Go to the front page of: this blog ||| Venice Florida! dot com

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Ritcey destroyed police survey notes, claims he wasn't told by city to retain them

.
I spoke with Dr. Larry Ritcey earlier today, reference the confidentiality issue; to wit: did police employees speak with Ritcey for his survey with the knowledge that their responses would be confidential or were they told that what they said would be identifiable and made public record?

City Manager Isaac Turner is now claiming that he told police employees that their responses would be confidential. Minutes of an FOP meeting that Turner attended last year state the opposite, and an email from Captain Dave Dunaway to all police employees that was sent prior to the survey interviews likewise warned employees that their statements would be public record.

At issue is how to interpret the minimal data that was provided to the city by Ritcey (two typed pages of mostly anecdotal material -- PDF; cost -- $7,646.20 total just for the police survey*). If employees were told that their remarks would be made public and attributable, how likely were they to state any negatives about the department or their supervisors?

Ritcey's summary notes a warm, glowy feel from those that did participate, which has been used by the police chief, city manager, and mayor as hard proof that the department is one big Woodstock lovefest with one or two malcontents, despite the fact that 75% of patrol officers declined to participate in the survey.

As to my conversation with Ritcey, he stated earlier today that in each interview, he never guaranteed anonymity, and he states that he told each individual that their words MIGHT be attributed back to them, but that if it was something that they believed strongly in, they should take a stand.

In his notes, he took down the name of each individual, the answers to his questions, notes about their comments, etc.

He noted that those who were willing to talk with him stated that they were largely satisfied with the department.

He could not and would not speculate on what he wasn't told to him by those who would not participate or those that didn't answer key questions.

After all of the interviews, Ritcey stated that he compiled his work into his report and submitted the report to the city. Sometime after the project closed out (Ritcey is uncertain exactly when), Ritcey destroyed his supporting notes and documentation. He states that he does not have any copies of those original notes.

When asked, Ritcey stated that he was unaware of any requirement to maintain those documents, that nobody from the city advised him to either retain his notes or to turn them over to the city for archiving.

I advised Ritcey that he might want to give a read-through of Florida's Public Records laws and give a look at First Amendment Foundation's web site. Ritcey stated he was unaware that neither Isaac Turner or Julie Williams had tried to give him this information.

This knowledge that Turner failed to advise Ritcey to secure the documents would appear to be the most likely reason for Turner's recent about-face on whether or not police employees were told that the results would be confidential. Of course, Turner is claiming that he has not changed his story at all, but even there his story keeps changing -- watch the video below, the first four minutes show Turner's denial followed by Turner being confronted by me with documents that say... well, that Turner is just flat-out not being truthful.



Hmmmm........................

Monday, May 24, 2010

Mayor used hidden private Hotmail account to support Chief Williams

Despite a complaint from me about using his private email account to do city business (didn't we go down this road before?), Mayor Ed Martin has, so far, refused to release this email to the public record. I do not know how many other emails are equally hidden. The email below is printed as a public record, although the mayor has not made it an available public record yet.

From: "Ed Martin" edwilsonmartin@hotmail.com
To: "Jan McDermott Collins" pat_jan@comcast.net
Sent: Thursday, May 20, 2010 10:02 PM
Subject: Accurate info available

Jan, You know how much I appreciate your service on Council and your willingness to check things out. You need to revert to those tendencies and not believe everything you might read on the web, without asking for info.

If you want to write to me at emartin@ci.venice.fl.us I will provide you info on issues that are within my perogatives as Mayor/Council member. You might also write to my website, and I will forward them to the city email account if they deal with City business as they almost certainly will.

I believe you can be a voice of reason if you chose to be, but after recent postings by John and some others I no longer feel it is productive to write to that site as people read but do not reason.

Best regards,
Ed

---------------------------------------------

Of additional concern is the mayor's blind affinity towards the police chief based on clearly wrong and invented information, too much of which is being issued by him to be countered. According to Hizzoner, this is all the fault of a few cops who don't want to do things "by the book."

Below is just one of several emails I have sent in a futile attempt to bring His Dimbulbyness up to speed.

