Be sure to read the Miami Herald article today by Matthew Pinzur: One lobbyist, three competing clients and you can also read my post of April 2nd: Who is Lobbyist Ron Book Lobbying for this Year?.According to the article in the Herald:
“The same influential lobbyist worked for all three sides in a high-stakes fight over billboards in North Miami.” and:
“... Even some of the story's central players had no idea Book was working all three sides.” and:
“Book advised and later became a partner in a company that successfully fought the city of North Miami to build six billboards, each of which lease for at least $20,000 a month.” (he was also lobbying FOR North Miami at the time)
This post is now on my ick list. Anything I find particularly offensive makes my "ick" index entry.
I have a tip for all of you that are hiring Ron Book. If he can’t see it is a conflict to lobby for all three sides then he has a major lapse of ethical judgment. Hey, wait a minute, we don’t have any ethical judgment in Miami and lobbyists have even less, for the most part. So I guess this is another case of business as usual. If you are appalled enough, little likelihood of that, call your city government and ask them not to hire Ron Book.
Pinzur said: “Ron Book, one of Florida's most powerful lobbyists, said he did nothing improper and even improved the outcome for all concerned”.
I have one thing to say: Ick!
5 comments:
Am I remembering correctly...didn't Ron Book advise the county to give up their challenge to rax reform...and Katy Sorenson objected that they shouldn't give up...and ron Book said something about don't kill the messenger. Maybe it was the other face of Ron Book doing the talking to the commission. Everyone should fire this man.
How can Ron Book live with himself?
No ethics or morals whatsoever. Oh, that defines a successful lobbyist.
Looks like when Ron says don't kill the messenger, he has insider info
and such a nice guy
I have a contact who is close to Ron Book in terms of the field of work and is looking into the ethical implications of the deal. There is usually wording in lobbying contracts which prohibits conflicts of interest, and this is a conflict on such a massive scale as to be obvious to any lay person. Ironically, the issue at hand - MediaNet and billboards, was a campaign issue during Kevin Burns' re-election. His challenger had gone negative in the last days and sent out a mail piece which mentioned this specific conflict. In the end, if Kevin Burns is surprised, then he is not in charge or even connected to his own re-election campaign. The campaign expenditure reports will reveal a lot. Also, I believe MediaNet was a Burns donor in triplicate (company, ceo, ceo's spouse) during that same campaign. This whole story turns my stomach and I really would like to see something come of it other than "oops, my bad".
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