Gabe Cazares

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Gabe Cazares
Gabe Cazares at rally. Placard reads: SOS Save Sparkling Clearwater
Mayor of Clearwater, Florida
In office 1975 – 1978
Preceded by	H. Everett Hougen
Succeeded by	Charles F. LeCher
Constituency	Clearwater, Florida
County Commissioner
In office 1980 – 1984
Succeeded by	George Greer
Constituency	Pinellas County, Florida
Born	January 31, 1920 Alpine, Texas
Died	September 29, 2006 Clearwater, Florida
Political party	Democratic party

Gabe Cazares (1920-2006) was the former mayor of Clearwater, Florida, a civil rights advocate, and a critic of the Church of Scientology. He died September 29, 2006 in Clearwater at the age of 86.^[1]

Contents 1 Early history 2 Political career 3 Critic of Scientology 4 External links 5 References

[edit] Early history

Gabriel "Gabe" Cazares was born to Mexican parents on 31 January 1920, in Alpine, Texas, as one of nine children. His family moved to Los Angeles, where he worked in the Civilian Conservation Corps. He attended Los Angeles City College on a track scholarship, where set a record for the junior college 2-mile run that stood for 11 years. He also attended Fresno State College and Texas Christian University, were he earned his bachelor of arts degree in sociology, and the University of Maryland, College Park. He received his master's degree in business management from Jackson College in Honolulu, Hawaii. Much of his college work was complete while he was in the military. He joined the Army Air Forces in 1941 after the attacks on Pearl Harbor and rose to lieutenant colonel.

[edit] Political career

Cazares retired from military service in 1966 to become a stockbroker. He moved to Clearwater, Florida soon afterwords. In 1975, Cazares joined the mayor's race and won a resounding victory, which was considered an amazing feat for two reasons. Firstly, he was a Democrat running in a largely Republican city and secondly, he was an ethnic minority in a city that, at the time, was only home to a handful of Hispanics. He ran for Congress twice, losing in 1976 to U.S. Rep. C. W. Bill Young, R-Indian Shores, and in 1986 to Rep. Mike Bilirakis, R-Tarpon Springs. Cazares resigned from the mayor's job in 1978, but he rejoined politics two years later as a county commissioner, a post he held until 1984, when he lost the election to Republican George Greer. Greer would later attain national attention as the judge in the Terri Schiavo case.

Cazares was quoted by many newspapers in 1998 after he stated that he felt that the Taco Bell commercials, featuring a Spanish-speaking talking Chihuahua dog, were offensive and demeaning to Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.

Cazares again made headlines in 2005, when he criticized TV station CNN for cutting away from a speech by Florida Governor Jeb Bush just as Bush was beginning to repeat a warning about Hurricane Wilma in Spanish after having just made the appeal in English. Cazares felt it was dangerously insensitive to the large population of Spanish-speaking peoples that resided in Florida.

[edit] Critic of Scientology

Investigates church

Cazares became an outspoken critic of Scientology after the church decided in 1975 to move major operations into Clearwater. Cazares was suspicious of the group, who were purchasing property under the name "United Churches of Florida". The United Churches of Florida leaders told Cazares that they were an ecumenical group that planned to improve the ethics and morality in the Clearwater area, but Cazares wondered why church folks from a "den of iniquity" like Los Angeles, California would travel all the way to Florida to provide Clearwater with moral guidance. Cazares began to investigate the United Churches of Florida and soon discovered that the leaders of the group lied about their intentions. They told Cazares they were renting the historic Fort Harrison Hotel from a group called Southern Land Development Leasing Corporation. Cazares investigated both groups and discovered that both were wholly controlled by Scientologists.

Sued by Church of Scientology

Cazares was sued by the Church of Scientology for $1 million after he said that the city was being taken over. Cazares termed the alleged takeover "the occupation of Clearwater". Cazares suspicions about the group was confirmed by a number of newspapers. On 3 November 1979, the Clearwater Sun ran an article with the headline "Scientologists plot city takeover" and later stories claimed that the Scientologists also had international plans to take over the world.^[2] The St. Petersburg Times even won a Pulitzer Prize for one of their stories that exposed the alleged criminal wrongdoings of the Church of Scientology.^[3] A 1997 FBI raid on Scientology headquarters uncovered internal Church of Scientology documents marked "Top Secret" that referred to their secret operation to takeover Clearwater as "Project Normandy". The FBI also uncovered information about "Operation Freakout", an operation intended to get Scientology critic Paulette Cooper locked up into a mental hospital. And the raid also revealed information about an "Operation Snow White", wherein the Church of Scientology made plans to infiltrate numerous federal and state government offices. The raid eventually resulted in 11 top leaders of the church in jail. Cazares found it odd that a religious group would resort to using code names for a project to take control of a town, and called the project a "paramilitary operation by a terrorist group".^[4]

Endures harassment

As a result of his questioning, the Church of Scientology made plans to smear him with sex allegations and a phony hit-and-run accident.^[5] Cazares questioned the church's motives, its purchases of downtown property using fictitious names, and the way its security guards carried Billy clubs and Mace.^[1] At the Church of Scientology, federal investigators found internal memos outlining plans by church leaders to control public opinion in Clearwater, concoct a sex smear campaign against Mr. Cazares and infiltrate the local media and other institutions called the "Mayor Cazares Handling Project"^[6] and "Speedy Gonzalez"^[7]. These Scientology documents also revealed that church members had staged a phony hit-and-run accident with Mr. Cazares in an attempt to discredit him.^[1]

As a result of the harassment Cazares and his wife sued the Church of Scientology for $1.5 million. The church decided against a public trial and instead opted to settle with Cazares in 1986. It was one of several suits between Mr. Cazares and the church over the years.^[1]

[edit] External links

• Scientology: The Clearwater Conspiracy, Gabe Cazares featured on 60 Minutes, 1980.
• Clearwater City Commission Meeting, Cazares speaks before Clearwater, Florida City Commission, February 17, 2000

[edit] References

Political offices
Preceded by H. Everett Hougen	Mayor of Clearwater, Florida 1975 – 1978	Succeeded by Charles F. LeCher
Preceded by Unknown	County Commissioner, Pinellas County, Florida 1980 – 1984	Succeeded by George Greer