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Activist says fundraiser for candidate broke law
By CARY DAVIS © St. Petersburg Times, published August 16, 2000 LAND O'LAKES -- A Land O'Lakes activist said Tuesday he has filed an elections complaint against Pasco County Commissioner Ann Hildebrand, alleging that a fundraiser was held for Hildebrand at a restaurant in a county-owned building that wasn't rented for the occasion. Clay Colson said he mailed the complaint to the Florida Elections Commission on Tuesday. Colson delivered a copy of the complaint to the Times after 5 p.m., and nobody from the Elections Commission was available for comment late Tuesday. Colson's complaint focuses on an Aug. 8 fundraiser that the Devco Development Corp. (developers of Meadow Pointe) held for Hildebrand at Steve's Fountain View Restaurant in the Central Pasco Professional Center, a county-owned building on U.S. 41 also known as the David "Hap" Clark Building. The complaint alleges that the fundraiser violated Florida law because the restaurant was not rented for the occasion. Colson claims, and restaurant owner Steve Gogas confirmed Tuesday, that a Devco employee called and reserved the banquet room for dinner and a cash bar, and the subject of rent never came up. Gogas said he never thought anything of it. "We're not into politics," he said. "We're in the restaurant business." The restaurant, like a number of other businesses in the building, rents space from the county. State law, according to Florida Statute 106.15, Subsection 4, forbids the solicitation of political contributions in a government-owned facility unless the building is rented specifically for a fundraiser. Hildebrand said she doesn't think she did anything wrong. She told the Times that she attended the fundraiser at Devco's invitation and wasn't privy to any arrangements made with the restaurant. "I didn't arrange the fundraiser for myself," she said. Hildebrand said she has briefed County Attorney Robert Sumner about the situation. She said Sumner told her that "I was clear." "I'm very sensitive" about elections laws, she said, adding that if she suspected there was any problem with the fundraiser or where it was held, she wouldn't have attended and would have moved quickly to cancel it before it took place. She said the event raised about $6,000. Hildebrand, a Republican from New Port Richey, has been a commissioner since 1984 and is running for a fifth term against Republican Scott Factor. Colson said Factor had nothing to do with his filing the complaint. But he acknowledged calling Factor after hearing of the fundraiser "through the grapevine." Colson is the founder of Citizens for Sanity, which has launched on all-out offensive against widespread development in central Pasco. One of the group's biggest targets is Devco, developers of Meadow Pointe in Wesley Chapel, and Oakstead, a 1,200-home subdivision just beginning to take shape in Land O'Lakes.
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