Mr. Sunshine and Connecting the Dots

Ms. Stanton was at a meeting yesterday with the city managers of four other cities: Wellington, Royal Palm Beach, Lake Park, and Mangonia Park. It was a meeting that she initiated to discuss the tremendous cost for services with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Department. Pahokee, South Bay and Belle Glade should have been invited. They can't pay for the service as it is now. After she spoke for approximately ½ hour, the City Manager of Wellington, Paul Schofield, informed everyone that the Press was invited by him and were in the audience. Surprise! Stanton was blindsided.

The "good ole boy network" is alive and prevalent in Palm Beach County. It's been here for years and the seed never seems to die. It just keeps springing up like a bad weed. Afterall, we are not the Corruption County of the Country for nothing.

Paul Schofield has been with the City of Wellington for the past 9 years or so first starting as its Director of Community Development. He became Town Manager in February 2008. It was reported several years back by the Post that he is an old drinking buddy of Anthony Masilotti as well as Daniel Miteff, who both got 5 years in the Federal Pen.

Some of you might not remember what got Miteff in trouble or his connection to corruption.

The Sun Sentinel reported on December 13, 2006 that “The third criminal defendant in the public corruption scandal alleged to have profited former County Commissioner Tony Masilotti through secret land deals is scheduled to appear in federal court in Fort Pierce this morning on 16 counts of conspiracy and fraud.

Daniel N. Miteff, 55, a civil engineer and Wellington businessman, is indicted secretly Friday by a grand jury and arrested Monday afternoon by FBI agents for his role in a Royal Palm Beach land deal. He allegedly paid Masilotti for representations he made as a public official with cash and $39,000 worth of gaming chips when the two met at the Atlantis Hotel and Casino in the Bahamas in February 2004.

Miteff was charged with conspiring with Masilotti to use his power as an elected official to win a contract to develop 50 acres in Royal Palm Beach owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Palm Beach for about $1 million in profits. The indictment also said Miteff lied to the grand jury on two occasions in August when questioned about the diocese deal.”

Daniel Miteff, if everyone recalls, was the front man for Anthony Pugliese when he was trying to get hold of our Lake Worth beach in order to build a hotel complex during the Romano administration here in Lake Worth.

Paul Schofield was the one who hired Paul Masilotti, Tony's bother, as Wellington's Building Inspector. You always have to follow the money to attempt to figure it all out and connect the dots.

So Mr. Schofield is a close friend of these guys so we have to wonder what his purpose really was for notifying the press and not even bothering to let the ATTENDEES KNOW UNTIL WELL AFTER THE FACT. .. certainly bad manners. Does anyone really believe it had to do with “sunshine?"