Guess who is going to be placing a FOIA request or two?
While little old Josh, from Garcia Group was busy buying back packs and votes at the same time it seems that he was overseeing the agency, as Member of the FWC Board of Governors, that is involved in criminal investigations of FWC Board Detractors.
It’s all about the relationships, right Carmine !
The Miami Herald reported that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission accessed sensitive driver database records on activists who had criticized the agency. Officials described the searches as safety precautions. Critics called it monitoring of opposition.
Whatever the final legal judgment, the episode illustrates a deeper problem: when the same networks that hold regulatory power also hold major economic interests, the line between public authority and private advantage becomes difficult to see.
That dynamic is not abstract in Indiantown.
Josh Kellam serves as a commissioner on the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. He is also CEO of the Garcia Group. Through Garcia, he acquired the historic Seminole Inn. Garcia Companies and its affiliate Terra Lago are active development interests in the area.
Both Kellam and Garcia are connected to the Economic Council of Indiantown, the local body where business and political relationships concentrate. Garcia has publicly supported the current Village Council. The same company underwrote a high-visibility school-supply event at which sitting elected officials received the microphone and public praise, while opposition voices had no formal role.
These facts do not need to be stretched into conspiracy. They form a pattern of concentrated access. A man who helps set statewide wildlife and environmental policy also leads a development company with direct local stakes.
That company sits inside the ECI, maintains close relationships with current leadership, and sponsors community events that give officeholders favorable stages. Local observers further note that state grant relationships have been facilitated through political proximity to the governor’s office. Whether every grant is properly documented is a matter for records. The appearance of aligned interest is already visible.
Economic capture rarely announces itself. It operates through overlapping roles, shared memberships, sponsored goodwill, and controlled information environments. One day it is a school-supply stage. The next it is a data-center “learning” session that excludes opposing views. Over time the public stage tilts. Residents begin to feel that decisions are made elsewhere, by people who already know each other.
Indiantown still has elections. Numbers still matter. The question is whether enough people will notice the pattern of overlapping power before the direction of the place is treated as already settled.
Florida wildlife officials repeatedly searched personal driving records as they secretly investigated at least a dozen outspoken environmental activists who opposed the state’s efforts to revive bear hunting and enshrine hunting and fishing rights in the state constitution, records obtained by the Orlando Sentinel show.
“There is a clear abuse of power,” said Katrina Shadix, the head of Bear Warriors United and a self-described eco-warrior from Seminole County who scored a landmark victory last year in federal court against the Florida Department of Environmental Protection for violating the Endangered Species Act.
Shadix is among at least 13 people who belonged to an Instagram chat group devoted to environmental issues.
Shadix said she’s consulted with the attorneys who represented her in her successful case against the DEP, and they told her the FWC clearly abused its power. A federal lawsuit is in the works, she said.
She hopes that drawing attention to this secret investigation and suing the FWC will help strengthen the environmental community’s ongoing efforts to reform the agency.
“They are breaking federal law to take our right to free speech,” Shadix said. “That is especially heinous because these are some of the most powerful and influential people in Florida. They didn’t want the truth spoken to power. We’re not going to put up with it.”
Wow.. people,better wake up. This was the perfect little,town to do what they wanted no one would see what’s going on in thru small little,village that could,be taken advantage of.. soo,sad,