Adam WeinsteinI’m a journalist in Tallahassee, but I’ll be the first to admit there’s a lot I don’t know about how Florida politics really works.
I don’t get, for instance, how local PR maven Ron Sachs can demand $375,000 from the family of Eric Brody, a young man who suffered brain damage and paralysis in 1998 when his car was crumpled by a speeding Broward Sheriff’s Office cruiser. But here we are.
Sachs and his high-powered firm are taking Brody’s family to court for the big bill, which he says covers services rendered over four legislative sessions to help the family get a government settlement. “We never agreed to do this pro bono,” he told the Miami Herald.
Never mind that last year, a top Sachs staffer told the owner of this website that Eric Brody was her “favorite pro bono client.” (You’d think a high-powered PR firm would be better at staying on message.)
Sounds pretty grubby, and it is. But it’s not all Sachs’ fault: It’s the culture we’ve set up. Florida law caps claims against a public agency in the state at $200,000, which seems paltry when you consider how much it costs to provide lifelong care for someone like Brody. To get more, you need an act of the Legislature. Even if a court has already said you deserve it.
Which means you need Capitol hands like Sachs to do your rail-greasing, much in the same way a wee orphan needs a twisted drunk like Rooster Cogburn to do her wrong-righting in a lawless Wild West.
After years of trying, the Brodys finally secured a legislative award of nearly $11 million in 2012 –a fraction of what a Broward jury thought they deserved — and Sachs was there to take his due, even though the Legislature forbade any of the award from going to pay “lobbying fees, costs or similar expenses incurred.”
Sachs insists his efforts — described in the lawsuit as “substantial work to enhance public awareness and elected official awareness about Mr. Brody’s injuries and the necessity of the state to take action to ensure Mr. Brody was compensated” — are very different from lobbying. Which is why he deserves $15,000 a month for all the time he helped Eric Brody get a fraction of the restitution he deserved from a bunch of politicians who probably can’t tell Broward County from Brevard County.
For a PR guy, he seems not to realize how all this sounds to an outsider. Or heck, even to an insider: I’ve done speechwriting and media outreach before, and now I wonder if I was undercharging.
Rep. James Grant, R-Tampa, who sponsored Brody’s award and participated in a Sachs-orchestrated press conference to announce its passage, can’t believe anyone in Tallahassee is trying to squeeze a buck out of the family.
“If we would have known at the time that a PR firm was going to try and take credit for the bill passing while simultaneously claiming not to be a lobbyist, then perhaps we would have drafted some stronger language just to make sure,” Grant told WFSU.
How can Sachs spin this? By explaining the value of his service. For example, there was a personal touch to it all: His firm paid for the food and accommodations when the Brodys were in the capital, nearly 500 miles from home. “We treated them like family,” he said.
You know what family doesn’t do? Take you in, then bill you 15 grand a month for the trouble. Unless it’s a dysfunctional family. And at times like this, that’s precisely what Florida politics looks like to me.
Adam Weinstein is a Tallahassee-based senior writer for Gawker. He has worked for the Wall Street Journal, Village Voice, and Mother Jones. Column courtesy of Context Florida.