Ed Martin had previously written:
(START QUOTE) "Re Chief Williams, the City has not ignored any police concerns. The City Manager arranged for an outside consultant, one that the Council has used to facilitate priority-setting meetings, to interview as many police officers as wanted to, (interestingly, some declined to meet on a private and confidential basis-those with the most complaints.) The consultant's report has been available since its submission and it is reflected in today's HT story--most officers supported the chief while some suggested a more tactful handling of interactions. The department had recently won accreditation after a number of years before her arrival." (END QUOTE)


---------------------------------------------

To: Ed Martin, city council, Isaac Turner
From: John Patten
Date: May 24, 2010

The discussions with Ritcey were not and never could be confidential. The officers who refused to participate did so because their comments would be public record with their names attached to their comments. The officers feared retribution. I know this because many at the time told me so. Where you got the idea that their comments would be confidential, I don't know. I know that you have never looked through the report, otherwise you would have seen comments and attributions.

Here's what one officer posted anonymously to the web (spelling errors kept intact):

"The Mayor seems to think that Dr. Ritchey's study of the police department was confidential when he met with officers in order to obtain his data. Obviously the Mayor and the City Mangager have noline of communication. All information that was obtained by Dr. Ritchey from the officers who met with him is considered public record. Turner met with officers at the FOP lodge prior to Dr. Ritchey meeting with officers. He stated that all information provided to Dr. Ritchey is public record. Next thing the mayor fails to inform the public on is who actually met with Dr. Ritchey. Out of the thirty or so people that met with him only about seven officers met with him. The rest were employees who were promoted by the Chief. The data obtained is not an accurate assessment of the agency because the officers knew it was considered public record and were scared of retaliation."

The department winning accreditation -- FYI: this was on the back of much work done under previous chief, Jim Hanks. It was under Hanks early takeover of the department from ousted Chief Joe Slapp that the department initially lost its accreditation.

It should be noted that Chief Williams found obtaining accreditation impossible to do under the department's own steam, however, and a full-time outside consultant was brought in. I met him and spoke with him once. Cop from another jurisdiction in Florida. I have no idea how much it ended up costing the city.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Council, police chief set to violate Sunshine Law

NOTE: The following is an email that was sent to from me to city council members, City Manager Isaac Turner, and Police Chief Julie Williams, on May 17, 2010. Now three days later, despite advice from First Amendment Foundation lead attorney Barbara Peterson, Turner is still planning on having council members meet one-on-one with Police Chief Julie Williams to discuss, out of the public eye, allegations raised by the Herald-Tribune and by Venice Florida! dot com. 

Subject: The upcoming one-on-one meetings with Julie Williams, set to address concerns that I raised publicly at the last city council meeting.

These are different than the one-on-one agenda meetings. According to Barbara Peterson at the First Amendment Foundation, the meetings with Williams would be clear violations of the Sunshine Law for two reasons. One -- they are a continuation of discussion started during a public meeting. Secondly, the one-on-one meetings with Williams would be for the purpose of holding the discussion with council members away from public eyes and would involve the dissemination of new information that the public is entitled to.

One of Williams' defenses will be that she cannot discuss this publicly as parts are part of ongoing investigations. Not valid. Anything that she legally cannot discuss publicly she is likewise prohibited from discussing with any of you.

I described the situation to Peterson in great detail to avoid confusion and to make absolutely sure I was standing on firm ground. A lengthy discussion followed, the gist of which is above.

Below is an excerpt from Peterson's email to me that is on point.

The Sunshine Law is applicable to meetings between a board member and an individual who is not a member of the board when that individual is being used as a liaison between, or to conduct a de facto meeting of, board members. See AGO 74-47 (city manager is not a member of the city council and thus, may meet with individual council members; however, the manager may not act as a liaison for board members by circulating information and thoughts of individual council members). Compare AGO 89-39 (aides to county commissioners would not be subject to the Sunshine Law unless they have been delegated decision-making functions outside of the ambit of normal staff functions, are acting as liaisons between board members, or are acting in place of the board or its members at their direction).

For example, in Blackford v. School Board of Orange County, 375 So. 2d 578 (Fla. 5th DCA 1979), the court held that a series of scheduled successive meetings between the school superintendent and individual members of the school board were subject to the Sunshine Law. While normally meetings between the school superintendent and an individual school board member would not be subject to s. 286.011, F.S., these meetings were held in "rapid-fire succession" in order to avoid a public airing of a controversial redistricting problem. They amounted to a de facto meeting of the school board in violation of s. 286.011, F.S.

