Resident defends council candidate
To the editor:
I would like to respond to the inflammatory, and untrue, letter to the editor by Frank Schilling in the Feb. 4 issue of another newspaper.
Mr. Schilling stated that Carl Conley is a convicted FELON and cannot vote! HOGWASH! Carl Conley was convicted of a drug offense in 1989, and served almost a year in jail, with no probation or parole for a low-level offense. He wasn’t even disbarred from law practice — he was only suspended for two years.
He has had all his Civil Rights restored — in Ohio for 20 years by statutory law and in Florida by the Governor’s Board of Executive Clemency.
Carl is a registered voter on Fort Myers Beach and has voted in elections here for many years, missing only one when he was out of the country.
All this information has been available for years. In fact, Carl published an editorial in another newspaper about it years ago.
Carl had a problem over 22 years ago, but has overcome it and probably is a better person now as a result.
I taught a lot of pilots how to fly decades ago. When I encountered a student who never seemed to have a problem and everything came easy, it was my job as an instructor to create simulated emergencies so that he would know how to deal with them. Life is full of problems. It is how you deal with them that defines the kind of person you are.
Those of us who have watched Carl’s performance as Editor and Founder of the Island Sand Paper and service in Civic functions know what an intelligent fair-minded person he is. I feel he would be an outstanding member of the Fort Myers Beach Town Council.
Don Kyte
Fort Myers Beach