Grilled cheese festival returns to Palmetto, but not without controversy

The Grilled Cheese Festival in Palmetto this past August drew hundreds of people with promises of great food for a good cause. On Monday night, it was approved to return later this month.

But accusations from the charity the event was supposed to help, as well as the organizer’s criminal history, have some city officials concerned.

“Most of the organizations that hold events in Palmetto are local non-profit organizations with which there have been no concerns or issues brought to the city’s attention,” Mayor Shirley Groover Bryant said.

The August event was to benefit Wheels 4 Purple Hearts, which makes customized wheelchairs for local veterans who have lost their legs in combat.

Wheels 4 Purple Hearts founder Jack Thompson said the event wasn’t a good experience, and that he disassociated himself from the festival after last year’s event. But organizer Frank Giglio continued to use his organization’s reputation as a veterans charity for financial gain.

Giglio acknowledged he started a Facebook page called Wheels 4 Purple Hearts FL, adding “FL” for a different name, to promote his “Say Cheese Please” festivals. But the Facebook page’s cover photo was taken from the actual Wheels 4 Purple Hearts website of Thompson’s first wheelchair he customized. Giglio’s page also used the top half of Thompson’s business card as its profile photo.

Giglio said he did nothing wrong, but has since taken the page down after the Bradenton Herald inquired last week. Giglio’s page represented itself as a veterans charity and identified itself as a nonprofit organization, taking much of the page’s information directly from the Wheels 4 Purple Hearts website.

Before the page was taken down, Giglio’s page read, “Helping Purple Heart veterans, we “Give 2 those that gave 4 us.”

Giglio said the festival will now benefit the Electus Foundation, tied to the Electus Global Education Co., which brands itself as providing financial education and technology solutions to the classroom. The company’s owner is Tracy Zuluaga, who owns several corporations. Most recently, Zuluaga incorporated Grilled Cheese Promotions Inc. and the Olive Tree of Hope Foundation Inc., an Alzheimer’s assisted living facility.

The majority of Zuluaga’s corporations give the same address, a two-story building in Tampa. All of her corporations also are listed as Florida profit corporations and are not listed as charities.

Thompson, 73, runs Wheels 4 Purple Hearts with a few volunteers. His father was killed in World War II and he has a heart for disabled veterans coming home from battle.

Thompson released a statement after the August festival that said, “Unfortunately information presented to Wheels 4 Purple Hearts ... leaves us with no choice but to sever all relations with his grilled cheese festivals. Their actions are not conducive to our standards.”

City commissioners approved the festival to return on Feb. 25, providing Giglio an exception to the city’s new ordinance that requires a large event to submit an application more than 60 days prior to the event. Under the new ordinance, staff is directed to reject any applicant that misses the deadline, but the applicant has an appeal process with the commission. Commissioner Brian Williams was the lone dissenter in a 4-1 vote.

From 1998 to 2001, Giglio racked up 30 charges of credit card fraud, forgery and grand theft, spending more than a year in prison. Under one of four known aliases to law enforcement, Peter Frank, Giglio sought the permit for the February festival in Palmetto. Bryant did question whether that affects the legality of the submission and said Monday’s approval is still contingent on Giglio completing missing items on his application.

Those standard items include a more detailed layout of the site for vendors, locations of trash bins and restrooms.

Giglio has a list of defunct corporations related to organizing events and promoting concerts, and incurred more than $300,000 in debt, according to bankruptcy records. According to a 2011 Tampa Bay Times story, Giglio bounced two checks valued at $25,000 to the 1980s band Air Supply.

“If an event organizer is not fulfilling its obligations to a third-party charitable organization, that is a matter between the event organizer and the charitable organization,” Bryant said. “Certainly we would hope that an organizer would honor their agreement with their advertised charitable organization, especially our veterans.”

Mark Young: 941-745-7041, @urbanmark2014

This story was originally published February 7, 2017 at 4:45 PM with the headline "Grilled cheese festival returns to Palmetto, but not without controversy."