Jamie Van Pelt, a spokesman for Mayor Gillum, said on Gillum’s recent trip to Tampa: “The mayor was invited by Peter Leach to a meeting at his office to learn about some of the work he was doing to advance wrap-around social services in schools and housing developments.”
However, in an email recovered by Tallahassee Reports from Peter Leach to Adam Corey weeks before the trip, Mr. Leach wrote: “Adam, get the schedule for the Mayor asap so I can try to round up Alex Sink and Charlie.”
See image of email below:
The email from Peter Leach is consistent with TR sources who said the trip was to meet Alex Sink and Charlie Crist in a effort to raise Gillum’s statewide visibility.
Tallahassee Reports broke the story about the Tampa flight on a private plane on August 10, 2017. The passengers included city lobbyist and Edison owner Adam Corey and Gillum’s Chief of Staff Dustin Daniels.
Jamie Van Pelt, a spokesman for Gillum, issued a statement to the Tallahassee Democrat on August 19th.
Through a public records request TR asked the Mayor’s Office to:
“Provide any documents or emails that contain references to the meeting Mayor Andrew Gillum attended in Tampa with Dustin Daniels on February 12th, 2016. Include Daniels’ calendar for February 2016. Also include the calendar of Mr. Van Pelt for February 2016.”
A review of emails and office calendars finds no mention of “wrap-around social services” or “schools and housing developments.” Instead there are several references to a meeting with Alex Sink and Charlie Crist.
Listed below is an image of an email sent to Mayor Gillum on February 9th. The email mentions Sink and Crist.
Click on image to enlarge.
Also, below is an image of a calendar from the Mayor’s Office sent to Mayor Gillum on January 21, 2016 which, on two occasions, mentions Alex Sink and Charlie Crist. There is no mention of city business in relation to the trip.
Click on image to enlarge.
The information provided through the records request seems to support the concerns voiced by some that employees in the Mayor’s Office are being paid by taxpayers to do political work.
A previous records request by TR verified that Dustin Daniels supposed to be working for the City of Tallahassee on the day of the Tampa trip. If there was no city business in Tampa, why was Dustin Daniels paid by city tax dollars?
Who paid for Dustin Daniels to take a trip on a private plane owned by a developer?
TR will continue to seek answers to these questions.
Recovered Emails Not Consistent with Gillum Statements About Tampa Trip added by Staff on
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Old Cop. Turn on sarc detector.
Duh, OK, disregard all after Who…
Who are you calling trustworthy?
Looks like 3 trustworthy guys in the pic. Why so much negativity?
MarkB,
Your attempt to influence our opinions fails completely.
It’s called sarcasm.Your ability to recognize it fails completely.
Not one statement from Mayor Gillum supporting investigating political corruption in Tallahassee.
This speaks volumes for his priorities; climbing the political ladder and not protecting the citizens he claims to represent.
He’s hiding behind the political shield disguised as legal advice provided by the lapdog city attorney.
The word for what Anhaica is interested in is “interns” not assistants.
Given the low level of ethics on display at and around COT it is clear the young interns were all placed there as the result of some inappropriate political quid pro quo or favors (or another type of “favor” which I will leave for our readers adult rated sections of their own brains to figure out).
Something the good citizens can take away from the information I’m providing is that the odds of an honest citizen ever having a deserving young political aspiring family member (such as your daughter or granddaughter) ever being placed as an “intern” position within Mayor Andy’s circle of corrupt influence was ZERO.
But after you now know what we recently learned about COT and Mayor Andy would you really have wanted your kid exposed to that kind of corrupt lifestyle?
https://www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/peter-leach.asp?cycle=16
“ACTBLUE”
These 3 faces are but one problem of a much larger problem. You have to clean up locally if one expects to clean up globally.
The low information voters will just re elect them.
I want to see the perp walk and mugshots.
I hope you boys are getting your affairs in order prior to the FBI dropping the neutron bomb on your heads. Andy: you think they will show up at your house early in the morning or late at night? Bad boys, bad boys, what you gonna do, what you gonna do when they come for you??
Gillum caught in another lie! Multiple staff paid by Andy are being paid by city tax payers!
Just how many city of Tallahassee employees are making the mayor’s political ambitions their top priority?
If they’re not taking care of COT business, the wrong people were fired last month!
I heard that Gillum at one time had four assistants working in his office. I thought that was kind of strange for a city this size. Especially when there is nothing happening here except shootings and other violent crimes.
Great job TR.
I bet the FBI did not have this high level of quality assistance in that middle Georgia case they indicted Harold Knowels in.
Tallahassee FBI is like; hand me another beer while we wait for Steve at TR to do our job for us.