Longtime government watchdog's latest target is Bonita Springs government

Ron Pure is arrogant, pugnacious and stubborn. And that's according to his friends. You should hear what his enemies call him.

But no one has ever accused him, in all his 61 years, of being apathetic.

The object of his energy is any government spending he deems unnecessary. No matter where he has lived, Pure has appointed himself the unofficial thorn in the side of those with a say-so over his tax dollars.

Be it a posh Connecticut suburb or a booming Southwest Florida community, the former advertising honcho's antagonistic persona has made him a persona non grata among public officials. But it has made him a champion to a class of residents who feel inordinately burdened by taxes and share in his conservative credo.

He's a fixture at Bonita Springs' City Council meetings, scrutinizing elected officials' every move. When they take an action he disapproves of, they can expect to hear from him.

It turns out that in Bonita, where more than half of the 20,334 registered voters are Republicans, his fiscally conservative message has tolled loudly in the ears of many.

Pure and a group of like-minded taxpayer advocates are leading a controversial campaign to put a clamp on the city's spending. They are pushing three proposed amendments to the city's charter. Among other things, the proposals would give voters a say on tax increases and require the city to refund any unused cash in its coffers.

Last week, Pure's grassroots movement claimed a big victory when, after two months of papering a petition around town, it surpassed the threshold of signatures needed to put the proposals on a citywide ballot. The referendum is set to coincide with the council's elections March 9.

Some 2,254 of Bonita's registered voters signed the Pure-led petition, Lee County election officials say. He needed 1,938.

Pure says the successful drive proves the people are on his side.

"There were people who felt that for too long taxes have been going up. With all this increased revenue, they wondered where all this money was going," said Pure, who is the president and chairman of the Taxpayer Action Group.

The City Council and the city manager have repeatedly reviled the proposed tax overhaul. If passed, the amendments would cripple the city's ability to do business and actually put more onus on taxpayers, they say.

City fathers are so concerned the TAG proposals might succeed, they recently hired a PR firm to take the city's point of view on the issue straight to the city's 40,000 or so residents.

TAG members are intentionally misleading residents, Councilman Ben Nelson said.

"The problem is it's such an inferior document. It seems to be made purposely simple ... and it's worked on so many people," the councilman said of TAG's petition. "There's so many problems, I don't even know where to start."

A man of the people?

What motivates Pure, a man who could be using his retirement years to refine his golf game like so many of his contemporaries, to plunge himself into such prolonged, grueling political fights?

His distrust of government, Pure says, dates back to his late-teen years in Westchester County, N.Y. Every day, he drove past a bridge project with a sign that proclaimed, "Your tax dollars at work for you."

Problem was that construction dragged on for months, and the project's cost kept creeping higher and higher, as listed on the sign.

"I remember thinking, 'What's going on here?' When I started asking people, they said, 'This is a typical boondoggle.' I asked people, 'Well, what are you going to do?'" Pure said. From then on, "I decided to question those in charge of this ridiculousness."

His passion really blossomed in Bethel, Conn., a town of 18,000 about 60 miles northeast of New York City. There, in the early 1980s, his frustration with the town's governing board spurred him to run for office.

He ran as an independent and finished fourth in a race of five hopefuls vying to become the town's first selectman, a position equivalent to a mayor. But Pure was successful in spreading support for his main campaign issue -- forcing developers to notify neighbors when they want to rezone land. The proposal eventually became law.

Pure had been running an advertising agency out of his Bethel home since 1978. Throughout the small town, he was, if not well-liked, at least well-known for his high-profile scraps with local officials, those who knew him say.

"He is very, very articulate," said Violet Mattone, executive director of Bethel's Chamber of Commerce. "I think Ron is an asset to a town. Now, you may not like him because he may be going against what you think is right. But I think it's always good to have someone who represents the other side."

He didn't just represent the other side in Connecticut; he broadcast it.

For years, Pure hosted a cable access show called "Bethel and Beyond." The show was well-crafted, folks recall, and featured interviews with everyone from local public officials to the man who eventually became the state's current governor, John Rowland.

Among his many guests was Judy Novachek, who was Bethel's first selectwoman until she lost her bid for re-election last month. Citing faulty voting machines, she is contesting the results in court.

Novachek, a Republican, said Pure rubbed public officials the wrong way. But she had a game plan for dealing with him.

