> Letter by chief triggers reminder
>
> After the police chief responds to a newspaper editorial, the interim city
> manager says he wants to see such correspondence.
>
> By LEON M. TUCKER
> St. Petersburg Times
> April 3, 2001
http://www.sptimes.com/News/040301/NorthPinellas/Letter_by_chief_trigg.shtml > After the police chief responds to a newspaper editorial, the interim city
> manager says he wants to see such correspondence.
>
> CLEARWATER -- Two days after the St. Petersburg Times published a letter
> written by Clearwater police Chief Sid Klein, the city's intermim city
> manager sent an e-mail reminding department heads to run such
> correspondence by him first.
>
> Klein submitted a letter to the Times disputing a March 22 editorial that
> suggested Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Judge Thomas Penick is responsible for
> keeping the peace between the Church of Scientology and anti-Scientology
> protesters.
>
> The editorial stated Penick "has the unenviable task of refereeing
> sidewalk skirmishes."
>
> "That responsibility falls to the Clearwater Police Department," Klein's
> March 30 letter says. "Without off-duty police officers standing by to act
> as school yard monitors for these two groups, we would have to continually
> send on-duty police officers to break up confrontations. . . . (and) to
> quell these venomous, juvenile exchanges."
>
> Under the arrangement, the church pays $25 an hour per officer to have two
> uniformed officers work 8 1/2-hour security shifts 365 days a year. The
> department gets $2.50 per hour for administrative costs.
>
> Klein, who has been police chief for 20 years, declined to comment for
> this story.
>
> Interim City Manager Bill Horne, who was appointed to the job in July,
> said he and other officials took issue with the tone and content of the
> letter, calling it "too emotional, too harsh" and not completely
> reflective of the city's position on the matter.
>
> "The feeling is it may have had an emotional tone that we thought might
> not have been appropriate," he said. "We want to make sure we are
> communicating appropriately."
>
> "You might have the right facts," Horne added. "But if you communicate
> them in a way that alienates your listeners, then what have you
> accomplished?"
>
> Horne also said that although the Police Department has its own public
> relations staff, matters that address the city as a whole require input
> from a higher level.
>
> "It's not a matter of us trying to tell the chief how to run his
> department," Horne said. "When we are responding to editorials, we want to
> make sure that response is well written in tone and content so that we are
> communicating effectively."
I'm glad that Bill Horne acted as he did. Since the newspaper doesn't seem to be about to print my letter in response to Sid Klein. I might as well post it here.

_______________________ Sid Klein protests about your editorial concerning the Clearwater Police working for Scientology yet his attacks on your newspaper and on the group of which I am connected, The Lisa McPherson Trust, ring hollow. He spends eight paragraphs explaining how bad we all are then he closes by saying that he "fully intends to extricate the Clearwater Police Department from this untenable situation."

Sounds to me as though Sid Klein agrees with your newspaper's editorial that having the police on Scientology's payroll is not a good idea. Sounds to me as though Sid Klein is agreeing with Judge Penick that "the Clearwater Police are dangerously close to becoming Scientology's security force."

Sounds to me as though Sid Klein is agreeing with my video documentary that shows clear evidence that some of the officers working for Scientology are biased against the Lisa McPherson Trust.

I've followed Clearwater's experiences ever since 60 Minutes aired their first piece in 1980 about Scientology coming to Clearwater under a phony name and setting out to destroy then mayor Gabe Cazares. I was well aware of the attacks that Sid Klein and his department have faced from Scientology over the years. I've seen the footage of thousands of Scientologists surrounding the Police Station. I've read the slanderous attacks from Scientology's magazine, "Freedom."

Shortly after I moved here 14 months ago, I met Sid Klein at a Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast. I saw a table of officers and went over to them to tell them how much I admired the Clearwater Police. The officer closest to me looked at me and said "If you get in our way, you'll be the next to get arrested." I was taken aback by this snarled threat and asked the officer's name. It was Sid Klein. This threat was repeated by Chief Klein to one of our attorneys a short while later.

Moving here, I knew I would be taking on a dangerous cult but I never imagined I'd be fighting Clearwater's Police Chief as well. Yet, as retired Police Lt. Ray Emmons says, "Some people just don't like it when you pull the skunk's tail. Scientology is the skunk they'd just as soon no one got near."

The Lisa McPherson Trust is not "fueled by hatred and disgust" as Sid Klein would have you believe. The police do not "physically step between these combatants on a daily basis." Stop by and take a gander down Watterson Street and you'll see two officers lazily sitting on lawn chairs next to their Scientology handler for 8 and a half hours every day, collecting a nice fee from this group which they once kept under surveillance. Watch my videotape and you'll see some of those same officers refusing to question a man who attacked me with a hammer (who, it turns out, was a fugitive from the law) and turning a blind eye to Scientologists who've punched us ON CAMERA.

The video is available online at our website (www.lisatrust.net) and will soon show up on TV as well. I have made repeated offers for Sid Klein, Rob Surrette, Wayne Shelor or any representative from the Police Department to appear in an updated version of the video and they have refused. I make that offer again through your paper.

In 1995, Capt. Paul Maser swore in an affidavit for the Clearwater Police Department that Scientology is a organization that attacks its enemies ruthlessly. I would remind Sid Klein of that affidavit. I would remind him, as well, that members of the Lisa McPherson Trust are also residents of Clearwater and "entitled to the same treatment and protections afforded every other resident and visitor of this city."

I would also ask him what, if any, information he has relied on to change his opinion of the ruthless Scientology organization.

Mark Bunker

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