I was never silenced by anyone

There is lots of talk lately in other blogs about me being "shut up" by Commissioner Marc Sarnoff. Now while we have had our disagreements, he has never threatened me or told me to shut up or be quiet or to stop taking comments. He did threaten suit that time over a comment that someone left, but that is old news. He apologized to me about it the next time we ran into each other.

These various blog posts make me sound like a little scaredy cat who was frightened into shutting up. This is not true. A few years ago, I was constantly threatened by a big developer who didn't like the negative comments that were written by readers about his condo project. I never removed the comments or stopped them because of him.

I have not written about Sarnoff or any politics lately because there has not been much going on which is the case with Miami politics in the summer. The City Commission has not even met during the month of August. As for comments, the comments were ended because the Grapevine was being used by everyone and anyone to cause trouble under the name of "anonymous." The Grove is quite a small village and it was to the point where people stopped speaking to each other, all due to the venomous anonymous comments in the Grapevine.

When a friend told me that I only posted stories to elicit many comments, that was the last straw. I never wrote to get responses. I was the fool who had to wade through all those negative responses. Why would I want that?

As for being shut up, I have never been shut up by anyone (except maybe Daisy Lewis at various committee meetings and I've had to literally pay up for that). I just wanted the Grapevine to be a kinder and gentler place. It was turning me into something I wasn't and I didn't like the tone the whole thing was taking. I wanted to be running the Daily News of Coconut Grove, not the "he said, she said news of Coconut Grove." People actually stopped reading the Grapevine because of all the ill will. Now readership is up. Now people come here to get news and event updates, not to put down their neighbors on a daily anonymous basis.

I will write about local politics again when there is something to write about. I think our last big event was Patrick Sessions stepping down from the Village Council due to his disagreements with Marc Sarnoff. I was the first to write that story and I was at the meeting where he stepped down, Patrick actually asked me to be there. I gave up going to another event so that I could be there and cover it.

So I understand where these other bloggers are coming from, they want to use whatever ammunition to put down Marc Sarnoff that they can and at the same time they are standing up for me. But saying that he and his posse threatened me into silence is not the case. It never happened. And if it did, you would be reading it here with the largest type face I could find.