It’s always interesting when the national press decides to take a look at Scientology’s actual doings in places like California or Florida, and what a fine job writer Christopher Kuo does for the Wall Street Journal on the situation in Clearwater.
This is a great overview of the recent battle over a downtown street that Clearwater’s beleaguered city council decided to hand over to Scientology leader David Miscavige for his L. Ron Hubbard Hall project that has the town so divided.
The piece looks at the background of that clash, from Scientology’s surreptitious 1975 invasion of the Gulf Coast town, to the Tampa Bay Times investigation by reporter Tracey McManus in 2019 about how Scientology had doubled its footprint downtown by having wealthy church members buy up more properties.
The Journal has to be cautious about suggesting that the church was behind this buying spree, but of course it was.
More recently, it’s been interesting to see the Clearwater council wrestle with Scientology’s ask for a portion of South Garden Avenue, and the way councilman David Allbritton temporarily opposed the request.
And now, the Journal provides some revealing new information about how Allbritton decided to get Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier involved, because Scientology asked him to:
“Did anyone from Scientology, or a representative from Scientology, ask you to write this letter?” the mayor asked.
“I met with Scientology, but they didn’t specifically ask me to write the letter,” Allbritton replied. He added, “I just felt like I needed to have advice from somebody.”
Seven months later, in a June interview with the Journal, Allbritton said the church had asked him to involve Uthmeier in the street dispute. Scientology representatives had requested a meeting with him in November to ask how he planned to vote when they resubmitted their application for the street, Allbritton said. The meeting, at the church’s Clearwater headquarters, included David Miscavige, the church’s top leader, he said.
“I said, ‘I’ve got an issue with the land ownership.’ And they did say, ‘Well, why don’t you ask for an attorney general opinion?’” Allbritton said. “There was no coercion at all, but they did ask me that.” He said he thought about it for a week before writing to Uthmeier.
Well, isn’t that interesting. Dave was in the room as they asked Allbritton to get the new attorney general involved, who, Kuo points out, already had a connection to Scientology…
Uthmeier has a local connection. In 2024, Patricia Duggan, a wealthy Florida Scientologist and a major donor to the church, gave $1 million to a political committee chaired by Uthmeier, then chief of staff for Gov. Ron DeSantis, according to campaign-finance records. The church said it doesn’t direct political contributions of parishioners.
And of course Trish Duggan is also a major donor for President Trump, who put her on the new Kennedy Center board after his election.
Despite Scientology’s recruiting woes, it’s still doing well in Tallahassee and DC thanks to its wealthy donors.
These are things that we here at the Bunker and the folks at the Tampa Bay Times have been pointing out for years, but it is great to see the Journal weigh in, and provide new details.
Now, will the people of Clearwater ever get the message about how, if they keep electing clowns like Mike Mannino and Ryan Cotton, they’re never going to be anything other than a doormat for Scientology?
More tickets! More tickets!
As first heard on the Group Therapy podcast…
In response to popular demand, we are pleased to announce more tickets are now available for those of you who missed out last time. This second release has extremely limited availability and once they’re sold out, there won’t be any more, so please head to howdycon2026.com to get yours before they’re gone!
Want to help?
Please consider joining the Underground Bunker as a paid subscriber. Your $7 a month will go a long way to helping this news project stay independent, and you’ll get access to our special podcast series…
Group Therapy: Our round table of rowdy regulars discussing the week’s news, which drops each Sunday at noon.
Also, you can support the Underground Bunker with a Paypal contribution to bunkerfund@tonyortega.org, an account administered by the Bunker’s attorney, Scott Pilutik. And by request, this is our Venmo link, and for Zelle, please use (tonyo94 AT gmail). E-mail tips to tonyo94@gmail.com. Find us at Threads: tony.ortega.1044 and Bluesky: @tonyortega.bsky.social
For the full picture of what’s happening today in the world of Scientology, please join the conversation at tonyortega.org, where we’ve been reporting daily on David Miscavige’s cabal since 2012. There you’ll find additional stories, and our popular regular daily features:
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
Random Howdy: Your daily dose of the Captain
Here’s the link for today’s post at tonyortega.org
And whatever you do, subscribe to this Substack so you get our breaking stories and daily features right to your email inbox every morning.
Scientology can play the long game. Always. It has a “Billion Years” to use its tactics to get what it wants. Its pawns and money play a big part.
Gift link: https://www.wsj.com/us-news/locals-are-clashing-with-scientologists-over-the-future-of-this-florida-downtown-4f438234?st=MQkfi5&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink