To the editor:

The end does not justify the means. In this case, I refer to an editorial in a local newspaper, titled “Dinner on city for council wives justified.”

1. I must correct the editorial on a simple fact. There were three wives, not two, paid for in violation of policy. Two were council members’ wives. One was City Manager King’s wife. (I remind you AND Mr. King, that he is an employee.) I had previously informed the local editor of this error which occurred in an earlier article.

2. There are three sections of Ordinance 78-05 which together clearly set the action of paying for spouses’ dinners from city coffers as a violation of our city law. There is NO justification for a CM or council to, (King was informed), violate their own ordinance.

3. The editorial said, as did Deile and King (the red herring), that the dinner was aimed at persuading an Army Reserve general (I correct the editorialist again, he was a Major General) to put a reserve center in the Cape. The dinner was actually a celebration of the fact that the U.S. Army Reserve had already decided to build in Cape Coral. In fact, an invitation from Mike Quaintance to Gary King of March 23, stated the dinner was to “celebrate this significant accomplishment.” So it was a done deal, excluding problems arising afterward with bank buyouts, etc. So what did the wives contribute to the after-the-fact dinner? Why do King and Deile insist that the City (read, you and I) footing the tab for three spouses (read, NON-elected, NON-employee, ergo, can’t perform official business) was significant in causing the training center to be built here? It was already decided.

4. The editorial said “their presence was an expected part of such a SOCIAL (my emphasis) event, a civic duty if you will. They were not just living it up on the city dime.” This statement is clearly illogical. If it was a SOCIAL event (for fun, for entertainment) what civic duty were the wives fulfilling, as they cannot perform in any official capacity? Eating chicken or mahi-mahi is not a civic duty and the placement of the training center was a fait accompli. They WERE “living it up on the city dime”

5. It is NOT the amount of money that is being questioned. It is the arrogant violation of law and the mis-use of public funds. And, ask yourselves why only certain council members and their wives were covered by King, and the other council members followed proper policy?

6. The end does NOT justify the means in this case. If you still think that what King and Brandt and Deile did was acceptable and within the law, then you surely won’t protest when they decide to take 40 of their family members and friends of the proper political persuasion to the next dinner and then a hundred to the next. It isn’t the money. It is a matter of standing up to those who throw ethical standards out the window, just as so much stinking herring.

Alex LePera

Cape Coral