Peyton Placers

When we look for the archetype of American small town life, there are two: Mayberry and Peyton Place. Mayberry is the daytime version, Peyton Place unzips at night.

Mount Dora’s problem, though hardly unique, is that it’s trapped somewhere inbetween.

In his Nov. 27 My Word column to the Sentinel, local resident Gary McKechnie writes,

Visitors see Mount Dora in its best light and leave with the lasting impression that they’ve just been to Mayberry. They’re right. It truly is one of Florida’s most appealing towns. But many residents — especially those engaged in the town’s day-to-day politics — see it less as Mayberry and more as Peyton Place. Behind the scenes, the irritating grain of sand that creates this pearl is entrenched alliances, battling factions, conflicting stories, power plays, bruised feelings, whisper campaigns, stubborn grudges, character assassination and, especially at election time, poison-pen letters mailed under a cloak of anonymity.

McKechnie takes Lake Sentinel columnist Lauren Ritchie to heavy task for her portrayal of new council members in a column that ran just after their first meeting on Nov.17.

Not even 24 hours after council members were sworn in, the new mayor’s gavel hardly had time to cool when Ms. Ritchie descended to ridicule to grind a 1,000-word ax questioning the motives and ability of each new member. Brutal lines like “dump all the crazy in a blender” and “new council members barged clumsily into office” and the appointment of “11 of their cronies to city positions” were juvenile, vindictive and ever so small.

Searching for a reason why Ritchie would write so callously, he looks to past tangles Ritchie has had with some of our more bellicose neighbors:

… My hunch is Ritchie is determined to continue her long-running grudge match with the group who felt elected officials, staffers and behind-the-scenes power brokers had long been dismissive, arrogant and unresponsive. This animosity carried over into her column and ignored the very real feelings of citizens who overwhelmingly backed the new council. In fact, in his first remarks Mayor Nick Girone noted that while on the campaign trail the most oft-heard comment was that “council doesn’t care.”

So the story become Ritchie’s bad blood and not the proceedings themselves, which by more than Ritchie’s account were shocking to observe.

No wonder there’s such a toxic feel to this. This isn’t about policy, it’s about bunched panties. Behind closed-doors stuff, where the gossip and whispers rule.

Apparently Mount Dora’s troubles must be kept here because there is a deep “fear of reprisals” by our government overlords.

It’s an open secret that many residents and merchants kept mum to preserve social harmony and protect their business interests. If they did discuss their feelings, it wasn’t uncommon to meet outside of town where frank conversations weren’t overheard and then dumped into the town’s rumor mill.

I’ve tried to get some of the aggrieved to share just what’s been bothering them so, but no one’s been willing to speak up yet.

Whatever motivated some citizens to vote the challengers in by wide margins (except for Girone, who won the mayor’s office by the only competitive margin), it wasn’t much publicized on the official campaign trail, such as it was. Except for vague references to “citizens first,” nothing was mentioned in the campaign literature or in what was discussed in the forums. (I still would like to know what was talked about in those “focus groups” where attendees were told that all candidates were invited but only the challengers were in truth.)

Now there’s a new sheriff in Peyton Place and the downtrodden will have their say. But what are they really saying? Just what are these bold citizens who have risked the ire of Lauren Ritchie and city government so courageously attempting to rectify? Platform, agenda anyone?

Guillotine?

The Peyton Place that first emerged in Grace Metalious’ 1956 novel is a composite of several New Hampshire towns, though it was always meant as the archetype of small-town life. Metalious said of it, “Truly a composite of all small towns where ugliness rears its head, and where the people to hide all the skeletons in their closets.” Three classes of life are crammed together, lust for each other’s wives and wallets, get drunk and raise hell before tidying back up for work and beauty shop the next day where all stories will be whispered and relayed.

The book was a hit, but the 1957 film adaptation took out all of the social commentary about class differences, keeping just the things below the belt where the salacious American attention is ever focused. (Metalious was said to have hated the film despite the taking some $400,000 in exhibition profits to the bank.)

The TV series that same seven years later and ran until 1969 is considered television’s first prime-time soap opera, lascivious enough to warrant airing at the then-late hour of 9 p.m. (when the kiddies were supposed to be in bed.) Stolen kisses, murders of passion, gossip and spite, drunken crimes committed deep in the night: All this is sexual politics, small-town life’s sordid subconscious like a teeming swamp just outside daily life.

