Norm Roche was a unsuccessful candidate for Pinellas County Commission against incumbent Calvin Harris, if you recall, and he's upset with a St. Petersburg Times editorial excoriating Pinellas Democratic Chairman Ed Helm on Sunday. Here is the letter to the editor he has submitted to the Times, in full and, as yet, unpublished:
Allow me to begin by stating that I understand this will not make it to print. Far be it from the Times (aka: the publishing world's version of the Mallard Group) to present its readers with any semblance of the truth. I'm not sure why I even bother with writing it; except for the possibility that it may provide an outlet in which to vent my grief.
Last Wednesday, I was confronted with the horrible experience of
discovering my brother's lifeless body in his home in Largo. Before
you pop your Champaign bottles and hit number three on you speed dial
in hopes of sharing some good news, it was not my older brother, Brian [who remains a write-in candidate against Calvin Harris].
It was my youngest brother, Darren. My brother's premature passing
from this world was due in part to his failing health, which was
intentionally exploited using a morally bankrupt bureaucracy. A
troubled system that allows for the hurling of slanderous lies at a
given individual, without accountability for those who hurl them.
