subject: Tom Slaughter Venice Florida And The Levine-envision Venice Case [print this page] Forums run inside the city of Venice Florida which is designed to gather citizens ideas and suggestion for the future of Venice. This is called the Envision Venice program. This program is sponsored by the citys Planning Department for the benefit of the Comprehensive Plan which is a mandatory written study.
Herb Levine, Venice Taxpayers League President, received a letter from Tom Slaughter Venice Florida Planning Department head saying that there have been a complaint on Levine after the April 6 Envision Venice meeting. Every Envision Venice meeting, citizens were broken into groups to discuss local issues and gather inputs which were all supervised by a facilitator. The letter indicates complaints of three people that Levine did not record the views and inputs on that meeting.
However, Levine argued that he was not the facilitator on the complainants table, it was Paul Ebaugh. Levine said that Paul Ebaugh took over his place and asked him to write down notes, which should be done by the facilitator. Still, Levine accepted it and tried to take down notes, until the Planning Commission chair John Osmulski ran along and starts his presentation and all people started talking too fast that there was no way of writing down all their statements. As a facilitator, they have a prepared list of questions that goes around the table allowing them to control speed of responses, but since Ebaugh took the position of the facilitator, and with the rush atmosphere of the meeting, he was not able to take down all statements. Levine said that Paul Ebaugh should be the one to be kicked out not him.
Tom Slaughter Venice Florida Planning Department heads letter was also sent to City Manager Marty Black, City Clerk Lori Stelzer and to all members of the Planning Commission. Tom Slaughter Venice Florida Planning Department head was not available for any comments regarding the matter since he left on April 13 for vacation until April 19. Kathy Ebaugh, city planner and wife of Paul Ebaugh, refuses to comment on the issue and request not to put her in the position, but she admitted that her husband has been a facilitator on that meeting.
With this complains, Herb Levine was dismissed as a facilitator since his actions were referred to as something impropriety. Levine refused to give any further comments regarding the Envision Venice issue and let his attorney assess the situation.
