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PAGE 4A By BOB MUDGE e ditor ROLLBACK | 12 WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY CHANGE | 12 In December, Pachota esti- mated the flock at 200. He pre- viously looked into trapping the birds but was told they tend to return. Other trappers kill the birds. Good morning, Gondolier Sun subscriber LARRY DIBRELL FOR HOME DELIVERY, CALL 207-1300 By DANA SANCHEZ S taff W riter HAITI | 12 COURTESY PHOTO By GREG GILES N eWS e ditor By GREG GILES N eWS e ditor By GREG GILES N eWS e ditor FILE PHOTO
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LOCAL NEWS COVER TO COVER • FLORIDA’S NO. 1 WEEKLY NEWSPAPERSchool
millage drops
Page 7A75¢
PEACE OUTA downtown celebrationPAGE 1B
YOUR THOUGHTSJobs top survey concerns
PAGE 4A
VOLUME 66 NUMBER 42 AN EDITION OF THE SUNWEEKEND EDITION, SEPTEMBER 17-18, 2011
WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY WWW.VENICEGONDOLIER.COM FOR HOME DELIVERY, CALL 207-1300
Good morning,Gondolier Sun
subscriberLARRY DIBRELL
FRONT SECTION OUR TOWN SECTION IN THIS EDITION COUPONS DEATHSLEGALS .......................................... 6ALET ’EM HAVE IT .......................... 8ALETTERS TO THE EDITOR ........... 9ALOTTERY ........................................ 2AOBITUARIES .................................. 6A
OPINION ........................................ 8APOLICE BEAT ................................ 3ASPORTS ........................................10AWEATHER ...................................... 2A
CROSSWORD .............................8BFINE WHINES .............................7BRELIGION .................................10BTRAVEL .......................................6BVENUE.........................................3B
CLASSIFIEDSCOMICSTV BOOKUSA WEEKEND
Air Duct Cleaning ........................7AFantastic Sam’s .............................9AMRT Lawn & Garden Center ......6ATwin Palms Chiropractic .............8BVenice Car Wash ...........................7BVenice Food Mart ........................3A
Arlene DixonLela HindenShirley Voelker
Venice City Council adopted the rollback millage rate for Fiscal Year 2012 at a public hearing on Wednesday.
Despite the word “rollback,” though, the tax rate — and tax payments — will go up a bit.
The ad valorem millage rate will go from 2.779 to 2.935, the first increase since 2008, garnering $7.5 million in ad valorem taxes. Without the higher millage, the city would have lost another $401,226 in revenue due to declining prop-erty values. The rollback rate brings in the same tax revenue as the previous year.
Debt service is set at 0.260 mills. One mill equals a dollar for every $1,000 in taxable property value.
The additional funds lever-aged by the higher millage rate will cover the $302,234 needed to keep layoffs to a minimum in the fire department. Coun-cil also voted to tap $35,000 from reserves for security and emergency services overtime
This is the second in a series.
The Venice Foundation parted ways with Jon Preiksat, its first CEO, in 2001. Board member Judy Wilcox took the position on an interim basis and was considered for the job, but the board ultimately hired Teri Hansen, then with The Cleveland Foundation as vice president for gift planning and donor relations.
The hiring process was secretive, according to Greg Shanika, a Venice Hospital vice president who was a foundation board member. A small committee conducted the interviews and presented Hansen to the full board as the person who had been hired, he recalled. His requests to see her employment contract were denied.
“It was all very peculiar at the time,” he said, and not the way the board usually con-ducted business.
Hansen, who was unavailable for an interview for this story,
Rollback tax rate adopted
Change of direction
A solar-powered, mobile water-purification wagon was sent to an orphanage in Port-au-Prince for girls traumatized by the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, thanks to the efforts of area Rotary clubs.
The orphanage is run by HIS Home for Children, an interdenominational Christian ministry developed to care for orphaned and abandoned children in Haiti.
Cholera outbreaks linked to con-taminated water have been an ongoing problem in Haiti since the earthquake.
The donation was inspired by the vision of David Dignam of Lemon Bay Sunrise Rotary and the leadership of Don Thomas, past district governor of Rotary District 6960, which covers Rotary clubs from Lakeland to Naples, according to Kenn Visser.
Visser is a member of the Rotary Club of Englewood and director of Water One World Solutions, a non-
profit working with Rotary clubs in District 6960, Haiti and other countries to develop matching grants that will provide solar-powered mobile water-purification units to orphanages and schools in need of safe, pure, good-tasting drinking water.
The unit was donated to Rotary Dis-trict 6960 by Water One Inc. earlier this year and delivered to the orphanage via Agape Flights of Venice.
