There are plenty of financial disadvantages to running the only newspaper in town without a rich backer. But there is one super-dooper major advantage: Nobody can fire me for having an opinion and writing about it! That wasn't the case for Key West Police Lt. Tom Chapp back in 1997; and it wasn't the case for Joe Pais last week.
On Jan. 10, 1997, an excerpt from a long letter from Lt. Chapp was published in Key West The Newspaper. The full text of that letter was later published in the Citizen. Chapp's letter was rambling and philosophical. But the excerpt that got him in trouble was his opinion that it was OK for Bahama Village residents to fire guns into the air on New Year's Eve because it was a "cultural thing".
Several fellow officers filed Internal Affairs (IA) complaints against Chapp. And City Manager Julio Avael, at that time in a full court press to build a case against then-Police Chief Ray Peterson sufficient to fire him or force his resignation or retirement, reprimanded Peterson for "allowing" Chapp to publish the letter.
Chapp was subsequently fired, not for writing the letter, but for causes that resulted from his letter-writing. He didn't show up for his IA hearings. He says he he was too ill to sit through multiple hearings— they were all scheduled on the same day. And he had a note from his doctor. Too bad, Avael said. You're outta here. Chapp is suing the City. The trial started Monday and will continue into next week.
Last week, former City Commissioner Joe Pais was also fired for having an opinion and writing about it. He was fired from a job at the Key West Art & Historical Society (KWAHS) that he had held for 11 years. Pais' opinion, published last Friday in his regular column in this newspaper, was that soft drink vending machines with large, bright, back-lit panels on the front should be banned from the historical district. A previous column on the same subject had resulted in a lighted machine being removed from the cemetery. Joe's opinion about those who place these machines around town was stronger and stated more colorfully than our's would have been on the same topic— but it was his opinion.
Why would the management of the KWAHS care one way or the other about Pais' opinion on soft drink machines? Well, it seems that the local Pepsi Cola distributor is a contributor to the KWAHS and, reportedly, applied some pressure to some people over there who, apparently, don't stand up to pressure very well. And Pais was fied the same day his column appeared.
But what makes this whole scenario so bizarre is that Pais had already announced that he was resigning to accept a prestigious job up in Tallahassee in early January as Statewide Supervisor of Museum Services for the State Division of Historical Resources. One of his duties will be to administer grants to museums around the state.
So we have to ask: Who's bright idea was it to fire Pais after he had already resigned-- and insult the guy who will be instrumental in determining what museums will get what grants? (Duh!) Was a single member of the KWAHS board consulted before this radical action was taken? We don't know the answer to those questions because, if you can believe this, the official position of the KWAHS is "no comment"!
We called and faxed the office of Attorney Susan Cardenas, the president of the KWAHS. But she was, apparently, hiding under her desk. Maybe we would have been more successful in getting her to the phone if we had told her secretary that we wanted to give the KWAHS some money. No comment indeed!
What could they have been thinking when the snap decision was made to fire Pais after he had already resigned? The answer is that they wern't thinking at all. Didn't it occur to anybody over there that this could blow up into a major scandal? In fact, the five-column, all-caps headline in another weekly newspaper yesterday read: "Scandal Rocks Art & Historical Society!" The man was already leaving town! Those involved in the decision to fire Pais-- and it was, reportedly, a small group of people— may have seriously damaged the image of the Society that many, including Pais, have worked so hard to build. Who would want to give money to an organization that is being managed by people with this kind of witless judgment?
Now, we know Joe Pais pretty well. His "Pais Report" columns have appeared on this page every week since Nov. 10, 1995. We doubt that he will be vindictive when considering future grant requests from the KWAHS— assuming that there's anybody over there that can write a grant request now that Pais is gone. He's far too classy to be vindictive. And far classier than the knee-jerk performance of KWAHS's management last Friday.
We'll miss Joe's thoughtful contributions to our paper every week. Although we often disagreed with his opinions, our philosophy has always been that a variety of voices make our product more interesting. Good luck, Joe!
SEE JOE PAIS' FAREWELL COLUMN ON THIS PAGE; AND TWO RELATED LETTERS TO THE EDITOR ON PAGES 6 AND 7.