Who’s afraid of Lisa Gonzalez Moore?

During the primary, I wrote a column describing the dirty tricks being played on Manatee County Commission Republican candidate Elizabeth Arnold, based on some excellent investigative reporting by Dawn Kitterman. Mrs. Kitterman recently wrote a similar piece on the dark-money attacks targeting Bradenton City Councilwoman Lisa Gonzalez Moore. Allow me to expound on those shenanigans as well. 

The race is nonpartisan, but it is well known that Lisa Gonzalez Moore has been a Republican since she turned 18 and became eligible to register to vote. Yet, running the same playbook with a lot of the same players that were involved with the attack on Arnold, certain people acting on behalf of certain special interests are spending a whole lot of other people’s money on the character assassination of Gonzalez Moore, who has been one of the most ethical and principled public servants I’ve had the pleasure of observing as Manatee County’s most tenured editor and opinion columnist. 

As such, I know a few things regarding how inconvenient the good old boys at the City of Bradenton can find it when you start asking questions about business that seems less than above board. In 2011, I smelled a rat when city officials proposed redeveloping the River Grande Hotel, also known as the Pink Palace, which currently houses the decidedly less grand or aesthetically charming Hampton Inn downtown. The Bradenton Downtown Development Authority was set to kick in $6.3 million in public assistance. I noticed that the DDA chair (current state rep and Blalock Walters attorney Will Robinson) had abstained from the vote.

Curious as to why, I managed to discover that it had been unreported that Robinson was himself representing the New York-based developer. While he had abstained, I pointed out that bringing such business before your fellow board members and receiving such questionable largesse raised more than a few red flags. The City Council reconsidered at its next meeting, just days later, and despite Robinson and the developer claiming a deal could never be done for less, they ultimately did it for about half as much from the DDA alone, saving money that would have done nothing but pad the profits of some out-of-state firm.

There was also that time I pointed out that City Manager Rob Perry’s presentation of an unsolicited offer to buy and redevelop City Hall, tied to politically connected developer Ron Allen of NDC Construction, didn’t sit right. The offer was suspiciously close to a seemingly low appraisal of $10.46 million Perry had secured from a firm out of Jacksonville, of all places. That seemed remarkably low to me, and after the reporting caused public backlash, the ensuing deal, which still went to NDC and another New York-based partner, was for $4.1 million more than the original unsolicited offer, a significant increase for the taxpayers that once more would have just padded someone’s bottom line.

These are just two big-ticket items among many, showing that if you dig beneath the surface of dealings tied to the City of Bradenton, you often find dirt. Mrs. Gonzalez Moore asks questions, and some people simply do not like that. The current attacks on her come from familiar fronts: first, PACs tied to political crank and first-rate social media troll Agatha Mantanes. I suspect Mantanes falls squarely into the useful idiot category, and I’ve heard that a certain ex-county commissioner is regularly tied to events with her Christian Family Coalition Manatee PAC, where she serves as chair, treasurer, and registered agent.

There’s also David Ramba, a Tallahassee lobbyist, attorney, and political committee operator whose work routinely intersects with developers, elected officials, government contracts, and campaign financing throughout the state. Ramba is a major player whose involvement in PACs shows up  as having served as treasurer 128 times, registered agent 106 times, and chair 60 times on PACs across one tracking database.

Perhaps not coincidentally, Ramba is not only the registered lobbyist for the Manatee County Port Authority, which is chaired by Mike Rahn, but also the treasurer and registered agent for Mike Rahn's political committee, Friends of Mike Rahn. His firm gets a huge chunk of money for its lobbying work for SeaPort Manatee. At the same time, he serves as treasurer and registered agent of Rahn's political committee, orchestrating PAC ads meant to keep Rahn in his current role. That’s not illegal, but it nevertheless stinks to high heaven.

Last, but certainly not least, there’s failed politician Mark Flanagan, whom the RPOF installed as Chair of the Manatee Republican Executive Committee after it disbanded the body following the 2024 election results without seating the committeeman and committeewoman who won actual elections. Flanagan has an unhealthy obsession with me, publisher Joe McClash, and The Bradenton Times that seems to stem from a man crush he had on a young conservative podcaster who fronted a billionaire-backed political group.

According to McClash, Flanagan accosted him at a Publix and, through a sweaty, quivering upper lip, kept repeating “Just another day, Joe? Just another Day?” regarding a then-recent column of mine in which I decried the weaponization of the murder of Charlie Kirk. The incident suggested that while Flanagan can read words, his comprehension of them leaves much to be desired.

The column opens:

On Wednesday, there were two more school shootings in the United States. One adult was killed, and two children were seriously injured. If you didn’t hear it that way, I’m not surprised. One event was treated as a political assassination of unparalleled national import, while the other was treated as just another day that ends in Y.

Flanagan appears to have thought that the comparatively minuscule media attention given to the Evergreen High School shooting that I was clearly lamenting was somehow me being dismissive of Kirk’s murder. I won’t insult my decidedly more literate readership with any further attempt to explain.