"As long as you're open and honest, you have nothing to fear from him. Everyone has the right to be heard in this country. He's a very good researcher. You take the information he gives you and if it fits, well, fine. But if it doesn't, you've got a fight on your hands," Novachek said.

"He was often unbendable."

Like Bethel, like Bonita

In January, Pure and three other Bonita Springs City Council critics banded together to form what they call the Taxpayer Action Group. Their mission: to keep a watchful eye on the city's spending habits.

It wasn't the first time Pure had gone political with a cadre of fellow detractors. He created the Bethel Action Committee in 1985. The group was born during a furious lobbying spree against an $1,800 school board program that aimed to provide snow skis to third-graders.

Billy Michael headed the Bethel Action Committee for nearly a decade. The 52-year-old, who makes his living as a guitar player, considers Pure to be his mentor. When he heard about Pure's current efforts to alter Bonita's charter in the name of taxpayer rights, Michael interjected:

"It's quintessential Ron Pure what you're describing. He's fearless when it comes to taking on entrenched bureaucracies. He's got a constitution that allows him to stand up to any criticism," Michael said.

Pure, he said, taught him a new way of thinking, a way of looking beyond the newspaper headlines and accepted notions to see what really drives government: power-hungry special interest groups.

"People in government love to depict people like Ron as a lunatic fringe. In many cases, Ron may represent a voting bloc that's silent," noted Michael, who now heads his own group called the Connecticut Association of Taxpayer Organizations.

In 1989, the Bethel Action Committee accomplished its biggest feat to date. Pure and others were annoyed with a budgeting process they perceived to be controlled by special interests, particularly school officials. In New England, municipalities often manage local schools.

The group persuaded an overwhelming majority of the town's electorate to change Bethel's constitution. Now, the town's budget can't be officially approved until it passes muster in a townwide referendum.

This, Michael said, enabled town residents to exercise the purest form of democracy.

But others consider it a major headache to leave the budget to a popular vote. More often than not, it takes more than one vote to settle on a budget. In 1998, the budget finally passed on the sixth vote.

"I think it ultimately passed because people felt the whole town was getting a black eye from it," said Phil Gallagher, a retired teacher who served on the town's governing board at various times between 1987 and 2001.

Pure takes on a city

Like many Northerners before and after, Pure was attracted to Southwest Florida's subtropical sunshine. He also moved here to be closer to his son, who lives in Naples.

In the mid-1990s, Pure started renting a condo to stay during the winter in the gated community of Pelican Landing. In 2001, he shut down his business, Pure Communication. He and his wife, Margaret, bought a home in a northwest Bonita Springs neighborhood so they could stay for good.

Leisure apparently wasn't part of the plan.

In Pure, the just-incorporated, Gulf-front city of Bonita Springs found its first major critic. He inserted himself into several public controversies, sparring with City Council members constantly.

For instance, he certainly didn't make friends among council members when he called their attempt to pay themselves salaries a "joke." Or when, on practically countless occasions, he has chided them for spending $950,000 for a temporary city hall and another several hundred thousand dollars in refurbishments for the building. Or ... the list goes on.

The city's spending is out of control, Pure said. That's why he formed the Taxpayer Action Group.

"I think someone's got to do it, and I think it's the right thing to do. Rather than just sit back and complain about something, the word 'action' really means something to us. Anything that has been brought to (council members') attention by any member of this group has been ignored and avoided.

"So what are we then left to do but to take to task those who have been out of line with respect to spending taxpayer dollars?" Pure said.

TAG's arguments would carry more validity if the group's four members were less combative, Nelson said. They show no respect.

"They're horrible as lobbyists. When you negotiate with people, first you develop a relationship. And if you do it by poking your fingers in their eyes, how far are you going to get?" said Nelson, who owns a marine contracting operation.

When the 6-foot-3-inch Pure is standing at the lectern, Councilman Bob Wagner cringes. The retired businessman regards Pure as uncouth and disruptive.

"I don't think from what I can gather that any of the other councilmen would find his actions tolerable," Wagner said.

Another councilman settles upon even less charitable words for Pure's actions.

"I find him to be an arrogant smart-aleck with nothing to offer society. He's someone who's bent on destruction and far out of line. He's someone who has apparently crossed paths with a government agency and lost, and now he's seeking retribution," said Wayne Edsall, a real estate broker.

Pure has no apologies for his sour treatment of the city's elected leaders. He says he doesn't try to invite adversity.

