Mark Bunker makes the case for why Clearwater needs him to keep fighting Scientology

[Today’s guest post is by Mark Bunker]

I was reading your Whole Track flashback article from 7 years ago in which Rod Keller gives an alarming look at the future of downtown Clearwater in 2017 as the city launched its efforts to revitalize the area with Imagine Clearwater. Things sure looked bleak and we still have enormous challenges ahead as Miscavige plots and schemes while ducking process servers at every corner but we are fighting back and I thought it might be a good time to look at our progress.

Imagine Clearwater has been a huge success. Tens of thousands of people come to the park and to events at the amphitheater called The Sound and they love what we have created for the people of Clearwater and all who visit. When people are given a reason to come downtown, they do. Our problem remains the empty buildings which should be filled with shops and restaurants and would be if it were not for Miscavige’s criminal racketeering scheme of buying everything he could get his hands on and using it as leverage to bring the city to its knees. We’re not bowing yet. In fact, we’re fighting back.

We just finalized the contract to build 400 apartments on the old city hall property with retail, restaurants, a hotel and a beer garden going up to compliment the park and create new spaces for business that Miscavige can’t control. Our contract with the developer, Gotham, has safeguards built into it that will prevent Scientology from buying the project in a future downturn should one happen.

The county will be vacating all the properties they hold in downtown Clearwater in just a few years and the county is committed to keeping those properties out of Scientology’s hands and working with us to ensure that developers can create a thriving downtown despite Miscavige’s best efforts. Lex Luthor’s diabolical property schemes fail in every Superman film as will Slappy Miscavige’s plans. He will ultimately fail in this little game he is playing.

Four years ago, when I first ran for city council, a line of OT’s appeared in council chambers to warn that I was going to cost the city millions in lawsuits (hasn’t happened), that I would be leading riots in the street (hasn’t happened) and they demanded that I not be allowed to sit on the Downtown Development Board as that would be akin to having the head of the KKK or Hitler in their midst. Wild efforts were made to get rid of me once I was appointed to the board and for what? For merely suggesting that as respected high level members of Scientology they were in the best position to get answers as to why Miscavige and fellow members of Scientology were secretly buying property at up to 4-6 times market value and leaving them sit empty for years. Wow, what a shocking suggestion…but they couldn’t bang the gavel fast enough or loud enough to try to shut me up.

The DDB attorney concocted some nonsensical excuse to try to kick me out of the meetings. “Why do we need two ex-officio members on the board,” explained attorney Else Winters. “We’re just taking up some of Mr. Bunker’s valuable time.” I volunteered to be the member to stay on the board but that wasn’t her goal. To Mayor Hibbard’s credit and that of the rest of the city council, they weren’t going to let the DDB get away with their obvious ploy and they voted the keep me on the DDB to the mounting frustration of Ms. Winters.

Toward the end, she tried to use the 24 year old injunction against me in a meeting and that was one of her last moves. Unhappy with the terrible performance of the board under her guidance, the city council voted to dissolve the board and take over control of the DDB to properly lead the downtown in a new direction. Having a board primarily of Scientologists gave the appearance to many that Scientology runs the city which they don’t. If those Scientologists had just run the board effectively, they would still be in those positions. You’d think Hubbard management tech would have given them an advantage…and it might have if it hadn’t been pulled out of his ass like everything else Hubbard gave the world.

In 2017, when Miscavige didn’t like how the last council turned down his generous offer to control all of downtown and turn it into a sparkling wonderland if we just sold him the CMA property he coveted, he told the paper he would wait until he gets a new council. He then set in motion his scheme to own every available piece of property he could get his hands on. In a move of bad luck for Slappy, in 2020, the citizens put me on the next council and I have made it clear that in order for a land swap to move forward, Slappy has to move first. Come through with everything he promises and then we’ll sell him the CMA property. Short of that, the CMA property would best be used for a parking structure supporting the park and amphitheater.

There have been many discussions on how best to deal with Scientology’s interference with downtown. Eminent domain is one of the strongest possibilities. Here’s what you should know. If we were to seize a property, there has to be a valid reason for doing so and parking is crucially important, especially for the Sound. The city would have to pay market rate for the property which Scientology has vastly inflated with their under-handed secret purchases. On top of that, Scientology would undoubtedly sue the city. As I said, parking is a valid defensible use so it is not out of the question. Can it be used for every building they are leaving empty? No. The city couldn’t afford to pay the hundreds of millions needed to buy them, but also, anything bought through eminent domain has to be put to public use. A parking garage qualifies but you can’t seize a property and give it to a developer to put up retail stores. We continue to explore options.