Here in Mount Dora, however, sex doesn’t seem to be at issue. We’re all getting old for that. But what are crimes of passion without the sex? Are they even crimes, or simply the differences of opinion and character that is the bane of all small-town life?

Without finding a whiff of it from my 20 years of living in this town, I must be either massively uninvolved or clueless. Both I can accept, but someone is going to have to prove it.

Ritchie’s column has been roundly scorned by supporters of the new council for somehow being untrue for her not having attended the meeting. In a Facebook comment thread to a repost link to McKechnie’s column, Ritchie replied,

I am always surprised when people think that a reporter has to be at a meeting to know what’s going on. In my 36 years of experience, I have found that’s simply not correct … The information about the actions at the commission meeting came from the city clerk’s notes and from the city manager, hardly “cronies” since I’ve even met either of them in person.

They’ve also said there were “factual errors” in the piece, though none have been substantiated.

None of what she said, then, was at issue, but rather how she said it.

No one has addressed Ritchie’s point that the new council appointed people to committees without either opening the process to all citizens (as has been the custom for the past 20 years), or even providing the courtesy of letting those they were replacing know in advance. She said that city attorney Cliff Shepherd that too many had been appointed by the group to the bone-of-contention planning and zoning committees, adding that people can’t be added until the others have been removed. Not a word of thanks for their volunteer service, either.

She also reported that council tried to schedule a private meeting to talk about the situation with Medallion Home, which has continued to defy city zoning codes. According to Shepherd, only the city attorney can call a “shade” meeting.

She reported that some of the new council members have accused the city attorney and other staffers of violating state open government laws by having private meetings with individual council members. According to Shepherd, he is the city’s authority on sunshine laws, and this action violates none. (Council has said they plan to review his contract at tonight’s meeting.)

She reported that council also wants an “update” on the newly created position of assistant city manager held by the Mark Reggentin, who the Mount Dora News has been attacking with venom all years. (City manager Pastue has expressed his total support for Reggentin, which may draw him into retribution’s line of fire.)

This is all rock-the-boat stuff for a city in desperate need of stability as it enters the most turbulent development chapter of its history. Ritchie’s column concluded,

Nothing ((in the city’s performance)) has gone so awry that it warrants bringing in the flying monkeys. So far, this new group’s only accomplishment after one meeting is to jack up the city’s legal bill and make government operations less open to the public.

Instead of addressing any of these points, she has instead been attacked as if she has made bald accusations based on questionable reporting (how could she have written a column if she wasn’t there?).

Ritchie again, elsewhere in that comment thread:

I don’t mind people who disagree — Gary My Word is his opinion, and I respect that everyone has their own opinion. Heck, it’s what I do for a living. But if you’re going to imply that I somehow did something underhanded or wrong in how I obtain information — and that’s what you’re doing — you should be able to back it up, which you cannot. I notice that you read the column, even tho you say you’re not interested. And I notice that you didn’t claim that any of the facts were wrong. Trying to turn the public discussion away from the facts in an attempt to shoot the messenger is an old strategy that seldom works. What the new group of council members did is far more important to the people of Mount Dora than whether I went to a meeting. I’d be happy to debate that with you. Public discussion of the real issues is a good thing that keeps this democracy going.

Whether this is a ham-handed neophyte political regime bent on blood or a healing commission for city progress remains to be seen in how council behaves tonight.

Which brings us back to Mount Dora and the question of what Peyton Place has to do with major infrastructure projects, expansion of 441, negotiations on the land deals involved with the proposed Innovation District, prevent housing development in that area, address the city’s ailing urban canopy, continued to focus on needs downtown with parking, public transportation, the 5th Avenue corridor and waterfront development, avoid long-term deficit spending, improve city-county working relationships, develop the Lake/Wekiva Trail into downtown.

If the city has to endure a period of pulling down our pants and showing everyone our back-room privates — where the Peyton Place narrative has no other place to go — then let’s get it out and over with. J’accusers, batter up. Let’s find out where the evil corroding thread and threat in this town has worked so devastatingly, out of general sight but apparently in everyone’s minds. Let’s shine a light in there for all to see. Maybe Mount Dora is rotten with bad government. Maybe other bad eggs are part of the stink, or even the source. Much has been said about “political division” in this town, but so far I’m only aware of one side at war.

Let’s name it, claim it, solve it and then go on. Controversy gets so tedious in a town like this that has so much else going for it.

And then, I pray, we get our eye back on the real ball, the one that counts most for this little town trapped like every other between paradise and a long hard fall.