Anyway, more to the point, State Rep. Fresen has a local legislative office. It is located at 6255 Bird Road, Miami. In 1993 that space was purchased by Excel Bird LTD. Excel Bird LTD has a mailing address of 6340 Sunset Dr. … which happens to be the same address for Academica, his brother-in-law’s charter school company. Excel Bird LTD shows as its officers Bargello Holdings Corp. The officers of Bargello Holdings Corp. are Fernando Zulueta and Ignacio Zulueta. Academica's owners coincidentally are also named Fernando and Ignacio Zulueta. The legislative office is in an Academica owned building. Interesting.
Fresen's Committee membership: PreK-12 Policy Committee (vice chair), Education Policy Council, PreK-12 Approriations Committee.
Erik Fresen is so conflicted I just want to barf.
23 comments:
You would have thought that by now, his brother-in-laws would have helped him pay off his tax lien. I guess they're still holding out for a few more favors.
Great research! You know how to untangle the yarn!
Fresen even helped establish a charter school in his own district without notifying or consulting the constituents he represents in his own neighborhood in Coral Gables --- but pressuring city officials behind the scenes. Learning of the project at the last minute, Gables neighborhood residents rose up to oppose, too late and unsuccessfully, the Somerset charter school managed by Fresen's family.
His approach in sponsoring the mega-casino legislation has also been a sneak attack on those he represents. No pre-legislation town halls or workshops with the community. Just a giant PR rollout as he works the media on behalf of this catastrophe-in-the-making.
Yes, he gets the award for the most flagrant self-serving politician but exactly who voted for him and why wasn't there a better candidate? This is the new micro-economy or maybe not so micro. Pretty smart to write the laws that make you rich.
Word is that Rep. Fresen (R-Transylvania) will be opposed in November by an absolutely savage, take-no-prisoners, Alan Grayson-style challenger.
I know I'm laughing . . . but am I? I love it Genius when you probe and some of your readers are also quite good sometimes.
We ought all go work for the FBI. We could surely clean up the government!
I hope the people of Fresen's district will vote him out of office.
Genius, you did it again! You caertainly know how to do your research and we the people are certainly grateful.
This is the most odious politician I have ever encountered and believe me, I have encourtered a lot of them. But again, as one Anon said above, who voted for him? This man has no shame and something needs to be done about Acadamia. They are all over the place and if this is the way they operate, why did it have to take you to expose them?
Why is this not known and understrood at levels where they/Acadamia can be investigated and be charged?
There doesn't seem to be any contol over them. They just do as they please and nobody can touch them? There has to be a way to bring these people before a court or some other thing.
What can we do?
Ross- REPUBLICAN FROM TRANSYLVANIA ---very funny.
Republican from Transvestistan more like it. Dude paid more than $10,000 for late fines on six or seven campaign finance reports, meanwhile house foreclosed and IRS not paid? Financial genius with the vision to make this casino thing a jackpot -- not.
Oh Genius, what the hell, Erik just wants to keep his conflicted revenue stream within the family. More importantly, is his hair cut. His constituents just love his hair. His stylist should charge him twice what she's charging now - since we know that Erik makes $150,000 for his land-use consulting - that doesn't even include his other earnings from being a member of the FL Legislature or his lobbying for special interests like Genting etc.
"R-Transylvania." Brilliant! I had to put the whole post on my FB page.
Hope Mr. Fresen is reading this. :-)
--Penny
Simple, if the payments made by academia to civica and then to Fresen were for influence and not work done . Then some one should file IRS form 3949-A. There may be a reward.
I saw this chump Erik at a debate with Dan Gelber. Erik was pitching the talking points someone wrote for him. Dan Gelber hammered his weak arguments with a well rounded attack. Erik is a lightweight but he is so corrupt he is scary.
Genius
Is this the same group that run Somerset Charter schools?
Genius
Is this the same group that run Somerset Charter schools?
Yes -- fictitious name at Academia address.
Is there a way to find out how much rent Fresen is paying his brother-in-law (courtesy of our tax dollars)? And how that compares with other state reps' local rent?
But parents LOVE Academia schools- especially Somerset! There are waiting lists in most of them. I read that students are leaving parochial and private schools in droves and registering at charter schools. What gives?
Florida public schools suck. Charter schools are factories making money for their owners at the expense of the taxpayers. Lobbyists and corrupt elected officials make money off the charter school industry. Whores.
Erik Fresen will get indicted some day.
And Mussolini made the trains run on time.
The supposed success of charter schools (about which, much statistical refutation is available elsewhere) is not what this blog entry is about. Mr. Despair has focused above on a tragic issue that faces our society in 2012: abuse of trust by our elected representatives and the resulting collapse of confidence in government at all levels.
To summarize, Erik Fresen took the hopes and trust and interests of the citizens of his district (his own neighbors) to Tallahassee, and allegedly used that trust to direct state funds to his wife's family and to his own employer.
By using state money to rent an official building from his wife's family. And by abusing his role in the education committee to legislate favorable outcomes for his family and employer.
Just found out that at Arts and Minds the students were encouraged to lie on their free and reduced lunch applications. The reason was to increase their funding.
Arts and Minds is owned by Sarnoff supporter Manny Puch. Guy makes $1.5 mil per year off the "school". Rent. Fees. Lunch. Mgt fees.
Fresen's district office just turned overnight into Fresen's campaign headquarters. The official district office was just relocated to a closet in a building across the street.
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