Scientology remains the reason much of downtown is a nuclear wasteland but we are making progress. There is an election on March 19th and I hope I will get re-elected to continue standing guard as I believe former Mayor Gabe Cazares and police Lt. Ray Emmons would wish me to do. I sure wish I had their guidance but I did have their example of standing strong, unafraid of the dangerous organization in our midst.

I have something else this election. In my first race, I had the support of Leah Remini, the readers of the Bunker and the citizens of Clearwater. In this race, my opponents are not just Scientology but also the good-old-boy establishment who want to get rid of me every bit as much as Slappy does. But I am overwhelmed to see that in this race, I have earned the support of people who never would have backed someone taking on Scientology four years ago. The Clearwater firefighters and the Clearwater police FOP have endorsed me in this race and I have people and groups throughout the community that have seen that I am fighting for them in every way I can and not just on Scientology and they are giving me much more widespread support. Plus, people all around the country have been donating generously to the campaign allowing me to reach many more people in Clearwater than I ever could four years ago.

A former council member a couple of years back set in motion a change to the way we run elections to make sure that someone like me could never win a race again. A question on the ballot will ask if we should start doing run-off elections. If a candidate wins less than 50% of the votes, as I did last time in the five person race, we would have to immediately mount another expensive campaign. Run-offs favor the wealthy and the powerful, the good-old-boys who have always ruled. Minorities and those without funds are at a huge disadvantage in a run off. I limped to the finish line last time, exhausting what little funding we had by election day. If I had to campaign for another six months in a run-off I would have been buried. That’s the whole point.

Those rules wouldn’t apply in my race on March 19th, but I’m hoping that the rules aren’t changed for future candidates because I have seen first-hand how the establishment operates. Mayor Hibbard is a man I respected and liked. He lost two votes, one on bringing safety to a dangerous stretch of Drew Street which he and the business community didn’t want touched because it would add an extra three minutes for the drive from the highway to downtown. The other was when we voted four to one to finally proceed with a new city hall which had $30 million dollars set aside since we closed the old city hall in 2017 for the project. He quit mid meeting and went on a nationwide tour to burn us to the ground, telling Fox News we were building a $90 million dollar Taj Mahal for ourselves. That lie spread quickly and it continues to be used to try to defeat candidates in this race.

We’re spending $31 million wisely for needed infrastructure that will allow several key departments, now scattered, to be working under one roof, easily accessible to the public with a council chamber that hopefully will be as iconic as the one where Clearwater held a week’s worth of hearings on Scientology back in 1982. I was always in awe when I spoke to the council in those chambers back in 2000-2001. Mayor Hibbard wanted us to take over the library on the bluff next to the amphitheater for city hall, but we just spent $84 million dollars to activate that area for the public. The council doesn’t need offices with beautiful waterfront views. We have tiny windowless offices now and that is perfectly fine. The library needs to remain there for the public and we have something really amazing in store for the ground floor that will activate the building in a way that will be exciting for people who live in Clearwater and for those visiting. Another great way we can activate the bluff and enhance it as a destination.

Politics, like Scientology, can be dirty but I refuse to play that way and I am unwilling to shut my mouth. Mayor Hibbard once threatened to “take me outside” during a meeting when I pointed out that he was the only one on the council who knew Scientology had been interfering with an affordable housing project we had approved for downtown. That interference drove the project and the developer out of town. Mayor Hibbard was also the only one who voted against that project.

I will continue to stand up and speak out when I see injustice. I am proud when citizens in Clearwater thank me for that and I’m hoping to have another four years of fighting for them from within City Hall.

If Clearwater becomes the first “Scientology City,” it won’t be on my watch.

— Mark Bunker

Mark Bunker for Clearwater City Council 2024
www.markbunker2024.com

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Arbitration showdown moved back to March 26

We told you that Friday morning there would be a major early milestone in Jane Doe 1’s forced-marriage lawsuit, when Scientology’s motion to force the case into “religious arbitration” would be heard.

Judge Robert Broadbelt, however, in a tentative ruling chastised both sides for being sloppy with their filings, and has moved the showdown back to March 26. In the meantime, he asked both Jane Doe and Scientology to refile some things to get them in accordance with court rules.

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Source Code: Actual things founder L. Ron Hubbard said on this date in history

Avast, Ye Mateys: Snapshots from Scientology’s years at sea

Overheard in the Freezone: Indie Hubbardism, one thought at a time

Past is Prologue: From this week in history at alt.religion.scientology

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