It was delicious! A near-hysterical Jimmy Weekley used his mayoral pulpit Tuesday evening to call for an advertising boycott of local newspapers that don't agree with him. We're not making this up.
Although he didn't name any specific newspapers, he said he was talking about "those supermarket tabloids." That means, we guess, that he was not talking about Key West The Newspaper— because we aren't distributed in any of the supermarkets. Publix and Winn-Dixie want us to pay to be there. And we've been banned for years at Jimmy's stores, Fausto's Food Palace.
Was he talking about Charlie Ramos' Morning Star? That doesn't make sense. Charlie's so rich he doesn't care if he has any advertisers or not. Ditto Solares Hill. They're owned by the Citizen now.
How about Island News? That doesn't make any sense either. They don't offend anybody!
But it was fun to watch Jimmy's tirade. It occurred to us, however, that he may have been a little mixed up— maybe thinking that he had been elected dictator, rather than mayor.
It was also interesting to watch a meatcutter try to give us a journalism lesson.
Based on his emotional performance Tuesday evening, don't be surprised if, at the next Commission meeting, Weekley tries to push through a resolution asking the U.S. Congress to repeal the First Amendment.
Key West The Newspaper has faced attempted advertising boycotts before. It goes with the niche. A few years ago, a local attorney got so mad at us that she had her secretary send form letters to every one of our advertisers threatening to withdraw her patronage if they didn't stop advertising with us.
Unfortunately for the attorney, the secretary was not selective at all. One of the letters went to the Scrub Club, a local "adult" establishment. We were able to publish her letter telling the Scrub Club that she would no longer be coming in if they continued to advertise in Key West The Newspaper.
Some other big name attorneys have also attempted, from time to time, to use their influence to get advertisers to pull out of our paper. There are several reasons that these efforts have never worked:
• Generally, advertisers are in our paper because they know we have the readership. And that's what advertising is all about. Also, to many of these advertisers, the fact that we routinely expose corruption in local government is a plus, not a negative. (Jimmy Weekley calls that "divisive.")
• Most of our advertisers are small businesses. For the most part, the big advertisers run in the establishment media. It would take a lot of calls by a would-be boycotter to make even a small dent in our advertising base.
• And if somebody does start calling our advertisers, we find out about it and publish their names and what they're doing. And publicity is the last thing they want. These folks prefer to work in the shadows.
But getting back to Jimmy: Actually, we really do understand why he is sick and tired of KWTN rooting out corruption on this island. After all, it was this newspaper that first told you that Weekley had taken thousands of dollars from the transient rental landlords in return for his vote to try to overthrow the current ordinance banning transient rentals.
After his election, however, he suddenly remembered that he had a "conflict of interest"— like his grocery store makes big bucks by stocking the kitchens of transient rental units. Duh! And because of this conflict, he wouldn't even be able to vote on the issue. Of course, when he was taking the money from the landlords, he sort of forgot to mention this little problem.
Bummer! If there's one thing worse than a politician who can be bought, it's a politician who won't stay bought!
You may also recall that it was Key West The Newspaper that repeatedly called for an investigation of Weekley and all those secret meetings in which the City's purchase ($18.5 million) and management of the Key West Bight was planned.
It was City Commissioner Harry Bethel who finally demanded an investigation to "clear the air"— in other words, to show that we didn't know what we were talking about.
But guess what? The State Attorney General's Office ruled that Weekley and his so-called Trust For Public Land (TPL) Advisory Council did, indeed, violate the Florida Government-In-the-Sunshine Law. That's a criminal offense, folks!
But local State Attorney Kirk Zuelch saved Weekley's butt by ruling against prosecution because— we're not making this up— Jimmy and the others didn't "knowingly" break the law. Yeah, right. Weekley's only been in and around politics forever.
He did it. He knows he did it. And he knows we know he did it. And he knows that we're the only newspaper that wouldn't back off. And that's the only reason there was finally an investigation. And that's why, today, Weekley is a documented Sunshine Law violator.
Can you blame him for being mad at us?
But we'll say one thing for Zuelch. He does take care of his friends.
In Weekley's vision for Key West, there would be, apparently, no dissent. Newspapers that disagree with him should be boycotted and driven out of business.
What's next? Maybe Jimmy could figure out a way to ban all newspapers in town except one. This would be the "official" newspaper, maybe even "franchised" by the City. The City Commission likes franchised monopolies. Trying to publish a newspaper without a franchise could be made a criminal offense.
This official paper could be named something like Team Player News or Pravda In Paradise. The editor and all the reporters could be City-paid "consultants" reporting directly to City Manager Julio Avael. Of course, no negative news about him or Jimmy would be allowed.
Let's get back to Jimmy's tirade on Tuesday evening. Seriously, there may be more there than meets the eye. Is he worried that we may be getting too close to exposing another Weekley scandal? Stay tuned.
NOTE: Every time we publish something unfavorable about Jimmy Weekley, we note that all of our papers mysteriously disappear from our box outside of Fausto's on Fleming Street early Friday morning. Go figure.