A recent article in the Tampa Bay Times highlights why it is so important to re-elect Mark Bunker to the City Council and not either of his opponents.
Neither of these candidates opposing Bunker have any understanding of scientology.
Mike Mastruserio:
Quoting from the Times article:
Mastruserio said he considers revitalizing downtown the city’s most pressing issue. In a campaign flyer, he stated: “Scientology continues to hurt our city’s reputation, handicap our overall development, especially downtown.”
He said Bunker has not done enough to address Scientology’s impact. Mastruserio wants to put mobile retail stores in trucks or buses in front of empty storefronts controlled by parishioners as a workaround.
Mr. Mastruserio has picked the wrong target — it is certainly not Bunker who has not done enough to address scientology’s impact, it is the rest of the Council, Mayor and City Manager who are to blame. They continue to try to avoid the issue or play footsie with David Miscavige and his endless string of false promises. Bunker has been a lone voice in the wilderness.
Mastruserio’s genius solution? Food trucks. And he is apparently serious!!! Don’t worry about the 200 empty buildings, just bring in 200 food trucks and all will be good. Anyone that proposes food trucks as the solution to the scientology problem is absolutely unqualified for the job.
“For 50 years we talked about doing different things and have done nothing,” Mastruserio said at a Feb. 7 candidate forum. “I want to be the person who leads the fight to take back our streets in downtown.”
Apparently he plans to lead the fight by riding in an invasion force of food trucks.
Just laughable.
Ryan Cotton:
Though relatively young, he is part of the good old boy network that has been being taken for a ride by scientology for decades. This guys is so mealy-mouthed on the subject (scared?) that he won’t even say if he believes scientology is involved in the acquisition of vast tracts of real estate. You have to wonder whether he has ever even been to downtown Clearwater or read any of the excellent reporting done by Tracey McManus?
Cotton has declined to say whether he believes Scientology is involved in the acquisition of vast tracts of real estate. Unlike his opponents, he has avoided bringing up Scientology in his campaign literature.
He said he wants to see downtown Clearwater “become bigger than St. Pete” and that “good Christian leadership” has taught him to work through issues with others.
“I think that you just need to treat them like any other organization,” Cotton said of Scientology at the Feb. 7 forum. “Work with them when you can but work around them if you can’t, because we need to get this downtown revitalized.”\
He wants Clearwater to become “bigger than St. Pete” (he sounds as unreal as a scientologists who claim they are “Clearing the Planet”) and is so clueless that he thinks “you just need to treat them like any other organization.”
Not even in the right zipcode when it comes to scientology. Even the food truck warrior managed to say scientology is a real problem.
Please, if you live in Clearwater, support and vote for Mark Bunker on March 19. Visit his re-election website here.
A couple of other points of interest in the article:
Bunker, however, said he’s taken action by reaching out to the FBI about the property purchases, which he calls an orchestrated effort by Scientology leader David Miscavige to “sabotage” downtown.
Miscavige “has created a problem only he can solve,” Bunker said at the forum. He said he has a unique understanding of the organization’s policies as he’s spent 25 years supporting people who say they have been harmed by Scientology.
Rebecca Kaufman, an attorney representing Scientology, said in a statement to the Times that “nothing came of (Bunker’s) unfounded claims.” An FBI spokesperson declined to answer whether the agency investigated Bunker’s complaint.
“Any statement that the Church is ‘hampering’ or ‘sabotaging’ downtown is false,” said Shaw, the church spokesperson.
“The Church operates within the law in all its activities,” he added.
Typical apples and oranges scientology logic. Back in one of the earlier FBI investigations, scientology claimed “there is no such investigation” and then when the summary of the investigation was released then claimed “well, there was an investigation but it came to nothing.” That there is no prosecution does not mean the claims “came to nothing.” There are many reasons for not going forward with a prosecution — statute of limitations, lack of resources to bring the case, plenty of evidence but some of inadmissible, and plain fear.
Ben Shaw’s statement is so patently absurd on its face it doesn’t require comment.
And as a reminder of just how absurd he is, another section from the article:
Since 2017, limited liability companies controlled by Scientology parishioners have gradually purchased at least 200 properties within walking distance of the downtown waterfront, according to a Tampa Bay Times analysis of property records. But most of the storefronts, buildings and lots remain vacant.
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/tbt/MTOGW3PLXJDWPKCLRZYMMYXANY.jpg "This map shows properties owned by limited liability companies tied to Scientologists, the Church of Scientology and government entities.")
In a statement to the Times, Scientology spokesperson Ben Shaw stated: “I do not know anything about 200 property purchases since 2017.”
He then compared downtown purchases to Disney’s acquisition of land in Orlando for Disney World.
“Of course, the Church is not proposing a Disney World,” Shaw said. “But we are proposing an entire downtown redevelopment.”
Does he realize what he said? He “doesn’t know anything about 200 property purchases” and then compared it to Disney purchase of land in Orlando…. Footbullet.cientology has been “proposing” an entire downtown redevelopment plan since the 1980’s and has DONE NOTHING other than construct their own buildings and purchase a bunch more that are empty.
