Recording of council candidates causes controversy

There are more questions than answers after two local newspapers received an audio recording via email Thursday from an anonymous Dropbox account that contains the voices of Flower Mound Place 5 Town Council candidates Carol Kyer and Itamar Gelbman.

In the recording,  Gelbman is heard asking Kyer if a mosque with a Sharia Law court should be approved in Flower Mound. Kyer answered, “Yes, they would have to go through the process.” Listen to the recording here.

“I was shocked and disappointed to hear a tape my opponent made without my consent,” said Kyer in a letter to The Cross Timbers Gazette. “The tape is of a conversation that occurred in the parking lot at the polls last week between Mr. Gelbman and myself. This behavior is reprehensible and demonstrates a lack of morals and leadership.”

Gelbman said that he does not know who recorded the conversation and emailed The Cross Timbers Gazette the following statement: “I received an audio recording of a conversation that I had with Carol Kyer several days ago from an anonymous source. After consultation with my closest friends and due to the damage that such a recording would negatively impact Ms. Kyer I decided to destroy the recording. It is ashame that her supporters decided to make this an issue as I tried to do the opposite out of respect for Ms Kyer.”

Gelbman defeated Kyer with 58 percent of the vote on Saturday night. He previously ran unsuccessfully as a Republican congressional candidate in 2012 and attracted attention for his mailing where he pledged to “Stop Islamization of America.”

Gelbman, a Flower Mound Planning and Zoning Commission alternate member, made a motion at the April P&Z meeting to deny the site plan for a proposed family life center for the Islamic Association of Lewisville/Flower Mound on Peters Colony Road. The motion failed for a lack of a second.

The recorded conversation between Kyer and Gelbman occurred on May 5th in the Flower Mound Police Department parking lot near the safe transaction exchange zone, according to Kyer, who added that it is in an area under video surveillance. If the conversation was recorded on camera, perhaps the identity of the “secret recorder” will be revealed.