"I think it goes with the territory. I think if you're advancing ideas, if they seem worthy and doable and I believe in them, I proceed accordingly," he said.

Another TAG member, Bill Lonkart, can usually be seen sitting next to Pure during council meetings. It's difficult for TAG to compromise when the council refuses to lend the group any credence, Lonkart said.

An investment banker with John Hancock Financial Services for the last 30 years, Lonkart said he has been through enough bull and bear markets to know a thing or two about managing money.

"We're not about getting anybody. We're just four concerned citizens who formed a group to try to be helpful. We all love Bonita Springs and we definitely think there's tremendous potential to do things differently. Ideally, what we want to do is to stop the spending," he said.

TAG members feel they have the answer for that.

A polarizing plan lives on

The day before Halloween, TAG members staged a public stunt to spur media coverage of their petition drive in Bonita Springs. As television cameras rolled, a man dressed in a Paul Revere outfit tossed a box of "tea" into Rosemary Creek. The box was actually empty and was quickly retrieved from the nearly idle current.

Historically inaccurate as this version of the Boston Tea Party was, its message was no less effective.

"We're precisely the kind of chumps politicians love. We complain about higher taxes, but we don't do anything about it. You folks are the exception because you're doing something," Pat McCourt, a TAG member, told the jubilant crowd of about 35 supporters.

For the next several weeks, TAG members took that message to the streets, literally. Pure waited outside post offices and the library for hours, encouraging passers-by to sign their names to his sheets of paper.

"It was a long-and-not-an-easy haul," Pure said. "It was not pleasant being in parking lots all day. I was losing 4 pounds a day in water."

During the campaign, TAG members practiced what they preached. Since January, the group has only taken in $525 in contributions and spent $249.29, according to treasurer reports filed with the county's elections office.

They call their proposal the "Taxpayer Bill of Rights."

It is made up of three charter amendments, which would cap annual spending increases at no higher than the federal government's inflation gauges "plus the percentage of population growth in the city," put any spending hikes above that to a referendum, ensure that surplus accounts are no more than 5 percent of the city's annual revenue, and refund any extra money to the city's residents.

Pure insists 90 percent of the people he encountered were enthusiastic about his group's proposals. City officials allege TAG members duped many people into believing the proposals would lower their annual property taxes.

"I liken them to a snake oil salesman," Nelson said. "They have this big pronouncement, 'Do you want lower taxes?' They sell it like it's a cure for everything."

Many residents have witnessed their property tax bills jump dramatically in recent years. That's especially true for those whose homes aren't protected by a homestead exemption, which caps at 3 percent the amount property values can increase from one year to the next.

Since 2000, the city's taxable value has ballooned from $3.5 billion to $5.3 billion. Officials attribute that skyrocketing, in part, to a robust demand for Bonita property. Increased development and annexation also play a role.

During that same span, Bonita officials have lowered the city's tax rate by nearly 20 percent, from $1.22 to 99 cents per $1,000 of taxable property value. For many residents, that means they pay the city less today than ever.

Take Pure, for example.

In fiscal 2002, the first year his home had a homestead exemption, $205 of his tax bill went to the city's coffers. This year, that total fell to $193.

The city's is one of a dozen line items that appears on the typical Bonita resident's annual property tax bill. Other items include the Lee County School District and the Bonita Fire District. All told, Bonita's taxes account for just a shade over 5 percent of that bill.

The city has no control over what the other taxing authorities charge or how much one's property value increases from year to year. So, whether TAG's proposal succeeds, residents have no guarantee they will see a difference on their bottom line, City Manager Gary Price has said.

One woman who signed TAG's petition later felt she had been hoodwinked once she read about Price's argument.

"Control of council's spending was not on my mind when I signed the petition, my real estate taxes were," Charlotte Evans wrote in a letter to the editor in the Bonita Banner. "But the proposal is phrased vaguely enough to fit any and all gripes."

Pure says it doesn't matter that city officials have been lowering the tax rate. The other side of the ledger -- the city's revenues -- is rising in a big way. The city's current budget of $69 million is a five-fold increase from its initial budget.

Taxpayers deserve that money, not the government, Pure stresses. When the council opted three weeks ago to pay a PR firm $5,500 to refute TAG's boasts, that only reinforced "the fact to many people that these guys have a let's-spend-money mind-set," Pure said.

Now, the city's 20,000 or so voters have about four months to decide whether they agree.