A unique aspect of the system is that it can provide drinking water from al-most any source — from a mud puddle to a rain barrel, pond, stream or even an existing well or water system that may be compromised some or all of the year, Visser said.
Lemon Bay Sunrise and Englewood Rotary clubs have committed to send two more water-purification units to Haiti — a total investment of $24,000, Visser said.
“Water quality is the No. 1 health problem in the world and even more
Rotary clubs send water system to HaitiBy DANA SANCHEZ
Staff Writer
By GREG GILESNeWS editor
By BOB MUDGEeditor
COURTESY PHOTO
Haitian girls traumatized by the 2010 earthquake are pictured with a solar-powered water-purification unit in a Port-au-Prince orphanage. Kenn Visser, with the Rotary Club of Englewood, donated the system to Rotary through his job as director of the nonprofit Water One World Solutions. The unit can provide drinking water from almost any source, from a mud puddle to a rain barrel, pond or stream, Visser said.
A woman who was pushed by a Venice police officer is now suing the city and the officer involved.
The incident took place Jan. 4, 2010, when Officer Paul Freeman was called to investigate a disturbance at a residence in the 200 block of Avenue des Parques. Accord-ing to a police report, Mary Walters, 49, and a man had been drinking in her apart-ment and she kicked him out.
He forgot his keys inside. She refused to give them back. He called the police.
Walters refused to open the
door, yelling expletives at the officer who responded, and telling him to “get a search warrant.”
Police records state Free-man, 43, a 12-year veteran with the Venice Police Depart-ment, was concerned over Walters’ “extreme state of intoxication” and wanted to observe her “to ensure she was not in any danger.”
He got a key to the apart-ment from the manager. After he opened the door, “the defendant raised both hands in a fighting position towards me, and then began yell-ing at me,” Freeman said in the probable cause affidavit for the arrest. “I pushed the defendant backwards onto a
bed and placed her into cus-tody for her protection.”
She was transported to the North County jail.
The defendant later made statements like, “I’d rather be dead than in jail,” and “use your gun and shoot me in the head,” according to the affidavit.
On Jan. 20, 2010, the state attorney’s office for the 12th Judicial Circuit issued a memo declining to prosecute the case. In it, the state attorney called it a “warrantless non-emergency arrest of a suspect in his or her own home (that) is presumptively unlawful.”
The memo further stated, “in this case, there was no reasonable basis to believe
that the (plaintiff) was in a life-threatening emergency or in need of first aid.”
The suit by Walters against the officer and the city of Venice was filed Aug. 30. It seeks more than $100,000 for each of four counts: unreason-able home entry, unreason-able search, excessive force and “unconstitutional” city practices.
Walters is being represented by Andrea Mogensen, who successfully sued the city in the 2008 Sunshine case.
Bell and Roper from Orlan-do, hired by the city’s insur-ance carrier, will represent the officer and the city.
Email: [email protected]
Sharky’s on the Pier res-taurant and the city of Ven-ice have agreed to share the expense of placing netting underneath the Venice Fishing Pier to deter pigeons.
A pigeon kill in December drew the ire of pier goers, who watched poisoned pigeons flapping on the deck. After that, restaurant owner Mike Pachota and the city agreed to look into a more humane way to deter the birds from roost-ing and nesting underneath the pier.
Pigeons are a regular nui-sance to diners at the restau-rant and to people using the beach.
What they came up with this week is an agreement to install the netting. The city contacted five local bird control op-erations. Only one responded with a quote — Ehrlich Pest Control.
“The netting used will be so small that it excludes even the smallest of birds,” said Acting City Manager Nancy Woodley. “It is resistant to ultraviolet light and a wide variety of chemicals (and) comes with a 10-year warranty.”
The net will be installed in 82 sections between the concrete bents supporting the
pier on both sides of the con-crete spine, Woodley said.
While scaffolding and a safety boat will be used at all times during the project, it isn’t expected to affect pier goers.
In addition to the netting, small spike strips will be
placed on the top edges of the pier bents. The strips are made of stainless steel mounted on a polycarbonate base.
The Pier Group, which leases Sharky’s, agreed to pay half the cost of the $79,156 contract, or $39,578.
In December, Pachota esti-mated the flock at 200. He pre-viously looked into trapping the birds but was told they tend to return. Other trappers kill the birds.
Email: [email protected]
Woman sues city, officer over arrest
Nets are new pigeon deterrent
By GREG GILESNeWS editor
By GREG GILESNeWS editor
FILE PHOTO
Pigeons are a problem at the Venice Fishing Pier. Netting underneath the pier may be the solution.
HAITI | 12
ROLLBACK | 12
CHANGE | 12
