Editor’s Note:  This is the second in a three-part series on civic activist Charlie Wilson, and is the first in a series on local personalities influential in local politics.  Our objective is to profile a person who has run for numerous elective offices and who has been active and influential in local politics. Wilson was sent an email on June 28 requesting an interview.  Because we are committed to not quoting sources erroneously or out of context, we offered to provide Wilson with a recorded copy of the interview.

Wilson did not respond to the June 28 email. In subsequent correspondence, Wilson agreed to meet, but only if his comments would be held off the record.  Further, he proposed to restrict the “interview” by limiting it to written answers he would provide to previously submitted questions.  There is more to that story, but for another time.

The following three-part series is what we know and can report about Charlie Wilson based on stories about him appearing in newspapers and online, and from other people interviewed who know Wilson and are familiar with his political activities. We would have questioned Wilson about this information prior to publication, and hope to do so at a future time in an on-the-record interview to be held at a time convenient to both parties.

The first installment was posted August 1, and can be read at: http://insidevero.com/2013/08/01/who-is-charlie-wilson/

 MILT THOMAS

Wilson remained active in Indian River county politics. In 2007 he started an online blog, Indian River Report. Prime subjects that he wrote about frequently were impact fees and the Chamber of Commerce. He regularly criticized the Chamber’s handling of tourism and economic development.

At the March 14, 2007, Tourist Development Council meeting, Commissioner Gary Wheeler presided over his first meeting as chairman. Newly appointed council member, Jack Berrigan, who was also Wheeler’s 2004 election campaign chairman, made a motion to put out RFPs for competitive bids to handle the county’s tourist development advertising.

Council member and County Commissioner Fran Adams, said she had been approached by Charlie Wilson, who told her he had been offered a job to oversee the RFP process. He had not clarified who offered him that job, and Wilson, who was sitting in the audience, stood to deny the allegation, insisting he was not interested in a job. However, he had submitted a draft report to Gary Wheeler two weeks earlier dated February 27, suggesting how tourism advertising could be better handled by an agency other than the Chamber of Commerce. The motion was defeated by the TDC. At the April 3, 2007 County Commission meeting, Wilson asked the county to take tourism advertising in-house and was rejected. Berrigan resigned quietly from the TDC a few months later.  Of course, Wilson owns an advertising agency, Media Arts Group.

In 2008, Wilson, a proponent of charter schools, ran for Indian River County School Board but lost to Claudia Jimenez. Around that time (“In close proximity” according to a newspaper account) he was also acting as a consultant for Imagine Charter Schools.

At the April 21, 2009, County Commission meeting, Commissioner Wesley Davis submitted Charlie Wilson’s name for appointment to the Tourist Development Council, but he was not selected.

Wilson authored several other short-lived blogs, The Charlie Wilson Report and Vero Beach Business Directory, and a blog with Commissioner Gary Wheeler, Wheeler and Wilson, which ran during the 2012 election campaign espousing the candidacy of Tim Zorc. Wheeler’s and Wilson’s joint blogging effort ended just days after Zorc was elected. Wilson also hosted a radio version of his Indian River Report, which ran for two months in late 2010 and ended abruptly. According to newspaper accounts, Wilson claimed he was starting a new venture.

Wilson continued to criticize the Chamber and its handling of tourism and economic development for the entire run of his Indian River Report blog from 2007-2009, especially as the recession deepened, affecting the economy nationally. He also regularly criticized the school board and the county’s handling of impact fees.

He was most successful in his criticism of Vero Electric and beginning in 2009, advocated the sale to FPL. That success led to his running for Vero Beach City Council in 2009 and winning with the largest vote total. His success was short-lived however, when Circuit Judge Paul Kanarek removed him from office for failing to meet the city residency requirements. On his VeroNews.com candidate profile on October 5, 2009, Wilson claimed he was “a resident of Vero Beach for three years.” Of course, a large majority of Indian River County residents claim Vero Beach as their residence, not just those living within the city limits.

In November of 2009, under the headline, “Ex-sheriff’s favor may have cost the county $1 milion,” the Ft. Pierce Tribune alleged that Sheriff Bobby Knowles, as a favor to campaign supporter, Vernon Smith, opened a St. Lucie County Sheriff Department bank account at Riverside National Bank that paid a below market interest rate. It cost St. Lucie County taxpayers $1 million over 16 years. This information was provided to the Tribune by Charlie Wilson, who had firsthand knowledge as Sheriff Knowles’ campaign manager in 1984 and head of his transition team. The only question that remains is why he turned against Knowles.

Wilson ran for a seat on the Indian River County Commission in 2010. During his campaign, Wilson’s son was arrested for signing false petition forms on behalf of his father. The senior Wilson denied any knowledge of the wrongdoing. He lost in the primary to incumbent Joe Flescher.

In a June 17, 2010 article on TCPalm by Scripps editorial editor, Larry Reisman, entitled “Charlie Wilson: Human or Teflon?” Reisman commented on the son of “Candidate A” being charged with petition fraud and wonders how Candidate A can remain in the City Council race. Reisman writes, “It tells me one of two things: Candidate A is off his rocker, or he thinks the other candidates are so bad that Candidate A thinks he can win and do a better job anyway. Either way, the Republican race for Indian River County Commission District 2 is ugly. The question will be whether incumbent Joe Flescher and challenger Dale Simchick can avoid the stink created by the campaign of Charlie Wilson.”

Reisman goes on to write, “Wilson, (pictured), Candidate A, finds himself in the middle of controversy regularly.” Reisman asks “What kind of judgment can we expect from a candidate once elected to office?” Further on Reisman quotes Wilson: “The one person that did tell the truth during this whole thing…every single time, is me,’ a defiant Wilson said.”

On August 25, 2010, in the TCPalm article by Henry Stephens titled, “Charlie Wilson to put politics aside for now in Indian River County,” Stephens writes, “After spending much of the decade losing political bids, and getting ousted when he did win, Charlie Wilson says he’s quitting the campaign game.”

This comes after losing in the Republican primary to Joe Flescher for County Commission District 2.

In a Vero Beach 32963 online article (“PACS pushing pro-utility sale candidates with signs”) posted on September 26, 2012, journalist Eileen Kelley wrote, “No matter what one thinks of Wilson, one thing is clear; he can have an impact. That was very clear last week when a representative of Florida Power & Light summoned Wilson to City Hall to be – as one insider put it – the ‘voice of reason’ during a packed meeting when the City Council eventually voted to sign a $54 million memorandum of understanding to sell the city’s electric utility and then voted against a referendum to let voters and not the council decide the sale. ‘A referendum does nothing but delay, deflect and deny,’ said Wilson during the public comment period.”

On December 18, 2011 in TCPalm comments section, Scripps’ Larry Reisman wrote, “Mr. Wilson, wanting more information before selling is NOT A RUSE. The real question a lot of folks in the community are asking is, What’s in it for Charlie Wilson? Because anytime someone wants to wait for facts and figures he calls them obstructionists…Nobody is trying to deflect delay or deny as Wilson says, just trying to take heed of what the city manager said the other day. O’Connor said it will be 18-24 months before we will know what it will cost the city to get out of the existing contracts and until that is done there can be no sale.”

Tomorow: In our third and final installment in this profile of civic activist Charlie Wilson, we look at his political blogging efforts and the business he made of recovering unspent county impact fees, a business association with Tim Zorc, who was later elected to the Indian River County Commission, and an aborted business venture with County Commissioner Wesley Davis.