The almighty letter of approval
Regarding Scotty's Landing. I just wanted to make it clear that I have nothing against Scott Wessel. I don't care if he was given $1 billion dollars for the deal with Grove Bay, what I don't like is the letter; the actual letter. Because you see, this has been going on for a long time here, the developers and politicians want a letter of approval more than anything and they are willing to pay for it.
I won't publish that letter or the Sasaki letter, where Mark Dawson, managing principal of Sasaki Associates writes how great the project is and then admits later that he never really looked at it, simply because both letters are not genuine to me and I won't help spread their messages.
Imagine if Glenn Terry or Charles Corda or myself decided overnight that the waterfront plan is a great plan and we sent out a letter praising it after months of putting it down. Wouldn't that strike you as odd and suspicious? Last week in the comments section someone put me down for loving Scotty's then hating Scotty's and being wishy washy. For the record, I don't like Scotty's and have not eaten there in many years. There was a time where I ate lunch there two to three days a week, as the food degraded, I just never went back.
Anyway, "a letter" is the suspicious thing. This happened with the Mercy project when neighborhoods were paid off, we all know that. Also with restaurants. During the 3 am/5 am issue, I had a friend who was all ready to open a nice new restaurant in Coconut Grove with an outside deck; he even had all the plans drawn out, and you know what happened? Well, the usual suspects approached him and asked him to write a letter stating that he was not in favor of 5 am closings. My friend, who is not a hypocrite told them where to go, telling them that he owns a bar and restaurant, that he was in favor of 5 am, not against it. Why would any club, restaurant or bar owner be against it?
And you know what? No letter, no permits. So it never happened, my friend left the Grove and started up a couple of very successful restaurants elsewhere. He was smart. He could not be bought and his restaurants are overflowing with people daily.
So you see guys, it's about the letter for developers and others. They want that almighty letter of approval. They could have made a nice quiet deal with Scott Wessel, but it would have not meant anything to them without the letter. Didn't some nuns sign a letter way back approving some sort of thing on the Mercy land? How low can you go? Nuns?
Look for more paid for letters from neighbors near the waterfront project.
Vote NO on November 5.
I won't publish that letter or the Sasaki letter, where Mark Dawson, managing principal of Sasaki Associates writes how great the project is and then admits later that he never really looked at it, simply because both letters are not genuine to me and I won't help spread their messages.
Imagine if Glenn Terry or Charles Corda or myself decided overnight that the waterfront plan is a great plan and we sent out a letter praising it after months of putting it down. Wouldn't that strike you as odd and suspicious? Last week in the comments section someone put me down for loving Scotty's then hating Scotty's and being wishy washy. For the record, I don't like Scotty's and have not eaten there in many years. There was a time where I ate lunch there two to three days a week, as the food degraded, I just never went back.
Anyway, "a letter" is the suspicious thing. This happened with the Mercy project when neighborhoods were paid off, we all know that. Also with restaurants. During the 3 am/5 am issue, I had a friend who was all ready to open a nice new restaurant in Coconut Grove with an outside deck; he even had all the plans drawn out, and you know what happened? Well, the usual suspects approached him and asked him to write a letter stating that he was not in favor of 5 am closings. My friend, who is not a hypocrite told them where to go, telling them that he owns a bar and restaurant, that he was in favor of 5 am, not against it. Why would any club, restaurant or bar owner be against it?
And you know what? No letter, no permits. So it never happened, my friend left the Grove and started up a couple of very successful restaurants elsewhere. He was smart. He could not be bought and his restaurants are overflowing with people daily.
So you see guys, it's about the letter for developers and others. They want that almighty letter of approval. They could have made a nice quiet deal with Scott Wessel, but it would have not meant anything to them without the letter. Didn't some nuns sign a letter way back approving some sort of thing on the Mercy land? How low can you go? Nuns?
Look for more paid for letters from neighbors near the waterfront project.
Vote NO on November 5.
posted by Tom Falco at 6:00 AM
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4 Comments:
Each neighbor on my street will take $75,000 dollars each and we will vote yes. Cash only please!
I hate to tell you Tom but you brought this upon yourself when you began charging for stories.
While I understand that you are trying to run this blog as a business, accepting paid advertorials written in the first person (For example restaurant reviews which you then shut down the comments when people disagree with your paid positive review) will only lead people to believe that you too, can be bought. Even cut & pasting press releases from others will give people the wrong impression.
May I suggest you start labeling your stories "Paid advertorial". All serious news outlets do it and if you want to be considered one, you should follow suit. Or a little footnote saying "Paid review".
By not labeling your stories, when you do have an honest, negative review of other establishments such as Scottys or Coral Bagels, people will wrongly assume that you are criticizing them because they have not paid you for a positive review and your integrity is called into question.
JB.
I have never shut the comments down on particular stories, not sure where you got that from.
I did shut all comments down for about 2 years because of all the ugliness.
Secondly, the only stories I have been paid for were ads and they were marked as such, they were realty listings in a section called Grapevine Showplace Showcase, which said it was an ad and had the link to advertise at the bottom.
Other than that, I have never been paid by a restaurant to write about them. And I have never written anything negative because they didn't advertise.
I tried to get paid for stories, but no one bought that. It is now removed from the ad rates.
But I wish people would stop assuming things.
Whether you agree or not with Tom He does a fantastic job of getting the word out on issues of importance to the grove community. I applaud his efforts. We should all be appreciative that he provides this opportunity to be made aware and discuss things that do matter to us. Well Done Tom Falco!..
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