The name we’ve taken is Publius.

We’re a contingent of Venetian neighbors, business people, property and home owners, renters, political representatives and social activists, as well as constituents of the disenfranchised who up to now have had no untied voice.

Our existence owes itself to one common cause: vehement opposition to the candidacy of Mark Ryavec for the city council seat of the 11th District.

There are countless reasons to reject Ryavec: restraining orders for stalking; numerous landlord and rental violations; abhorrent ad hominem attacks on anyone disagreeing with his extreme, controverted views; fostered fake health scares throughout Venice; various instances of vicious cyber-bullying; and always, criminalizing those suffering from lack of shelter (Ryavec’s privileged upbringing and subsequent inheritance left him devoid of empathy for those less fortunate than he, apparently).

While The Beachhead cartoon of Ryavec as an SS Commandant overseeing the homeless into gas chambers is admittedly risky satire, it nonetheless accurately encapsulates the paucity of feeling Ryavec displays towards those in most need of society’s alms. In Ryavec’s eyes, however, the powerless and marginalized, “can do anything they want with impunity,” leading to his dystopian vision of a Venice where streets are currently choked with “hundreds of individuals” immersed in “harassment, intimidation, trespass, vandalism, home invasions and burglaries.”

Venetian Carnage, to coin a phrase. This deprecating, sordid and false impression is antithetical to the views of Publius and our sensibilities; while our community has many problems, Venice is not a war zone teeming with violence-prone indigents running roughshod throughout the neighborhoods sans restraint. Ryavec’s toxic vision is simply a scare tactic – prejudicial, hyperbolic, alarmist images are Ryavec’s political bread-and-butter.

This is a primary reason we oppose Mark Ryavec for city council: governing implies bringing residents and neighborhoods together for the common good. Ryavec’s recurrent motive, on the other hand, is always singular and specific: what will best profit Mark Ryavec? His unscrupulous, self-centric purposes makes him dangerous and explains his unrelenting willingness to stoop as low as possible in furthering his rapacity for power and advancement.

Overtly obtuse about facts and objective reality, Ryavec nonetheless weaves a fine figure sometimes in interviews or in person — this only makes him more dangerous! He’s an educated man, comes off calm and rational, is always articulate in his asperity and abasement of enemies or the disenfranchised; heck, he often makes it sound like he’s concerned for those souls he actually despises!

Sullen and morose by nature, Ryavec’s peevish disdain for humanity at large reveals itself once you listen carefully, lift the rock and look under it, scrape the prosaic patina to see past the faux grin rounded by a caterpillar moustache: then Ryavec’s rabid and petty intolerance for the unhoused, the vitriolic abasement of his many enemies, the vulgar and odious political tactics he plies, the promiscuity of power he craves for his own self-aggrandizement, becomes crystal clear.

Publius does not wish to give Ryavec more attention than he’s due or his deluded, self-serving candidacy more print than it deserves; but for the welfare and interests of our Eleventh District, we respectfully ask the voters in our community to vigorously reject this most undeserving of candidates.

Ryavec’s constant verbal dreck — where facts are fungible and masquerade as concern for the community — is a political Siren song: only deluded faith or willful ignorance could elect such an unelectable person to the city council. While serving his moneyed masters, Ryavec may make the trains run on time, but make no mistake — his epicurean tastes too closely match that whiff of Weimar wafting from Washington to ignore the fatal cancer of his candidacy for city council.

A final note. Since Ryavec serves as a mouthpiece for the secret cabal of wealthy residents calling themselves the Venice Stakeholders Association (answerable to no one), we have this to say: when the VSA reveals the names of its membership, we will make known the names of the many residents, business people, activists, and other constituents who make up Publius.

Until then, the election of Mark Ryavec would be a disaster for the 11th District and we urge you to VOTE NO and stop his cynical run for city council.