Tallahassee Reports has recovered an email that shows City Commissioner Nancy Miller soliciting a donation from Waste Pro – a city vendor – through Paige Carter-Smith for the North West Florida League of Cities.
The solicitation email was sent from Miller’s official City of Tallahassee email.
Records show that Carter-Smith was not registered as a lobbyist during 2014. However, it appears City Commissioner Miller was aware of the business relationship between Waste Pro, Paige Carter-Smith and Governance.
The email – shown at the end of this report- was sent from Miller to Carter-Smith’s Governance email on March 31, 2014. Miller writes:
I believe this is a worthy sponsorship for Waste Pro to consider, because this organization is made up of elected officials from all over the panhandle. Can you assist with acquiring a sponsorship? Let me know what I can do to help.
Miller’s email was in response to a request from a Northwest Florida League of Cities official seeking $1,000 donations for the organization.
Records show that in 2012 the City Commission and Commissioner Miller voted to approve a five-year contract extension for Waste Pro of Florida, Inc. for solid waste collection services through September 30, 2018. The contract was estimated to be worth at least $20,000,000.
Also, weeks before Miller solicited the donation from Waste Pro, the recently released affidavit in support of a search warrant by federal officials shows that Miller’s fellow commissioner, Scott Maddox and Carter-Smith were discussing Waste Pro (COMPANY THREE) business.
From the affidavit:
On March 7, 2014, CARTER-SMITH forwarded an email using email account paigecartersmith@gmail.com to scott@scottmaddox.com. The forwarded email was an exchange with a marketing executive at COMPANY THREE, a waste services provider that has paid GOVERNANCE over $170,000 since 2013.
Florida state statutes regulate the solicitation of gifts by public officials. One of the regulating statutes states:
A reporting individual or procurement employee is prohibited from soliciting any gift from a vendor doing business with the reporting individual’s or procurement employee’s agency, a political committee as defined in s. 106.011, or a lobbyist who lobbies the reporting individual’s or procurement employee’s agency, or the partner, firm, employer, or principal of such lobbyist, where such gift is for the personal benefit of the reporting individual or procurement employee…
The key term in the above statute is “personal benefit.” Did seeking a donation on behalf of another organization benefit City Commissioner Miller in any way?
In June 2013, Governance and The Big Production – a company with the same address as Governance, Inc – gave Miller two $500 campaign contributions.
Also, in her first election in 2010, Miller’s campaign paid The Zachary Group $40,000 in campaign fees. The Zachary listed the same business address as Governance, Inc.
ORIGINAL EMAIL
City Commissioner Nancy Miller Solicited Favor from Paige Carter-Smith, Waste Pro added by Staff on
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Hey, council members, since you excel at keeping Waste Pro indebted to you, can you please get them to pick up my bulk waste that has been sitting in front of my house. I have left messages with J. Jackson’s office, I have spoken with the COO of Waster Pro, and still nothing has happened. You gave them the contract, now get them to provide service!!!
I am not sure this is the kind of “favor” about which I would be concerned. The Florida League of city’s is a non-profit organization that represents Florida’s 412 cities; I presume the NW is North West Florida League. I’d be more concerned if the “favor” she sought was free garbage collection services, a donation to her retirement fund, or something that benefited her or her family personally.
One, SB 107 would require a report within one week of the session’s end listing specific legislation lobbied for or against, by any lobbyist who is currently required to file an expenditure report to the Secretary of State’s office. Another, SB 173, would require registered lobbyist employers to report aggregate spending on lobbying.
Nancy Miller is shocked, BS. Nancy’s daughter Betsy Couch of KCCI (Cascades) has been working with Paige Carter-Smith of the DIA for YEARS. The Tallahassee Democrat has been going to the cocktail parties for years. See Mike Pate through Bob Gabordi.
Someone may want to investigate the excessive fines Waste Pro has received by the county and really see if it is a legitimate process or cover for an – on the side – slush fund for more corruption. I am disappointed that something so significant as Waste Pro being fined in the hundreds of thousands of dollars goes unreported.
Also, why is the county administrator not reporting the Waste Pro lobbyists not being registered? That is not looking out for the best interest of citizens, but enabling a wider path for corruption for our former usual suspects…now “criminal” suspects.
