Lauren Ritchie: Mayor’s ouster puts town on right track.
After a year of controversy and $100,000 in legal fees, Groveland City Council members tossed out their mayor, a convicted drug dealer. Yes! Groveland finally got it right. This slop has landed right where it should — in the lap of former Mayor George Rosario. He’ll be spending his own money for a change if he wants to fight his removal instead of, through a twist of events, having the city’s liability lawyers provided for free.
His lawyer declared at the meeting Wednesday night that Rosario will continue to fight because he believes the council doesn’t have the authority to dismiss the mayor. However, he didn’t say how that fight would proceed.
What kind of city elects a felon as its leader anyway? Answer: The kind where voters didn’t know of his conviction until after they cast ballots in November 2016.
But voters in the city of 12,000 did have plenty of reasons to cast a ballot for a different candidate.
News that the retired handyman had been untruthful about his military service came out before the election. Rosario, who receives income for a full disability he refuses to discuss, stated that he had served 21 years in the Army. However, his discharge papers show that he served one year and nine days of active service and another six years in the reserves.
He was a truck driver in southwest Asia after the combat phase of the Gulf War for only 45 days before being discharged on a disability. Rosario claimed to have received two Bronze Stars, the nation’s ninth highest award, and a Purple Heart. He holds neither.
Voters also knew he lied about his work experience. On a form he submitted to Groveland when he unsuccessfully sought a council seat in 2010, he stated that in 1986 he was the public relations director for the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority. The massive agency operates buses, trolleys, railroads, elevated railways and subways in Philadelphia and the southeast part of the state.
The agency’s employment records show only that Rosario was a bus driver from 1981 until he was fired in early 1988, about a month after he was sentenced on the cocaine charges.
Still, 35 percent of voters in a three-way race cast ballots for Rosario amid a political culture that declared the truth doesn’t matter, and the news is “fake” anyway. Never has there been a better example of voters getting precisely what they elected. What could they expect when a person so clearly believes his own delusions? That he’ll develop a closer personal relationship with truth? That he’ll have at least a minuscule bit of ability to run a smooth meeting?
Get real. Public meetings with Rosario at the helm often turned
Voters not only have rights, they have responsibilities. And the most important one is to engage — to look into the qualifications and mettle of those running for office and judge whether the candidate is best for the community.
into a dysfunctional circus.
The felonies, which the Sentinel learned about in December 2016, were just the cherry on the top for this mistake of an elected official. Rosario was convicted of delivery of a controlled substance and possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, along with a misdemeanor conviction for knowingly and intentionally delivering the drugs. He was smart enough to sell cocaine to undercover officers of the Philadelphia Police Department.
Florida law allows convicted felons to run for office only if their full civil rights have been restored, and records in Pennsylvania and Florida showed that Rosario never even applied. In Pennsylvania, however, the laws are different, and felons automatically get the right to vote when they complete their sentences. Florida recognizes that right.
Rosario, 60, and his lawyers continue to declare that he was being discriminated against because his skin color is brown and he’s a native of Puerto Rico. That claim rightfully offended plenty of people in the audience who chided him for playing “the race card.” Is it possible they just don’t want a convicted felon and serial liar as the head of their city? Could that be it?
Rosario needs to remember that the people elected him in the first place, so they clearly didn’t care about his ethnicity or skin color. More importantly, however, is that voters remember they elected him.
Voters not only have rights, they have responsibilities. And the most important one is to engage — to look into the qualifications and the mettle of those running for office and to thoughtfully judge whether the candidate is best for the community. Breezily claiming that “fake” news abounds doesn’t give voters a pass.
Democracy is too important to treat carelessly. One can only hope that Groveland has learned its lesson. Lritchie@orlandosentinel.com