I first learned of Flanagan from my late friend Dutch Powers, an old political operative I met through McClash when I moved from Sarasota County to Manatee to work for The Bradenton Times. Dutch was one of the most entertaining people I have ever encountered, and we became fast friends after we realized our homes were only a few blocks apart. We’d get together, sometimes over a glass of Rhum Barbancourt, an aged Haitian rum I introduced him to, and talk shop. We became such good buddies that, when he passed in 2014, his widow asked me to give the eulogy. 

Dutch had a way with words I still envy, particularly when describing candidates he’d worked with, which I noted in a tribute column after his passing. He had actually worked with Flanagan in his failed bid to replace retiring Florida Senator John McKay. Dutch referred to Flanagan as a “closet candidate,” a term he used for politicians so unlikeable you needed to lock them in a closet during the campaign and hope the advertising could pull them across the finish line, because if they opened their mouths in front of voters, it would be over.

Unfortunately for Dutch, Flanagan repeatedly opened his mouth during the Republican primary against Mike Bennett, an immensely talented politician who pulverized him in every debate, won in a landslide, and went on to serve 10 years in the seat before becoming Manatee County Supervisor of Elections. Bennett raised over half a million dollars in that campaign, a record at the time, which most attributed to the powerful and popular McKay’s deep disdain for Flanagan and refusal to allow him to succeed McKay in the seat.

Ironically, McClash supported Flanagan in that race and others, yet allowing me to publish an editorial that Flanagan found unfair to the guy he had a bro-crush on has clearly erased any goodwill. As MREC chair, he sent out mass texts and “safety alerts,” falsely accusing me of calling Kirk a racist. I did note that the Charlie Kirk Show often used racially bigoted language and provided links to clear, unassailable examples, but bigotry seems to have a much narrower definition to privileged gray-haired white men in the South. Flanagan then suggested my journalism was putting Manatee County Republicans in physical danger and urged them to call on McClash to fire me. 

I knew then that the purpose was to impugn me, Joe, and the publication ahead of the 2026 midterms after our reporting led to historic change in 2024, much to the chagrin of the deep-pocketed special interests that had installed him as their dimwitted stooge at the MREC. That is exactly what he’s doing to Gonzalez-Moore. Flanagan joined the effort to impugn Gonzalez-Moore via The Bradenton Times endorsement of her candidacy against Keith Green, a political grifter who speaks out of both sides of his mouth more fluently than a Cardinal speaks Latin. 

As we previously reported, Gonzalez-Moore had been the victim of deceptive, dark-money attacks. Ramba's Floridians for Public Safety PC, and Mantanes' Christian Family Coalition Manatee PAC have sent out ads promoting the developer-favored Green and Kemp Schuessler (Ward 3). Additionally, Mantanes' PAC sent ads to Democrat and NPA voters promoting Gonzalez-Moore as "MAGA to her core," followed by a "correction" ad that claims she was "triggered" by being called a "staunch Christian Conservative" and ran to the Bradenton Times claiming the PAC was trying to “mislead voters.”

Most recently,  a PAC tied to political operative and self-proclaimed ‘professional propagandist’ Jennings DePriest sent out a decidedly low-rent attack ad, again tying Gonzalez-Moore to Trump.  The America Only PAC, chaired by DePriest with Noreen Fenner as registered agent, sent out texts to Dems and Independents thanking Moore for being a "registered Republican" who stands with the decidedly unpopular president on issues like body autonomy, deportation, and the forced use of the English language.  She's too liberal for Republicans, too MAGA for non-Trumpers, but don't worry, their developer puppets are just right. 

Here’s the takeaway, folks. The same special interests who installed a bunch of developer puppets in 2020 to destroy our local wetland protections, pass impact fee giveaways that leave us without adequate funding for the infrastructure their development necessitates, and protect a bunch of developer stooges within our bureaucracy have a very clear agenda for this election. They need to get Mike Rahn, Amanda Ballard, Keith Green, Kemp Schuessler, Jordan Varnadore, Bill Conerly, and Sydney Gruters elected. 

Lisa Gonzalez Moore and the other candidates The Bradenton Times has endorsed, whether Democrats or Republicans, are standing in the way of their continued pillage-for-profit playbook that has set our community on a road to ruin. While some members of the community are willing to go along as patsies in order to make a buck or feel as if they are still relevant, we connect the dots so that voters can decide whether their interests align with those of billionaire developers and their closet candidates, or principled people like Lisa Gonzalez Moore, who are willing to swim through the sleazy sewers of Manatee County politics to protect our quality of life. Vote accordingly.

Dennis "Mitch" Maley is an editor and columnist for The Bradenton Times and the host of our weekly podcast. With over two decades of experience as a journalist, he has covered Manatee County government since 2010. He is a graduate of Shippensburg University and later served as a Captain in the U.S. Army. Click here for his bio. Mitch's new novel, Fish Kill, is currently available here, along with his previous books. He can be reached at editor@thebradentontimes.com.