A middle-Keys newspaper reporter who published allegations that she observed three Monroe County Mosquito Control Commissioners violating the Florida Government-in-the-Sunshine Law in January 1999, has now admitted that she had no evidence to support her allegation.
But reporter Laurie Karnatz' allegations, published in the Florida Keys Keynoter on Jan. 16, 1999, prompted State Attorney Kirk Zuelch to spring into action. He asked Gov. Jeb Bush to appoint a Special Prosecutor to look into Karnatz' charges.
Bush named David Paulus, an assistant state attorney in Dade County, to conduct the investigation. Nine months later, Paulus wrote a two-page "close-out memo," reporting that he found no evidence of any violations.
Paulus' report was dated October 5, 1999, and would have logically been sent to Zuelch's office on or about that date— but Zuelch has never released that report to the Mosquito Control Board or to the press.
"Last week, Commissioner Langstaff asked me if we had ever heard anything about that investigation," Mosquito Control Board Director Ed Fussell told KWTN Wednesday. "I called Paulus and was surprised to learn that he had closed out his report last October. He faxed me a copy."
On Jan. 14, 1999, Karnatz attended a Monroe County Commission hearing concerning possible takeover of the independent Mosquito Control Board. A number of Mosquito Control Commissioners and board employees addressed that meeting.
After the meeting, Karnatz said she observed three Mosquito Control Commissioners— Joan Lord Papy, Charles "Bill" Langstaff and Steve Smith— talking to State Senator Daryl Jones' administrative assistant, who had attended the meeting. But, Karnatz told Paulus, she did not overhear any of the conversation.
The Sunshine Law prohibits two or more members of an elected board from discussing, outside of board meetings, any matter that might come before the board for action in the future. Commissioners Papy and Langstaff said they were discussing what had just happened at the County Commission meeting.
In his report, Paulus wrote: "The most compelling evidence that these commissioners did not violate the Sunshine Law comes from Ms. Karnatz herself. Ms. Karnatz candidly testified in her sworn statement that she had no evidence that a particular board member violated the Sunshine Law . . . because she could not remember any specific person's statement."
In 1996, when Commissioners Steve Smith and Bill Shaw were elected to the Mosquito Control Board (MCB) on anti-corruption platforms and began to work to unfix a job that had allegedly been fixed for former Key West Mayor Dennis Wardlow, they were reportedly warned, "Leave Wardlow alone or you'll be sued and smeared."
They ignored the threat and unfixed the job. Wardlow sued them.
And, since that time, State Attorney Zuelch has repeatedly launched investigations with Smith and Shaw as the targets— although, in 1993, he had ignored charges by the former chairman of the MCB that a job had been illegally fixed for Wardlow.
First, Zuelch convened a Grand Jury to investigate Wardlow's allegation that Smith and Shaw had met out of the Sunshine to discuss firing him. Although Grand Jury proceedings are supposed to be secret, Zuelch leaked to the press that Smith and Shaw were under investigation.
In providing that information to Key West the Newspaper, Zuelch asked, "When are you going to climb on the bandwagon to get the Mosquito Control Board taken over by the County?"
Commissioner Smith has alleged that Zuelch's press leaks were part of the promised "smear campaign."
When the Grand Jury failed to indict, Zuelch called for a special prosecutor to continue the investigation. David Paulus was appointed to head that investigation, too. But after more than a year, he reported that he couldn't find any violations.