Apparent hoax sparks racism allegations at Sarasota commission meeting

An apparent hoax spilled over into the City Commission Chambers on Tuesday and led to a citizen being publicly vilified as a racist, the result of a three-pronged attack against a local business, a city commissioner and a local government watchdog.

Commissioner Kyle Battie added a late item to Tuesday’s meeting agenda, a discussion titled “Civility, Respect and Rhetoric.” 

Photo by Ian Swaby

Battie produced a printout of a purported Facebook post allegedly from Kelly Franklin, a private citizen and outspoken City Hall watchdog. The printout had been delivered in an envelope to Corona Cigar Co., a cigar bar at 22 N. Lemon Ave. 

It was crumpled because it was initially thrown in the trash by Corona Cigar Co. owner Tanya Borysiewicz’s secretary. Battie displayed the document on an overhead projector, clearly showing Franklin’s name and portraying her as a racist while repeatedly stating, “I hope this isn’t true.”

Courtesy image

It took little time to determine there was plenty of reason to question the authenticity of the document.

The printout of the alleged post showed a photo of Battie at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the business, which included its owner, accompanied by the words “Gorillas in the midst of being gorillas are on my mind.” 

Franklin had been public in her opposition to what she has called an illegal cigar bar, objecting to its use of sidewalk space as an outside seating and smoking area. 

However, her actual Facebook post that references gorillas was, indeed, about real gorillas and accompanied by nearly two dozen photos she took of the primates during a 2022 African safari with her husband, Ron Kashden.

“Knowing my love for word play, I wouldn't be surprised to see that as the caption on one of my photo safari pictures, but it was NOT on my posting about then-Mayor Battie's appearance at the opening of Corona Cigar,” Franklin wrote in an email. “I am the victim of a not very hard-to-do mashup of various Facebook posts into a composite.”

Following Battie’s monologue, which included several references to past personal experiences with racism, he asked commissioners for their comments. 

All of them expressed outrage over the alleged affront, without calling out Franklin by name — except for Vice Mayor Jen Ahearn-Koch, who questioned its authenticity.

“I know the individual here, and it's a person that I would never expect something like this to be written by or come from,” Ahearn-Koch said. “This is completely shocking to me, and I'm just very curious about what is this? Is it an email?”

“I don’t know what it is,” Battie replied.

That’s when Borysiewicz stepped forward and explained that the printed image arrived at her office in an envelope, where it was opened by her secretary and initially thrown into the trash. After it was retrieved and shown to her, Borysiewicz said she passed it along to Battie.

Even as commissioners were discussing the matter, a quick scan of Franklin’s Facebook feed, which is open for public view, revealed her most recent post as a tribute to Martin Luther King Jr. A keyword search for the word “gorilla” led only to posts about her safari — and photos of gorillas accompanying the caption.

After emails defending Franklin began pouring in to commissioners following the discussion, Mayor Liz Alpert encouraged the board to reopen the matter at the end of the meeting, herself offering an apology for not considering the document as a possible fabrication.

Defenders of Franklin then spoke.

“Racism is horrific. How dare you accuse someone of something so horrific without taking a moment to verify the evidence?” said Eileen Normile, who like Franklin is fellow member of the watchdog group CityPAC. “You don't have to be a former prosecutor, as I am, to see from a distance that your evidence is almost juvenile in its creation. You had in your hand a crumpled piece of paper with a black-and-white image purporting to be from someone's Facebook post, which anyone who is 5 years old can see is fabricated.”

Kashden, who is a candidate for Alpert’s District 2 seat on the commission, also spoke on behalf of his wife.

“This was some sick individual who not only denigrated Commissioner Battie, but also ended up denigrating Kelly and her professional career. I guess it was a two-for. Congratulations,” he said. “I am going to use whatever resources it takes to hire whatever professionals we need to first hunt down the person who did this, to investigate the information and get to the bottom of this. Whether it's civil or criminal, we will find the answers, and that I can assure you.”

While his colleagues worked to find a conciliatory tone short of an outright apology for a rush to judgment, Battie remained unconvinced, and that the response to the discussion focusing on Franklin as the victim was inappropriate. He said if it can be proven to him the document was a fake, he will apologize.

“You don't care about me. It's not your reality. You don’t have people hurl things at you and say things that are untrue on a day-to-day basis,” he said to everyone listening. “I'm here to hopefully give back to the community, not extract from it, but you want to extract an apology from me? I'll be the first to apologize if it's proven wrong. I hope that is wrong. But guess what? I don't expect much from you. I did, but I don't now."