Letters: Charles Mauti’s special meeting was a ‘setup’ with Damien Gilliams.

I was one of the people who thought Charles Mauti redeemed himself. Boy, I was wrong.

On Monday, the special meeting showed just how much Charles Mauti is so incompetent and no different than Damien Gilliams and Pam Parris. I believe the whole meeting was a setup, and people are growing tired of the deceit and excuses.

Why was it a setup?

Mauti went off-topic to make sure people knew the city manager asked him to stay. It was a political stunt. Mauti had this meeting for Gilliams too. I watched the meeting twice, and I loved how he tossed it over for Gilliams to speak. Mauti thought he was being clever.

When Mayor Ed Dodd realized it was turning into another political grandstand with Gilliams, he tried to stop it, with Mauti interrupting and asking Gilliams to resume.

The verbal exchange is also a new campaign ad for Gilliams on Facebook. Oh, have you seen them yet? Propaganda ads using video snips from the meetings. They certainly don’t show Gilliams’ bad behavior. And when people comment on the advertisements to correct Gilliams, he either deletes them or ‘hides’ them from public view. What a dictator. You can see the total number of comments, but can’t see them all.

Oh, then we have Pam Parris, who recently was excused from any and all city council meetings because of medical treatments. I then learned from a friend of mine that Ms. Parris has also asked the courts to excuse her from being in the courtrooms.

Is Pammy lying?

We see Pammy driving all around town, shopping at stores without wearing a mask, and just having a ball. She can do all that, and post pictures on her Facebook page showing everywhere she goes, but she can’t show up for meetings or her criminal court proceedings.

She recently applied for grant monies, then denied it and called Sebastian Daily fake news for reporting it. They also published the grant application she signed, with her signature. Has Pammy been hacked again? Still fake news? Not! She then lied to her own friends, saying she turned in the application before the meeting, didn’t know what the rules were, then forgot all about it.

Sorry Pammy, the meeting was on 7/22/2020, and you dated your application on 8/4/2020. When she ran out of lies, she blamed it on city staff for allowing the grant application to be released to the press. It’s public record, Ms. Parris.

When Pammy is caught in more lies, she tells people that the recall group is a “hate group” and Damien calls them “thugs”.

What a way to point blame on others and not take responsibility for their own actions. It’s always somebody else’s fault, right?

Oh, Damien H. Gilliams. He certainly showed how self-serving he is when voting for grant funds and being first to dip his hand in the jar. All before the businesses that really needed it. Typical. How many ethics violations does that make now?

During Mauti’s special meeting Gilliams said the recall was done wrong because it didn’t include his middle “H” initial. Gilliams says people might get confused with who they recall, whether it be his son Damien Gilliams, or himself. Last I checked, there was only 1 city council member named Damien Gilliams. Also, he doesn’t include the “H” in any of his political ads. Cute, isn’t he? He sure thought this through. The people in Sebastian are not dumb.

They scheduled a special meeting for political reasons. Mauti could have sat down with the city manager and asked him those questions about the recall expenses on his own. But, he’s not capable of doing that as a city councilman. Instead, he wanted a “special meeting” to campaign for himself and Damien Gilliams. Using up the city staff time and the people.

Mauti wanted to politic and tell people that the recall is costing $40,000. According to the Charter, special meetings are for emergencies, not for campaigning or to cast doubt on the recall election. This was no emergency, just a plot for Mauti and the other 2 co-conspirators. People are over it.

Now, had the three resigned, we wouldn’t have to pay the $40,000 or whatever the bill was. They didn’t do the right thing for the people. The petitions came in, verified, and they sat there on the council saying they didn’t do anything wrong. There’s piles of evidence, arrests, criminal charges, and a potential coup to take over the city, but they say nothing bad occurred.

We can’t afford to keep these 3 in office because they are costing us hundreds of thousands of dollars. The lawsuit for breaking the sunshine law could cost the city over a million dollars.

Do they want us to believe they are looking out for the best interest of the city and the cost of $40,000 to recall them? Give us a break.

They want us to believe that taxes don’t have to go up. We’re in a pandemic. Every city in America is in trouble.

Sebastian will be worse because of the legal cases created by the 3 council members for their stupidity and trying to take over our city. Add that to our taxes! All because one wanted to become mayor. This isn’t a game!

Mauti a stand up man? No, he’s not. He’s no different than Gilliams and Parris. They tried to take over our city in April because Gilliams is obsessed with power and having the mayor title under his belt. They keep violating the sunshine law ever since. More lawsuits, more litigation!

I like all the NEW CANDIDATES. At least they are all truthful about the annexation. We were duped by these 3. Never again!

Vote ‘YES’ on Sept. 15th to recall them. Vote to recall ALL 3. We deserve better.

Darleen Bowman
Sebastian