From All Nine Yards:
Here’s a great way to reduce overhead and be effective at running a national organization dedicated to infringing on the gun rights of everyday people all at the same time… Have cities hire your people for you so that tax payers cover ¼ of your people’s salary and benefits, pay for most of their operational costs, and finance all of their other resources! It also embeds your people as leaders in city government so that you don’t have to lobby there!
Sounds like another conspiracy theory from the tinfoil hat brigade… Right?
Back in March, while researching the repeal of some anti-gun ordinances, I stumbled across an Orlando City Council agenda item that grabbed my attention. It was, on its surface, just a mundane action item for the annual contract renewal of a city employee. But this city employee’s job title was, well, unique…
“Approving Employment Contract for the Grant-Funded Position of Mayors Against Illegal Guns Regional Coordinator.” City of Orlando Website
The agenda included a budgetary breakdown for how a $75,000 grant from the “United Against Illegal Guns Support Fund” was to be spent.
$60,000 in salary and benefits for the “MAIG Regional Coordinator”
$2,000 for Supplies
$3,000 for “Contractual Services”
10,000 for Travel
Also attached was the Fiscal Impact statement. It showed that this employee’s salary and benefits were expected to cost the city $84,000 for the year. It allocated $24,000 from the city’s “General Fund” to cover the grant’s shortfall.
The employee’s resume was also attached.
Linda S. Vaughn
- Southeast U. S. Regional Director (thirteen states) for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence
- Florida Partnership to Prevent Gun Violence
- Lobbyist for Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Florida Retail Federation, Early Childhood Association
- She “organized and activated the Floridians Against Workplace Violence Coalition for the sole purpose of defeating” the bill that protects parking lot storage of lawful guns in private vehicles.
- Mayors Against Illegal Guns – Lobbying to close the “gun show loophole” (prohibiting private sales of firearms) and to close the “terror gap” (depriving people of their right to keep and bear arms without due-process by putting them on the no-fly list).
This is also the same Linda S. Vaughn who was busted trying to bait people in to illegal gun transfers in 2004.
She is a long time ant-gun lobbyist in Florida who lives in Tallahassee.
So, Linda S. Vaughn is paid a salary of at least $60,000 per year by the City of Orlando using grant funds provided by the Chicago based Joyce Foundation in collusion with New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Mayors Against Illegal Guns. She also receives city medical, dental and leave accrual benefits at taxpayer expense. Her authorized pay range tops out at $228,113.60 for this job annually.