Paige Carter Smith”s “loan” (wink, wink) payments to Governance/Maddox is a good one! Hope she made notations in the “loan” ledger that the payments were to pay down the loan and not payments to the players in this alleged illegal criminal enterprise.
Would the loan documents between Paige and Maddox be available for the public to view?
The players taint everything around us and only think of themselves. They are too arrogant and self serving to resign their positions and will further drag us down only creating a wider swath of corruption in their path. It is getting to the point where they are harmful to the public’s welfare and pray there are indictments soon that will force their resignations.
Paige Carter Smith and Scott Maddox please do the dignified thing for once and resign!
Isn’t it time that Governor Scott steps in and start suspending these corrupt city commissioners? I don’t think anyone trusts them and anything they say or do will be seen as what is in the best interests of their pocketbooks!
From the Florida Constitution
“By order of the governor any elected municipal officer indicted for crime may be suspended from office”
So he can’t so anything until there’s an indictment.
Thanks, Dr. Jackson, for all your hard work and perseverance in helping to uncover the system of cultural corruption that has permeated COT for a decade or more.
I’m in general agreement with Major Villum’s theory – that these individual suspect actions by COT officials are more than just individual. The emerging pattern indicates a deliberate coordination among COT officials to extract the most possible personal wealth for themselves from the taxpayer’s money. The COT cabal uses several methods to do that, but the goal is one shared by all of them, and they cooperate to accomplish it.
The mere fact that the FBI terms WastePro as “Company Three” is encouraging. That implies there is also a “Company 1 and 2” elsewhere in the investigation’s files – perhaps there are more companies than just 3 involved, owned or conected to local COT cronies.
I’m so grateful that at least Scott Maddox has been tagged by the FBI, and I hope the FBI has a slam-dunk case against him – to be shortly followed by slam-dunk cases against all those (both present and former officials) involved in the COT web of corruption.
At some point it would be interesting to see an organizational chart of City leadership with the boxes for each showing the name x’d out as the chickens come home to roost and they are arrested or choose to resign. I am going to need a scorecard to know who’s left or who is named by FBI investigation. Please include the DIA too. My brain aches trying to keep it straight.
When it’s all over, they can rename the LCJ the “City Commission Annex.”
It is amazing how quickly Nancy Miller went to the dark side of politics. Nancy asked for $1000 while Scott got over $170,000 from Waste Pro!
Wait until the FBI looks into Nancy giving Gary Yordon $40,000 to run her campaign and after winning directed city staff to give a no bid contract (federal Tapp program) in violation of federal law. Tallahassee Reports has documented this area previously!
How sad Nancy went this way. How corrupt and it will get worse because Gary Yordon seems to be telling all to the FBI!
Go FBI!
Lock em up!
Dr. Erwin Jackson
Tallahassee Truth Teller
Dr Jackson,
Please expose the ethics violations of Rocky Hanna and the school board. The texts that the district has from Woody Hilderbrandt to Rocky Hanna clearly tell the tale of collusion and lieing to local and federal authorities , an associate superintendent dating a school board member, another associate superintendent running a pool business from work all unethical and using our tax dollars. The vendettas and intimidation must have a spotlight on it for a long long time.
Would sure like to see a column in the local rag about THAT, written by The Usual Suspect, instead of tripe like the current one about marriage.
Hey Gary, how did you treat wife #1?
It is unbelievable that one of the players in the FBI investigation is still writing for the TD!
Does Yordon’s article provide the disclaimer that he/was a Waste Pro lobbyist, recipient of the no-bid TAPP contract, previous water boy for Scott Maddox, etc!?
What a wicked web, I am of the belief that looking at all of these total actions presented in the last two years of the City of Tallahassee ‘Leaders’ in their sum and whole constitutes conspiracy.
These are NOT just simply Miller’s actions, Maddox’s actions, Gillum’s actions, Fernandez’s actions, the ‘Commission’s’ actions, Shelley’s/Jackson’s action’s – etc. (to just name a few)….these are organized, emplaced, status quo web of inter-supporting unethical, strategically aligned thieves.
Look at all the other ‘donations’ Waste Pro put forth to City pet Programs – and how that money got there…..
FBI – can we get there, also?