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Crimes and Punishments
KONK REACTOR column
[Published in the KONK Life newspaper on April 5, 2012.]
Crimes and Punishments
Enough with the trivialities (ref my last column). it’s time to get serious. Dead serious…
Dateline Wednesday, March 21, 2012:
Today, former Big Pine Key resident Keith Weitzman stood before Judge Fowler and pleaded guilty to a charge involving his action that killed someone. He had fallen asleep driving on US1 on Cudjoe Key and veered into a car carrying three California men. One didn’t make it. FHP Lt. Kathy McKinney was quoted: “People don’t realize [sleepy driving is] just as dangerous as getting behind the wheel drunk,” His sentence: $500 fine and community service.
Today, in another Key West courtroom, (more…)
In defense of Norma Jean
front page article (submitted as untitled Letter to Editor)
[Published in Key West The Newspaper on March 2, 2012.]
In defense of Norma Jean
There was a glaring error in your front page article “From the Very Beginning, the Real Purpose of the BCCLT was to Provide Norma Jean Sawyer with a Hefty Income”. The glaring error is that her income only came up to the “$90,000 per year” level that you mentioned for a very brief time (less than six months) at the very end of the Bahama Conch Community Land Trust’s run. People seem to assume she has made that much all along, but nothing could be further from the truth.
For well over TEN YEARS Norma worked for a pittance, running the BCCLT out of her bedroom and living in what many Key Westers would consider poverty. (more…)
Crusader Torment
KONK REACTOR column
[Published in the KONK Life newspaper on March 1, 2012.]
Crusader Torment
I didn’t attend the trial of Norma Jean Sawyer but I can state categorically: if she goes to jail, there is no justice in this town.
Back in the 1990s, Norma Jean Sawyer voluntarily took on a task that nobody would step up to. She put her life managing a small mortuary on hold and rededicated it to saving residences in Bahama Village for the families who had owned them for generations. For those families who were being approached by people with briefcases full of cash offering to buy them out (at bottom dollar) if they’d move away. To allow them to become cheaply-renovated gentrified residences for sale to speculators at top dollar. (more…)