Ellis: Taxpayers Foot Bill for Endless Self Promotion of Mr. Needelman
VIERA, Florida -- The
Brevard County Clerk’s Office has been mobilized to fund the
re-election efforts of the current Clerk, Mr. Needelman. Numerous uses
of Clerk funding and personnel is being done to continue to push the
Clerk’s name out to the public, often for no reason other than to raise
the name recognition.
For
example, radio ads ran for weeks on WMMB (and maybe other stations)
promoting the Clerk’s website and advertising on the website. Rather
than have ads paid for by Zephyr Communications, the firm which sells
the ads, the taxpayers paid for the radio ads (with some bogus
disclaimer about being paid for by ‘advertising revenue’) steering
individuals to first Mr. Needelman, Clerk of the Courts webpage, and
second Zephyr Communications, a private company. The taxpayers pay to
advertise Mr. Needelman and Zephyr, he gets the name ID and they get the
business traffic. Heck of a deal.
Then
came the bomb of a meeting inviting law enforcement to view a product
of the Clerk’s new imaging vendor, Blueware. The Digital Data Pen
supposedly would save time for the police if they’d only buy it from
Blueware, and wait there’s more, the Clerk is hiring a Grants Writer and
maybe he can get some free money for the pens. Not much response so
far, but not to worry, the project will continue to be pushed by Clerk’s
personnel, public expense for private profit.
Early
in the year the Clerk tried to drag County Commissioners into some
publication he was calling an annual report. When I asked how much did
the report cost to prepare, print, and then mail, I was told the project
was on hold. Since the timing for an annual report would be in March
after the County’s Annual Financial Report has been completed, evidently
this table top magazine will not be back until next January.
By
the way, it was to be another freebie, not paid for by taxpayer funds.
Since the project went on hold we may have to wait to know who was on
the hook for the expenses.
Two
large volumes entitled ‘Scott Ellis Book of Lies’ have been published
with voluminous public records included. The Needelman campaign has yet
to pay one nickel for any of the office work necessary to collect and
assemble these records. While I have been charged hundreds of dollars
for slow rolled copies, including the phenomenal $155,000 for seven CDs
with my office e-mails on them, the Needelman campaign gets the full use
of public records and Clerk staff to prepare his campaign material.
Lastly
is the totally shameless pandering to the jurors. Jurors are being
hardcopy mailed and e-mailed a new letter (never done before) pandering
to their jury duty. There is NOTHING in the letter in anywhere near the
large font of the name ‘Mitch Needleman’. The piece is simply more
shameless name promotion.
Although
the office is critically shorthanded as operations is starved to save
money for large capital contracts, Clerk’s employees evidently are
preparing and mailing these letters. For those receiving it by e-mail, I
have to figure the Clerk is taking down private e-mail addresses and
using them as a mailing list, maintained by the staff.
- Scott Ellis
If you would like to submit an editorial to Brevard Times, send your letter to the editor at [email protected]
