A.G. Gancarski
Among the dozens of Jacksonville political players at Saturday’s news conference to address the wave of violent slayings were State Attorney Angela Corey and the Rev. R.L. Gundy.
They went to high school together, years back. Even planned reunions together. But the next reunion committee meeting with them might be strained.
Gundy has been on the offense against Angela Corey for years, and of late he has been working against her re-election… and getting compensated richly for that work.
Gundy, a petition collector and operative for Corey’s opponent, Wes White, has been creative in recent months. He attempted to shake down the Human Rights Campaign for $40,000 in consulting fees, yet settled for $10,000 to support the expansion of the Human Rights Ordinance to the LGBT community.
While that is still a work in progress, one opposed by Mayor Lenny Curry at this point, Gundy is still working. In an email titled “NOT INTIMIDATED,” Gundy described an awkward interaction with Corey.
“I spoke to her and extended my hand to her and she refused to shake my hand. She stated you are lying on me in the pulpit. What a statement. Is she now sending detectives or spies to check on church pulpits. My reply, no I have not lied on you from the pulpit. I am not intimidated by her or her tactics. She must have thought about it,” Gundy wrote.
(Grammar and punctuation in quotes are Gundy’s constructions.)
“Afterwards I look at her and stated I love you in spite of you. She embraced me and asked me where have I been in the last 3 years. Again. I said, I have not lied from my pulpit on her, she stated yes I did she heard it. Oh, we are sending people to record sermons now and comments. Considering she has never visited my church, that is interesting, we’re is the tape or the cd she purchased,” Gundy wrote.
Whether a piece of merchandise is tangible proof of attending a church is an open question.
Other observers at the meeting noted frostiness between Gundy and Corey, and the email is Gundy’s explanation.
FloridaPolitics.com heard from the Corey side, and they flatly denied they had sent spies to record the pastor. But they had heard Gundy trashing her years ago via YouTube, which created the frostiness today.
A recording exists of Gundy speaking at a rally from 2012 saying that the State Attorney was “manipulative, misleading, misguided, unfair, revengeful, questionable decisions, and equal opportunity’s been denied anywhere.”
Gundy also lashed Corey on the Angela Corey Out Now Facebook page in September 2015.
“The best way to accomplish this is to vote in the Republican primary by block voting. Jacksonville has unitary voting in the primary and unless you vote her out in the primary it will be difficult. For the first time for the good of the entire city, young and old should temporarily register as a Republican long enough to vote her out of office. I say this as a private registered independent voter who will follow my own advice,” Gundy wrote.
Gundy also posted this recently: “It is time for a change in the State Attorney’s Office. Let’s stay focus on the other part of the problem as others see it. Lack of consistency, questionable practices, lack of diversionary programs, over crowded jails, better civil citation programs, people in jail to long before trials and the lack of trust. Barking excuses and spreading malicious mistrust reminds me of Trayvon Martin case and others.”
Gundy was hired by Wes White to collect petitions, with an eye toward outreach to African Americans. White brought in Reverend Gundy’s outfit, for three separate payments of $2,000, two in July, and the final one in October.
White also gave a realpolitik defense of hiring Reverend R.L. Gundy, who opposed HRO expansion in 2012, but who had the scales fall off his eyes around the time the Human Rights Campaign gave him $10,000 to help sell the issue to black pastors.
“As far as Gundy,” White contends, “we share a deep and abiding faith in Jesus Christ. But he (his company) was hired primarily to secure ballot petitions (in the African-American community) AND parenthetically, to test the willingness of people to move over to the Republican Party.”
“By the way,” White adds, “I’m told that every dollar received by Gundy went to hiring John Q. Public, Jane Q. Public, and their kids, to work for the Wes White campaign in furthering a (my) conservative messaging that has traditionally been received with a jaundiced eye in certain quarters in the past.”
Corey’s focus on Saturday was on the “tragic murder of that precious 22 month old,” and “fighting for justice” for that young victim and the victims of so many other similar “senseless crimes.”
“I am NOT a politician and I do not mince words. When someone asks me about my feelings I always speak the truth,” Corey said.
