To the editor:

In a guest opinion in The Breeze on Aug. 4, Mayor Sullivan said, “I will not allow my character to be unjustly assassinated without commenting.” No one is assassinating your character Mayor! “Me thinks thou doth protest too much”.

The mayor says that during a staff meeting in city hall, a microphone was on, and he heard a “comment” made by a staff member that the mayor felt might be “felonious.”

I have a several questions, not accusations, for the mayor:

1. Did you turn that microphone on?

2. Did you ask anyone else to turn that microphone on?

3. Did you notify city staff that they were being broadcast?

4. Did you have any responsibility to inform them and protect their privacy?

5. Would you want someone to tell you if a microphone were on and you were unaware that you were being broadcast?

Mayor Sullivan, I do not know what you heard and I am not disputing that issue.

1. As a public official, you had an obligation to lead by example to protect staff with their reasonable expectation of privacy in meetings that are not public.

2. If you did hear a “felonious” comment you could have gone to the City Manager, made your concerns known, given him a chance to investigate and after the facts were established, made your comments in public. Mr. Sullivan, as a private citizen at the public microphone you were legendary in this town for outrageous comments and accusations to garner political attention! Political Attention is an Art!

3. What you heard, and you did hear something, could be out of context of the entire statement. However you have made a personal, subjective judgment that there was an intention of wrong doing here. You seem to think you are the last word. To disagree with you is to “assassinate” your character. Always this drama about people you accuse of dancing with the devil.

4. The question posed by your fellow Councilmember only asked you to examine the POSSIBILITY that what you “THINK” you heard might be different than what was said. The Councilmember’s request was reasonable and was not an attack on you.

5. Even after the City Manager and department heads assured you that they could not find “felonious” speech, instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt, you have strengthened your resolve to prove your “suspicions “by calling Comcast corporate.

Further you continue to accuse others of “character assassination”.

Mayor, your thinking is convoluted, your behavior dysfunctional for this city. You think everyone, but yourself, is wrong. Your stated public belief is to “get even”, not to get mad. You sure seem to enjoy getting even! Mayor Sullivan you are not above the law because you are a public official. In our system, one is assumed innocent until proven guilty with facts.

F.C.Perry

Cape Coral