Mayor Andrew Gillum and the Mystery of 311 East Jennings Street-——
a morass of addresses, interconnections, swaps and deals raising questions about Mayor Gillum’s alliances.
Gillum was elected to the city commission in 2003 and became mayor in 2014; insists he has been told he is not the target of the FBI inquiry.
<><>local businessman J.T. Burnette, a major Gillum backer who in 2014 received $883,000 in city subsidies for developing a downtown hotel. He declined to comment for this story. Burnette, in fact, has become a major political player supporting candidates of both parties – by taking advantage of what’s known as the LLC loophole. Florida is one of several states that allows limited liability corporations – even if they have the same ownership — to contribute as separate individuals, permitting donors to give the maximum amount of $1,000 from each of their subsidiaries.
<><> 52 LLCs list the Jennings Street address, many of which have donated to state and local campaigns. Those businesses include Sunnyland Solar, connected to a city-subsidized liberal-loving clean energy project now under FBI scrutiny. Mayor Gillum voted in 2011 to give Sunnyland Solar up to $5.4 million in subsidies.
<><>The Jennings Street address also houses KaiserKane, a national security contractor with millions of dollars in federal contracts, including multimillion-dollar deals with the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice.
<><>KaiserKane, named in the FBI subpoena, actually bought the Jennings Street property in 2013 for $1.15 million, records show. The building was sold in 2016 to 311 Jennings LLC, a company that lists Burnette’s home as its corporate address. The Jennings building was sold again in March 2017 to the PACE Center for Girls, a Jacksonville-based nonprofit. KaiserKane still uses the address for its Tallahassee office on its website “contact” page. Cynthia Montgomery, a lawyer representing PACE, said her client is the lone occupant of the 12,000-square-foot building. KaiserKane President Melissa Oglesby did not return a call.
<><> Mayor Gillum’s actions have prompted other questions. Until last month, his campaign was operating out of 1550 Melvin, owned by longtime confidante Sharon Lettman-Hicks. It’s the same building he has worked out of in his side gigs, first as director of youth leadership for the advocacy group People for the American Way, then for Lettman-Hicks’ P & P Communications, where Gillum was vice president. Just what he did for P & P, though, is not known. The company has no website, no dedicated phone line and has not formally disclosed its clients.
<><> The building was bought with funding from the Northwest Florida Black Business Investment Corporation, a tax-exempt group that provides investment funding. Two of the investment corporation directors are part of a group that in July received $281,000 in Tallahassee community development money for exclusive rights to a development project in the city.
(hat tip RealClearInvestigations)
I get the impression that were he to be elected, he wouldn’t serve long because the indictments are not long in coming.
Cc