COMMENTARY

MARK SCHUMANN

Again this week Charlie Wilson took to the airwaves, at the invitation of WTTB radio host Bob Soos, in an attempt to discredit the reporting of Inside Vero.

Wilson claims that when he was in the news business he only reported what could be proven to be true.  If accuracy and objectivity were once Wilson’s standards, he has come a long way since then.

For starters, the self-described “Professor of Political Baloney” could use some instruction in the difference between a blog and a news source.  The website he and former County Commissioner Gary Wheeler set up, “Wheeler and Wilson,” was a classic blog, featuring nothing more or less than opinions.

Calling themselves the “Hannity and Colmes of Indian River County politics,” Wheeler and Wilson launched their blog last June in advance of the primary elections, promising they would “provide an insight into Indian River County politics that goes beyond the spin of press releases and campaign material.”

The former County Commissioner and civic activist ceased gracing the community with their online commentary on November 16, 2012, soon after the general election. Wilson’s short-lived blog was hardly an effort to serve the community.  In reality, his online bloviating was nothing more than a way for him to attack Indian River County Commission candidates Bea Gardner and Tony Donadio, as he sought to help his former business partner, then candidate Tim Zorc, in his bid for a seat on the County Commission.

Quite unlike a blog, Inside Vero is a multi-platform news source, offering news, commentary and features, all available in print, online and on the air each Sunday evening from 6 to 7 and each Monday afternoon from 3 to 4 on WAXE 1370 AM, 107.9 FM and 94.7 FM. Inside Vero’s print edition reaches twice as many households as the island tabloid, and within the city of Vero Beach, has more than double the circulation of the daily newspaper.

When Wilson attacks our reporting he does so only generally, with claims that are never specific, and certainly never substantiated.  What Wilson most objects to, I suspect, is the fact that we have reported on the complexities and difficulties in the negotiations to sell Vero Electric to Florida Power & Light.

I could catalog a long list of the aspects to this story that have not been reported fully or fairly by the local daily newspaper or the island tabloid.  For example, Vero Beach 32963 and the Press Journal have yet to inform their readers that the negotiations have taken a turn down a rough and uncharted road, with the consequence being that the chances of the sale closing any time before late 2016 are slim to none.

Wilson will, of course, insist that is not true, just as he insisted he met Vero Beach’s residency requirements when he ran for the City Council a few years ago.  It took a judge to convince him otherwise.  Yet again, Wilson is either misguided, uninformed or is attempting to obscure the truth.

The “Professor of Political Boloney” is so frustrated with Inside Vero’s efforts to discover and report the truth that he has resorted to tossing around the “L” word in the same spirit with which City Councilwoman Tracy Carroll uses the “A” word.

In Wilson’s world, to accuse someone of being a “liberal” is tantamount to tagging him or her as an “atheist.”  The first assertion, of course, is generic and relative, while the second is hardly a crime.

In today’s political landscape, with the Tea Party extremists holding down the right, even former President Ronald Reagan would be considered, not a conservative, but a moderate.

Given that Vero Beach has already cut some 25 percent of its workforce since 2007, I have questioned the wisdom of hacking another eleven percent from the budget, with the likely consequence that the quality of city services will suffer.

Demonstrating kindergarten-level logic, Wilson has concluded I must believe that “big government is good government.”  He insists I hold that “the more employees you have the better off you are.”

The opposite is true, for I have consistently maintained that the city should continue working to become more efficient, but without further denigrating services.  There is a fundamental difference between downsizing and achieving efficiencies.  Unfortunately, the distinction is lost in Wilson’s black and white world view.

Wilson, who has a way of sowing seeds of dissension and conflict wherever he goes, seems content to gamble the exceptional quality of life in our community in order to conduct an experiment in Libertarian fundamentalism.

If you are ever craving the news equivalent of processed meat, tune in to Bob Soos’s radio program Tuesday mornings on WTTB, as Soos hosts self-serving hatchet man Charlie Wilson, the “Professor of Political Baloney.”