 | Bob Gabordi is executive editor of the Tallahassee Democrat and Tallahassee.com. He can be reached through this blog, at bgabordi@tallahassee.com or (850) 599-2177 |
Stories like this one on Wakulla County Sheriff David Harvey seem to please no one.
Our Sunday Print Exclusive story was written after months of checking into Harvey’s financial and legal documents and numerous interviews with legal, real-estate and banking experts. The story showed:
-- That loans to the sheriff and his partners keep being restructured by Wakulla Bank and that the bank is in trouble with state regulators because of that kind of practice.
-- That for whatever reason State Attorney Willie Meggs dismissed, seemingly out of hand, an investigation by the state Division of Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco that concluded he violated the law by owning a business that serves alcohol.
-- That average citizens are afraid to speak out against the sheriff for fear of reprisal.
His supporters claim the newspaper is just stirring things up, trying to “ruin” him.
“If you were being fair you wouldn’t be trying to ruin this guy. It doesn’t matter what you print, though, we have your number and we’ve known Mr. Harvey as a fair and very compassionate person for a lifetime and you can’t change that. So keep on with your slander.”
Harvey critics, though, say the story was “puff” or “fluff” and didn’t go far enough or deep enough.
“I am not sure what the Democrat was trying to accomplish with this article,” one typical post online stated. “It was fluff; (it) started with some interesting points and left them without any substance. … It was like only getting to first base on a date.”
It is as if critics believe they absolutely “know” there is more to this story; no one seems to know what that is, though. And if they do know, they’re not saying, just suggesting. They offer few, if any, facts to back their point of view.
They are angry the newspaper didn’t find the facts to support their suppositions and long-held beliefs.
Harvey has amassed a huge fortune and that alone creates distrust. How could the sheriff of such a small county become – at one point – the richest sheriff in the state?
But Harvey’s “fortune” is on paper; many of his investments have come from “friendly” lenders. Now, in some cases, those loans seem to be trouble for him and the lending institution.
From his opponents’ point of view, this article told them what they already knew: that no matter what Harvey does, someone will cover for him – his employees, the state attorney, the local bank, even the governor who has twice rejected a special prosecutor to look into their concerns.
This post, I think, best sums up citizens’ frustrations:
“Harvey amasses a huge personal fortune in a county where many of (the) people he should be serving work hard to make ends meet. His department drains off huge amounts of the county's budget so he can drive a Yukon Denali into cars parked in driveways after drinking at his (I mean his wife’s) country club while Wakulla roads go unpaved and fire and EMS work on a shoestring budget.”
How and why can he get away with it? As the Sunday article says: He’s the sheriff of Wakulla County.
You can send your comments by clicking the button below, e-mailing me at bgabordi@tallahassee.com, sending a private message on Tallahassee.com, Twitter @bgabordi, LinkedIn, Blogger.com or on my blog on Friendster.
You can also find links to my blogs on Facebook.com, but you have to request to be my friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment