The Political Whore

Earl Lennard, right, with Commissioner Ken Hagan earlier this year after winning the 2009 Hillsborough Good Government Award. Credit: Hillsboroughcounty.org

It is not a worst-case scenario for voters or Democrats who hoped that Gov. Charlie Crist would appoint a good adminstrator (and Democrat) to replace Phyllis Busansky, who passed away suddenly a few weeks ago. The choice of Earl Lennard is not wildly ideological, as he is not a fire-breathing conservative, nor especially partisan, as Lennard has been both a Democrat and Republican (or at least considered running as both/either for the State Senate in 2006, a race he entered as a Republican and later dropped out of) and spent much of his public life as an appointed nonpartisan leader.

But it is not, as many had hoped, the choice of Democrat Craig Latimer, who was Busansky’s chief of staff and the driving force behind the planned changes at the office.

Lennard makes sense in terms of a picking a relatively nonpartisan administrator who has run a large organization and who understands how to gear up for really big work days (first day of school vs. Election day). Some may grouse about it, and there are Lennard haters out there, but Crist surprised me with this pick. I expected something that would please conservatives more.

From the Gov’s Office:

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Call it Phyllis Math: a gathering of Phyllis Busansky’s “five closest friends” numbered nearly 1,000 at her funeral at Temple Schaarai Zedek in Tampa on this dark, rainy Friday morning. It was a running joke throughout the tributes to the late Hillsborough County supervisor of elections, how Busansky had told so many people that they were one of her three or five or seven closest friends.

For some, that would be duplicitous; Busansky, however, meant it and was close friends with just about everybody she met, forging an instant connection, building communities and circles of influence, her longtime friend Jeannie McGuire told the gathered mourners. McGuire had one of my favorite lines of the funeral, talking about Busansky’s sense of fashion as not quite classic but “classic — plus dramatic.”

There were more laughs than tears.

Tampa Tribune columnist Steve Otto, who long held a valued spot on Busansky’s speed dial and in heart, called his politician-friend “a tornado with hair.” Busansky’s daughter, Rebecca, read a 2005 e-mail that came to Busansky’s husband, Sheldon, from a woman that Phyllis had helped in the 1960s get into a college. The woman was hoping that Sheldon was related to Phyllis so he could pass along her thanks.

Most touching was the remembrance of her son, Alex, who said he was happy to have had 47 years with his mother. “I am my mother’s son,” he told the crowd, which flowed over into a separate room and outside, where monitors were set up. “If you’ve met her, you’ve met me.”

The room was full of politicians and elected officials, from Mayor Pam Iorio to the county commission, city council and constitutional officers — including Gov. Charlie Crist. Even the man that Busansky vanquished in the 2008 elections, former Elections Chief Buddy Johnson, attended, making for an uncomfortable moment when Rabbi Richard Birnholz said he had endorsed Phyllis in that election because it was the community’s only hope to clean up a hopelessly bungled office. Johnson later shook hands with people in the parking lot.

For progressives, it was a trip down memory lane, a viewing of some of the people who helped Tampa and Hillsborough County make great strides during an eight-year period, from 1988 to 1996, when social conservatives began their destructive takeover of county government and the rise of suburban development gave them the numbers to consistently beat urban progressives at the ballot box. Busansky’s quarterbacking of the county’s landmark indigent health care program, part fiscal sense-part social justice, that was a highlight of that era.

A roundup of the media coverage after the jump:
(photos courtesy of Stehlik Photography) Read the rest of this entry »

It’s funny the things you remember — and don’t remember — about your friends when they die. I spent much of the afternoon searching my brain for a tiny detail about Phyllis Busansky among the thousands of bits of info I know about her over the past two decades.

A drink. I can’t remember the last line of a 1991 Tampa Tribune article that I wrote about Phyllis on the night she completed her major opus, an effort to create a decades-ahead-of-its-time indigent health care plan in Hillsborough County. I remember how she gathered allies, the narrative approach the story was written in, the delight in my editors when they read it. The last line had her going out for a drink after the vote (I was along) and detailed exactly what she drank.

But it’s gone, lost in the recesses of my brain and not available online.

Phyllis Busansky — who died on the job at an elections conference in St. Augustine overnight Monday — was a unique political force in Tampa Bay. She was a domineering presence, physically and mentally, smart and savvy, with top columnists’ phone numbers at the top of her speed dial and an unwavering enthusiasm that led to her say the word “fabulous” at least once every 10 minutes.

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From Congresswoman Kathy Castor:

Phyllis will be well remembered in our hearts for her brave leadership, for her open, gregarious style and for her ability to fix problems that were tough to tackle. Her legacy as the primary author of the Hillsborough County Health Care Plan lives on every day in the improved health of our neighbors and our community. She was truly passionate about making sure those who least could afford medical services had an advocate on their side. She already was showing that passion as Supervisor of Elections, working to guarantee that voters’ rights were protected in Hillsborough County. My thoughts and prayers are with her family. She will be sorely missed.

From Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio:

I am shocked by the death of Phyllis. How sad that death claimed her just as she was embarking on a new challenge that she loved very much. The public needed her and this was her calling. I had the pleasure of serving with Phyllis on the County Commission and her passion for helping those who needed help the most was something I always admired. This is a great loss to both her family and to our community.

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Phyllis Busansky was a friend of mine, and I worked on her various political efforts, including her stint as the director of welfare reform in Florida, so it is with great sadness I pass along news of her death today, from ABC Action News:

Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Phyllis Busansky has been found dead in her hotel room in St. Augustine, according to Pam Iorio.

Ms. Busansky was supposed to be participating in a conference in St. Augustine. When she didn’t show, coworkers came looking for her, and found her dead in her hotel room.

Foul play is not suspected.

I spoke with a mutual friend who mentioned that Phyllis had a health problem earlier this year in which she was hospitalized but that they thought it was simply hyperventilation. Busansky did battle lung cancer in 2007 but told friends she was cleared of the disease after surgery.

The St. Petersburg Times weighs in with this info:

She was 72 and had battled lung cancer. She died in her sleep, said Sigrid Tidmore, spokeswoman for the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections office.

“Honestly, this is all I know,” Tidmore said.

Tidmore was with Busansky last night, before she went to sleep about 8 p.m. or 9 p.m. She said Busansky was not complaining of any pain. When Busansky didn’t respond to phone calls this morning after not showing up to today’s conference meetings, hotel security went to check on her and found her dead, Tidmore said.

(Busansky’s office says she was 73, but the Times says records show she was 72.)

Tidmore went on to say that everyone connected to Busansky was in shock, that she was very vibrant and had lots of plans for the office. I can attest; I ran into Phyllis two weeks ago in Bamboozle in downtown Tampa and she was her usual exuberant self, eliciting a promise from me that I would pay a call on her to hear about her innovations at the office in a few weeks, after she was done traveling.

Busansky was a mainstay of local Democratic politics for the past two decades, after winning a seat on the Hillsborough County Commission in the late 1980s as part of a reform effort that brought progressives to that board.

Under state law, Republican Gov. Charlie Crist will appoint a successor until voters choose a new supervisor in the 2010 elections.

UPDATE: This statement just in from the Supervisor of Elections Office:

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Holy crap, just when you thought the Buddy Johnson saga couldn’t get any worse, Jeff Testerman over at the Times’ Tampa office digs up a new low: Johnson hired an ex-con as special assistant to the woman who was responsible his office’s budget. A man convicted of arson, cocaine possession and violating his probation. A man who was a “person of interest” in a series of Brandon arsons that stopped after his arrest. A man who refused to talk with the St. Petersburg Times about what he did for his $21,000 salary over 3.5 months of work.

[William Gaskin] worked briefly as a telephone solicitor before [Johnson's chief of staff and general counsel Kathy] Harris hired him as her special assistant. He had been out of prison eight months.

Gaskin accompanied the elections general counsel to court, handled troubleshooting at early voting sites and acted as a gatekeeper for outsiders who wanted access to Harris, according to the elections staff.

“I knew nothing about his background, but I saw him during early voting at the College Hill voting site, and after early voting started, he was like a buffer between me and Kathy Harris whenever I wanted to reach her,” recalled Sharon Samek, a Tampa lawyer with the Florida Democratic Lawyers Council, a voting rights organization.

Gaskin’s employment ended Nov. 8, two days after a manual vote count determined that Johnson had lost the supervisor of elections job to Phyllis Busansky.

Neither Harris nor Gaskin would discuss his job duties, but the Times points out that Gaskin had been a CPA and had worked for Ernst & Young, the auditing firm that was checking on the office’s finances when Gaskin was hired.

By Peter Schorsch
PoHo contributor
Peter Schorsch is a political consultant and writes St. Petersblog 2.0.

There is a mis-editorial in yesterday’s St. Petersburg Times claiming that early, mail-in voting is causing frustration in several municipal elections in Pinellas County:

Some candidates were surprised, too. Local election campaigns don’t typically kick into high gear until about six weeks before Election Day. But in mid-January candidates, started hearing from residents who had ballots and were frustrated that they had seen no information about the people running for office. Candidates scrambled to try to connect with those voters, and in some cases had to order more campaign materials — and incur extra costs — for a campaign season that grew by weeks.

I’m sorry but if the only frustration with Supervisor of Election Deborah Clark’s promotion of voting by mail is with candidates caught off guard by early balloting, then spare me the hand-wringing. Serious candidates for local office should hire political consultants and staff knowledgeable enough to help prepare them for the accelerated election calendar.

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From Bay News 9:

Trouble does not seem to be going away for former Hillsborough elections chief Buddy Johnson.

The FBI is already digging around the finances during his time in office. Now his personal real estate dealings are gaining scrutiny.

Johnson is facing a lawsuit filed by a retired couple accusing him of swindling them in a land deal completed in 2007. But now, according to Bay News 9’s partner newspaper the St. Petersburg Times, federal agents are investigating the deal.

A Plant City property appraiser who looked at the land deal confirms the FBI contacted him this month.

From ABC Action News:

In an audit released Tuesday, former Hillsborough County Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson went over his budget by almost one million dollars last year. The report says he then violated a state law for failing to reimburse the county.

The audit was conducted by the accounting firm Ernst and Young.

According to the audit, Johnson spent more than he was allotted for elections equipment and operations. It’s not clear how the $940,000 was spent.

Read the full story here.

The entire audit in .pdf format is downloadable by clicking here.

Today’s installment of the St. Petersburg Times deconstructing former Hillsborough Supervisor Buddy Johnson goes like this:

Hillsborough elections officials knew about missing ballots that could swing a close Temple Terrace race a month earlier than previously disclosed.

The discovery came during the week of Dec. 12, when a temporary worker found 440 ballots from two precincts in a ballot box stored in a warehouse, according to a memo obtained Monday by the St. Petersburg Times.

Although a top deputy for then-Elections Supervisor Buddy Johnson was told about the find, nothing was said publicly until mid January.

So, why did nobody say anything? They apparently was a’feared of ol’ Buddy: Read the rest of this entry »

The state’s top elections chief says former Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections Buddy Johnson’s $2.3 million cost overrun has caught his eye and might warrant a probe:

Secretary of State Kurt Browning said he was surprised when Buddy Johnson’s office told commissioners in December that the office had more than $2.3-million in cost overruns.

Browning said there should be no deficit, considering that Hillsborough received a federal grant meant to cover many of the costs associated with a new voting system.

“We keep hearing that he’s short $2.3-million, and I wonder, ‘What did he spend it on?’ ” Browning said. “I don’t understand.”

Johnson was supposed to provide a full accounting of how he spent the $2.5-million grant by Dec. 31, but Browning said the form explaining the expenditures wasn’t filled out completely. So Johnson’s successor, Phyllis Busansky, has inherited the job of explaining how the money was spent.

Browning said he’ll wait for audits already under way before he calls for a state inquiry. He said he’ll also hold off until Busansky wraps up her own inquiries into the deficit.

The news comes a few days after the St. Petersburg Times called for a criminal investigation into the office.

In 25 years in politics and journalism I have never seen such a surreal scene as the “counting” of votes going on at the Hillsborough Supervisor of Elections Office Wednesday. I visited the elections counting office out on Faulkenberg Road in Brandon late in the afternoon, nearly 24 hours after the close of the polls and tens of thousands of votes away from having final results in Hillsborough’s elections, including the close race between incumbent Buddy Johnson and challenger Phyllis Busansky.

The veteran reporters there were just shaking their heads as the hours dragged on, watching through panes of glass as elections workers carefully took absentee ballots out of large envelopes and fed them through a counting machine. This happened only intermittently. Meanwhile, there was no Johnson, the elected supervisor, or his chief PR flak in sight. Johnson had not been seen since the night before. The situation was so exempt of information, the elections office so weird and unresponsive, that one TV reporter remarked loudly that the supervisor’s PIO’s (public information officers) were horrible — as one of them sat in the room silently against a wall.

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(Photo credit: Bobster1985)

This is the launchpad for all CL election coverage. The Loaf staff has fanned out across the Bay area to keep eyes and ears locked on voting sites, candidate rallies, election parties and spontaneous outpourings of joy/grief in the streets. Keep it locked here all day and night. And if you haven’t already, get out there and vote! Download and print our ballot guides here.

1:47 A.M.: Brian Blair well behind challenger Kevin Beckner as vote tabulating stalls in Hillsborough County, in a battle for better conservation and dignity for LGBT residents.

1:01 A.M.: One last thing. Just got this text message: “We just made history. All of this happened because you gave your time, talent and passion to this campaign. All of this happened because of you. Thanks, Barack.” I’m not worthy …

1:00 A.M.: I’ve just been taking it all in for the last hour. History. Amazing. Now, I’m going to fall asleep watching the replay of Comedy Central’s Indecision ‘08, which I missed the first time around. Good night all.

12:05 P.M.: Obama speaking now.

11:46 P.M.: Wayne reporting in from the Beckner party: “Phyllis Busansky was just here and she said it’s a slow process counting the Hillsborough votes. Officials are having to bring the machines in from precincts to do the job.” Garcia characterized Beckner as “real unhappy with the situation.”

11:44 P.M.: Obama set to speak around midnight EST.

11:30 P.M.: David Warner reports the streets of Ybor resounding with cheers of “OBAMA! OBAMA!”

11:28 P.M.: McCain closes a classy concession speech. I think McCain did his best work this campaign in the last five days.

11:18 P.M.: McCain concedes!

11:16 P.M.: NBC calls Florida for Obama.

11:10 P.M.: Leilani checks in, in between parties in St. Pete.

11:07 P.M.: Results from the other big race: Calrissian vs. Palpatine.

11:06 P.M.: We’re popping a bottle of Champaign here at Election Central.

11:00 P.M.: Obama called the winner by NBC!

10:51 P.M.: NBC hints they will call the election at 11 p.m.!

10:50 P.M.: David Warner reports in from the Kevin Beckner election party in Ybor.

Plus: News from earlier in the day and that fancy MSNBC voting widget thingy we’re trying out are after the jump.

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This from Buddy Johnson’s office at 12:14 p.m. A font of detailed information it is not:

Election Day Report

Hillsborough County- The Hillsborough County Supervisor of Elections (SOE) office announces a busy but smooth morning at polling locations around the County.  While lines have been reported at a number of locations, wait times have been reasonable and voting is proceeding at every polling location.

The Elections Office anticipated a large turnout and pre-planned for all conceivable issues that might arise with an election of this size. The SOE has experienced minor issues, all of which have been promptly resolved.  Precinct Election Officials (PEO’s) have been well-trained to resolve issues at the polls and are knowledgeable of the proper procedural response to ensure a smooth voting process.  The Elections Office has an extensive telephone support team designed to facilitate this process.

In the event of an optical scanner malfunction, the Supervisor of Elections office has 15 roving technical support crews to speedily resolve any equipment problems.  When confronted with technical problems, all PEO’s have been trained on back-up procedures to ensure that voting can continue uninterrupted until the technical crew arrives.  In the event of a machine malfunction, the protocol is to place the paper ballots in the emergency ballot bin.  After the polls close, those ballots will be removed by two PEO’s of different political party affiliation and placed in a secure case.  Those ballots are then scanned into a fully-functioning optical scan voting machine to be tabulated after the polls close.

Links to all our Election Day coverage here.

Deb Clark’s decision to limit early voting in Pinellas County to just three locations has resulted in long lines and prompted widespread criticism, a partisan call for a grand jury investigation, and now the installation of “wait clocks” showing people waiting in hour-plus lines just how long it will take to discharge their democratic duties.

Jack Killingsworth, a Democrat running against Clark, sent out this news release today:

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Phyllis Busansky, a Democratic Hillsborough County commissioner in the 1980s and ’90s, is set to announce her bid for Supervisor of Elections on Thursday.

Busansky would take on incumbent Supervisor Buddy Johnson if she wins an expected primary contest against fellow Democrat Lee Nelson. Johnson, although a frequent target of news reports about screw-ups in his office, is expected to be a tough pol to dislodge, given Hillsborough County’s skew toward GOP candidates.

Busansky confirmed her candidacy in a conversation with PoHo last night. She is recovered from lung cancer surgery and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2006.

(Full disclosure: I previously worked in Busansksy’s 1996 congressional campaign and worked for her when she was the director of the state’s welfare-to-work program, WAGES.)