to free speech be then?
Separation of church and state is not in the denial of personal freedoms: it is in the denial of state-sanctioned religions, i.e., The Church of England-type thing: an “official” church of the State of Florida; a “Church of America”, that sort of thing. Nowhere in the US Constitution does it deny religions, religious leaders, or parishioners the right to practice their religion in public or keep them from having the right to speak on political issues and candidates.
Read the Constitution, Debbie, before commenting on it and you may not have a reason for being red in the face.
on August 6th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Sorry, Lawrence and Linda, but you are wrong about pastors being able to endorse candidates. In order to be a non-profit and receive tax-exempt status, you have to agree to not take political positions. The reason is that non-profits are effectively government services because they receive taxpayer funds (in the form of paying less taxes). If a church wants to be able to endorse candidates, it can do so by forgoing non-profit status. It can’t have it both ways.
on August 7th, 2008 at 10:27 am
Just in case anyone might be confused, Doug Cramer, of Space Coast Freethought Assocation (above) is referring to a church’s IRS 501(c)3 tax-exempt status that allows gifts to a church to be exempt from federal income tax. When electing a 501(c)3 status (like many other IRS non-profit statuses), it allows the donors themselves to deduct their donation from their personal income before federal or state income taxes are assessed.
When designating a church (or ministry or other non-profit group) as a 501(c)X, they have to be careful not to openly endorse or promote a particular candidate, and more importantly, a particular party. This is especially true when taking simultaneous donations. For instance, saying “Bill Clinton is of the devil. Let’s stop him. Donate $500 or more today and we’ll raise up an army to defeat him”… well, that just can’t happen (although it’s been tried).
If they do so, they can jeopardize the church’s tax-exempt status, because the IRS could potentially make the argument that the church is using their donations to function more like a PAC (political action committee) which has different rules than a 501(c)3 in terms of what donations they can accept and how they can spend their money. Although most PAC’s are also non-profit, they have, however, strict rules on how much they can accept from donors. Of course, candidates get around this all the time, particularly since the introduction of 527 groups.
This has actually happened quite rarely in U.S. History (although if Doug and his ACLU buddies had their way, more than half the churches in your average town would be under attack for this type of thing). Typically, you see it when a church just goes “overboard” and creates an almost indelible impression that the church is functioning almost primarily as a campaign headquarters for a particular candidate or party. Needless to say, with the various concerns of churches, this is very rare.
One simple way for churches to get around this is to simply forgo a 501(c)3 status. Electing to become a non-profit is purely voluntary. Considering that most churches (like most businesses) could easily deduct the majority of their expenses for business purposes, the net difference would be minimal for most small churches. Few churches, however, have elected to operate as a for-profit enterprise. Many feel their donations would reduce because donors (particularly big donors) would give less since their donations would not be personally deductible. However, those churches that do are completely free from scrutiny as to their level of involvement with any political process.
Where Doug is wrong (although he’d like to be right) is by equating that the tax issue of the church with the ability of it’s pastors and elders to speak out on public issues. A pastor simply writing a letter to the editor, arguing in the town square (yeah, I know, who has town squares anymore?), or making a comment here or on any website does not in any way bind the church’s official position to the individual’s support of a particular candidate or cause.
Pastors, like any person, are free to state their employment, their church affiliation, or even wear their work clothes while in the course of public discourse.
Many thousands of pastors have been involved with movements like Operation Rescue or even the Christian Coalition. And their enemies (those who would love to silence them) have often tried without success to use their individual actions as fodder for requests to the IRS to remove their home church’s tax-exempt status.
For those interested in learning a bit more about what tax-exempt organizations can or can not do in relation to political activities (and you might be surprised how much churches can do which many are not doing), the IRS maintains a helpful guide here. Be sure to also read Pub. 557.
However, for a quick rebuttal from the IRS itself regarding Doug’s comment (see page 2 of Rev. Rul. 2007-41, 2007-25, I.R.B. 1421): “The political campaign intervention prohibition is not intended to restrict free expression on political matters by leaders of organizations speaking for themselves, as individuals. Nor are leaders prohibited from speaking about important issues of public policy.”
Speaking out is perfectly okay. Speaking out against a candidate, under the official business of the church (especially when combined with attempts to collect donations for the purpose of helping to support or defeat a particular candidate) is not okay.
on August 7th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Doug,
Nowhere in my post did I say, “FROM THE PULPIT” nor was that my intended meaning, so your assertions against my post are vapid. What you read into things is your problem; what I write is correct.
Lawrence, Preach it!
on August 7th, 2008 at 5:19 pm
You’re right, Lawrence, I wasn’t clear in my post. Pastors can speak out on issues and candidates, but only when acting as individuals and not as a representative of a church. You and Linda seemed to imply that they can always do so. I was trying to address those comments and not whether or not the Pastor’s comment above crossed the line. In regards to that, I didn’t take it that way but I do think it’s inappropriate for him to attach the name of his church to his post, as that implies a tacit endorsement from it.
on August 8th, 2008 at 10:32 am
DOUG CRAMER WROTE: “But i do think it’s inappropriate for him to attach the name of his church to his post…”
I don’t have a problem with it. He apparently registered here as “Pastor”. In order to prevent being questioned later, or accused of being called a liar, adding his church’s name and phone number is not only smart, but it’s free advertising for his church. People who like his stances here may wish to go. Not a problem in my eyes. If you have a problem with that, maybe it’s something you need to pray about.
What do you think?
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