I have been posting about Charlie Grapski, the honest elections activist who is running for the Florida House of representatives since this May 6 diary: Citizen-activist arrested while investigating election irregularities. Other reports on Charlie’s situation have been collected here. Raw Story reported on this developing story in the June 12 article Florida House candidate to face litany of criminal charges after alleging vote fraud. Miriam Raftery, the reporter who covered that story, has now written a follow-up article for the same publication: Florida House candidate banned from City of Alachua by judge
The ban occurred after Grapski was evicted by police from an Alachua City Commission meeting at which he attempted to have several items removed from a consent calendar – a list of non-controversial items that can be voted on without debate.
Mayor Jean Calderwood ordered police to remove Grapski when he invoked a parliamentary procedure – a point of order which he says they refused to recognize – and then made a parliamentary inquiry asking what the rules of order are that a citizen may invoke who sees the Commission breaking the law. Grapski contends he was attempting to prevent commissioners from violating Florida’s Sunshine Law, which requires public input for controversial measures.
Read the rest of the article here.
