More on
Charlie Grapski, the citizen-activist who was arrested while investigating voting irregularities. There's a good editorial that sums up the story so far.
Stop the games; show Grapski the documents
Okay, follow the bouncing ball:
- Charles Grapski, a candidate for the state House of Representatives, helps file a lawsuit against the city of Alachua, accusing the city of incorrectly conducting the recent city elections.
- Grapski shows up at city hall shortly thereafter to fulfill a public records request to examine the absentee ballots. He is told by City Manager Clovis Watson Jr. that the ballots will be photocopied for Grapski so he doesn't have to spend time writing notes about each one.
- Minutes later, two police officers and the police chief enter the room and arrest Grapski, charging him with illegally taping a conversation with Watson a few days prior.
- Grapski is arrested just 10 feet from the seat of Alachua City Commissioner Bonnie Burgess, who is running against Grapski in the House race and who is on the city commission, which is Watson's boss.
- A few days go by and Grapski, now out of jail, asks for the photocopies. "Oops," the city tells him. The city can't legally photocopy the ballots, city officials said.
- So Grapski sets up an appointment to start all over to examine the ballots from scratch.
- Here's the sneaky part. City officials knew ahead of time they were going to pull the plug on Grapski after one hour. But they didn't tell him that. Instead, after Grapski got about one-third into examining the absentee ballots, Deputy City Clerk Alan Henderson came out and told Grapski that he had been given enough time to examine the ballots and that if he wanted to see them anymore, he'd have to pay for somebody to watch him.
Click
here for the rest of the editorial.