Blame the voters. They have had ample opportunities to not keep the same people in office who have allowed this. Now if you object to that comment by saying that not enough people on the other side are running for office offering the voters a choice, then my retort to that is the same: the citizens have the option of running for office. And donating money to campaigns that challenge the CoS. If the citizens of Clearwater don’t care enough , then I certainly don’t.
“The Church operates within the law in all its activities,” he added.
Ya, right. As a person who worked 16 years for Boston OSA Invest, I can assure you that is what the cult calls an “acceptable truth”.
OSA hires attorneys who then hire Private Investigators who then hire thugs to do the outside-of-the-law actions.
This way the cult can claim they have clean hands because no church member was directly or even indirectly involved. The cult is three steps away from the guy who commits the crime. Kind of like the mafia.
When I did work for OSA Boston Invest, I was told by Toni Chrambanis the CO OSA EUS that I would never do anything illegal as they had PI’s for that.
Toni Chambranis! That old buffalo! I told her off once. Wish I could tell you more details, the where and the when. What I can share is that I was on a course, and my twin and I were going to lunch, walking to a nearby lunch place. We were discussing a blown student who happened to be a Sea Org member. It was rather shocking that an SO would not show up for course for days with no explanation.That’s what our course supervisor said anyway. So we were discussing it in a rather offhand way an all of a sudden this short dumpy 50ish looking woman in a Sea Org uniform is right behind us, practically breathing down our necks, saying, loudly, “You can’t talk about this!” Startled, we stopped in our tracks, turned around and stood there and gaped. “You can’t talk about this!”, she repeated, louder and more emphatic this time, favoring her “Tone 40 Command” with what I now know as the cold chrome steel stare.
I mean, really! No preliminary on her part, no “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but overhear, and actually, you’re not supposed to…” delivering the warning in a more polite and respectful way. No, it was Just, “YOU CAN’T TALK ABOUT THIS! ” It was so rude.
Well… I have a temper sometimes and without thinking blazed back at her, “And who are you, the Speech Police? What are we, in Communist Russia? We can TALK!” Quite rude myself, actually. My course twin, who knew me well, grabbed my wrist to signal that I should zip it with this creature but I flung off his hand and stared at her, furious, just waiting for her to come back at me with some other bullying comment. Incredibly though, this extreme answering of rudeness of mine communicated to her, and in a lowered voice and a somewhat more respectful yet impatient tone she explained how this SO member’s blowing off course was NOT something which “ought to be furthered” . My twin grabbed my wrist again and forced myself to calm down. We stood and listened and nodded our agreement about some policy or other that protects Sea Org members from bad PR, and and I heard my twin say “Got it, totally”, upon which she abruptly turned on her heel and left us. The miracle of it all was that I didn’t get written up.
Haha, remind me not to piss you off, OK?
She probably did a write up on you but was too much of a coward to give you a copy (she would have lied her head off anyway). I had a quick peak into my #2 ethics folder once at Flag (fat one it was too) when the ethics officer was called out the room in some sort of hissy fit emergency. It was on the table and I was bored… I was startled by just how many, “things that shouldn’t be reports” and KRs I don’t recall getting a copy of were written on me, (one of the consequences of being a techie staff member I suppose). I do recall thinking at the time just how incredibly petty and narrow minded Scientologists can be, but the lies in those reports were staggering. Haha, gives me comfort now knowing I got on their nerves. What a snitch culture!
Right, Yawn! Better not 🙂
Actually in my own defense, she did sneak up on us – -somehow all of a sudden she just THERE right behind us, barking out that order…it was non sequitur…weird. She was weird. Screw her. I didn’t like her style. I can take orders, you know.I can listen and pay attention and take orders and follow them, and I can give orders too. And I know how to give them in a way that gets listened to and followed without behaving like someone who grew up in a cave.
Got it on all the TTSBR’s. I’ve received my share of them but unlike your experience I was copied on them. I think it was a way for Scientologists to vent. They mostly wrote these their own viewpoint, supporting their own opinions and leaving out inconvenient facts. And some of the KR’s written on me were quite outpointy too – mostly opinion and conjecture, not observations or facts. I KR’d some of these people back for not knowing how to write a KR 🙂
My take on the SO is that these people are pumped up into believing that they are a special breed of people and therefore are above all beings not of their group. Trust me, I had quite a few run ins with SO members where they came off as bigger beings than myself.
Sort of the way Baldur Von Schirach trained the Hitler Youth.
Alcoboy, I hear you with regard to the SO being pumped up into believing that they are a speckial breed of people and therefore superior to all other beings, etc.
I do get and I have no doubt that you’re correct on this assessment of their belief in their own superiority.
I’ve had the privilige of meeting and becoming well aquainted with several “superior” people/ Well liked, admired, trusted and greatly respected as well as monetarily successful in their fields , they were decent, modest, down to earth types. They could relate to janitors or wealthy tycoons and be respectful of both.
A different kind of energy emanated from them. When you got to know them you realized how superior they truly were.