WampaGate

Tallahassee Lassie

Will the real Gayle Andrews please stand up?

By Peter Kenney

Gayle Andrews is a mysterious presence at the Mashpee Wampanoag Tribal Council offices. She is a tribe member and a paid employee of the council. But exactly what she does is unclear. A source, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells WampaGate that Gayle Andrews is not the sort of person one would want to do business with. Florida court records and even prominent black business people seem to agree.

Reporting from Tallahassee, this is Gayle Andrews,
From 1973 until 1989 she covered the Florida state capitol as a reporter for WCTV, the local CBS affiliate in Tallahassee. Gayle Andrews was someone to be reckoned with. Then she struck out on her and became a self-proclaimed media consultant for political figures and candidates. She did business, based in Tallahassee, as Andrews Plus. Perhaps she should have named her firm Andrews Minus, because she is deep in debt, at least in Florida. Her former office landlord is pursuing her for substantial back rents. Andrews also operated and then closed a restaurant named J. Drewsy's in the same building that housed her media firm.

Gayle Andrews, media consulting power
Between 2002 and 2006, democrats in Florida reportedly spent $27 million on media for their campaigns and Gayle Andrews was touting herself as catering to black candidates as a media consulting power. According to Charles Cherry, head of the Florida Black Owned Media Coalition (FBOMC), Andrews' firm spent only $23,000 with black-owned media during those same four years. He described her business with black-owned media as "crumbs" in a statement made to the media in the Tallahassee/Tampa Bay area on September 29, 2006 when he declared a boycott by FBOMC members. Coalition members thereafter returned checks from Andrews Plus and refused to do business with her or her firm. At the time, Andrews was a prominent presence in the campaign of Governor Jim Davis, whose campaign had one thing in common with Andrews ... neither returned calls from Florida media asking for comment on the FBOMC charges and boycott.

Gayle Andrews: Mashpee or Aquinnah?
While Andrews lived and worked in Florida she identified herself as black -- African American -- and she traded on that racial identity exclusively even though she was also a member of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribe. At one point -- before the Mashpee had gained federal recognition -- Andrews and her mother applied for membership in the Aquinnah (Gay Head) Wampanoag tribe and were accepted. (See 12/04/07 WampaGate link at the bottom) Andrews surrendered her Mashpee membership. Suspicions arose within the Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe over the Andrews' historical material and genealogy submitted in support of their application. A year-long investigation resulted in their expulsion from the tribe.

Finally, the real Gayle
It was not long after the meltdown in Florida that Gayle Andrews rediscovered her true heritage and came home to Mashpee. During the Glenn Marshall regime as chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag tribal council she was granted Mashpee membership again. It should be noted that her Mashpee credentials appear sound. She is a Peters. Ironically, the senior surviving member of the Peters family/clan, Amelia Bingham, Andrews' Aunt, has been shunned while Andrews has been -- not only readmitted -- but hired by the tribe and given what appears to be a position of influence in tribal affairs.

Whose default is it?
According to several tribe members, she found employment doing media and other undisclosed work for the tribe at $6,000 per month, enough to live comfortably in a rented house in Mashpee but not enough to pay her Florida debts. Court records posted by Leon County on the Web show judgments against Andrews totaling more than $16,000 and there is the lingering matter of the reported $50,000 she owes her former landlord, Tallahassee Highpoint Partners, in whose property Andrews had housed not only her office but her failed restaurant, J Drewsey's. One interesting aspect of the judgments against Andrews is that she appears to have defaulted, not shown up for the cases, on a routine basis.

Late last year Andrews was stripped of her lobbying credentials by the state of Florida due to her failure to pay a few hundred dollars as an annual registration fee. Andrews was quoted recently in Cape Cod media as saying that she simply did not pay the fee because she did not intend to return to Florida or to lobbying activities there. Fair enough. Is that the same reason she has not paid her Florida debts?

An image problem
Is her image the one the Mashpee Wampanoags want to portray to the world? In Florida she was black. Before Mashpee recognition she denounced her actual Mashpee heritage in favor of Aquinnah identity. Now she is again a Mashpee.

Will the real Gayle Andrews/Thornton/Marcellino/ Chamberlain please stand up? (More on the various last names Gayle Andrews has used in future pieces.)

And stand over there beside Deval Custer.
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Link to 12/4/07 column here.