Similarly, in Sentinel Communications Company v. School Board of Osceola County, No. CI920045 (Fla. 9th Cir. Ct. April 3, 1992), the court found that a series of private meetings between a school superintendent and individual school board members which were scheduled by the superintendent to present and consider staff recommendations concerning the administrative structure of the school system and to privately address any objections or concerns that the board might have, should have been held in the sunshine. The court said that its decision should not be construed to prohibit individual board members from meeting privately with staff or the superintendent for informational purposes or on an ad hoc basis. However, "[i]t shall be construed to prohibit the scheduling of a series of such meetings which concern a specific agenda." Thus, the court enjoined the board and its superintendent "from holding any further closed door meetings to formulate Board policy, discuss matters where Board action is contemplated, or otherwise conduct the public's business."

In Citizens for a Better Royal Palm Beach, Inc. v. Village of Royal Palm Beach, No. CL 9114417 AA (Fla. 15th Cir. Ct. May 14, 1992), the court invalidated a contract for the sale of municipal property when it determined that after the proposal to sell the property which had been discussed and approved at a public meeting collapsed, the city manager met individually with council members and from those discussions the property was sold to another group. The circuit court found that these meetings resulted in a substantial change in the terms of sale and that the execution of the contract, therefore, violated the Sunshine Law.

Anything Williams has to say can be made in writing (a public record, and I request any such communication in advance right now with this sentence) or at the next open city council meeting.

I will raise holy hell and scream cover up if you have these discussions privately and I later find out about them (and you know I will).

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Noren, Budway in race for mayor? Oh this oughtta be good

.
Grace versus the graceless -- aaah, roadkill never looked this pulpy before
.
Gary Budway, president of the Venice Taxpayers League, has announced that he'll be running for mayor this November.

Budway appeared on a council election ticket once before, garnering some 200+ votes.

The Taxpayeres League has been in total fail mode since Budway took over from outgoing prez Herb Levine. Membership has fled the organization and key board members (including this writer) have resigned, citing Budway's alienating and gruff handling of the position.

Last Monday's monthly meeting of the VTL had to be canceled as there aren't enough board members left in the organization to form a quorum at meetings.

So if that's Budway's approach to accidentally killing off a once-thriving civic organization,  I can't wait to see the political road kill that he is destined to turn himself into.

Meanwhile, former two-term councilwoman Vicki Noren (nee Vicki Taylor) picked up papers today with the stated interest of entering the mayor's race. Noren isn't committed yet to entering the race. In an interview earlier today, she stated she is considering running and wanted a good look at the entry requirements for this year.

A Noren / Budway race for the mayor's seat should prove to be hilarious: grace versus the graceless, brains versus the semi-literate. Budway will never see the train coming.

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Has the Venice Police Department over-managed itself into law enforcement irrelevance?

.
By failing to balance the need for public safety against its cannibalistic appetite for eating itself, the Venice Police Department, under the leadership of Chief Julie Williams, is becoming a danger to the very public it is supposed to be protecting
.
Several stories that I have been working on for some time have all dovetailed into current stories involving the upper management of the Venice Police Department, which in turn brings into question the city manager's ability to manage and city council's ability to oversee both the city manager and the police chief.

For several months I have been researching allegations made by county resident David Moore that a Venice police officer committed perjury in an attempt to secure a reckless driving conviction against Moore last year. Moore opted for trial by judge and successfully defended himself against the charge by accusing the officer in open court of lying. Moore obtained a video from a local business that, according to Moore, shows that the officer was not where he claimed to be when said officer allegedly witnessed the violation, and that showed Moore driving in a normal and safe fashion through an intersection when the officer claimed under oath that Moore was driving like a rocket-packed bat out of hell.

Judge Kimberly Bonner took several months to issue her decision, during which time she reportedly reviewed the video evidence and weighed it against the cop's written statement. Finally, in late September of last year, Bonner ruled in favor of the defendant, dismissing the criminal charge by stating somewhat cryptically that "the evidence, as indicated by the evidence" (sic) showed that Moore was not guilty of reckless driving. Bonner stated in her ruling that Moore had committed the violation of speeding (as Moore admitted in court that he had been going some six or so miles per hour over the limit), but that speeding alone did not constitute reckless driving.

Translation: Bonner didn't believe the cop.

I've been studying the video evidence and the audio of the trial on and off since the beginning of this year. There's still a few questions I have that remain unanswered, like why the Venice Police Department never investigated the outcome of the trial, seeing as Chief Williams has a well known predisposition to investigate anyone on her payroll that she doesn't like for ridiculous sounding reasons (anyone remember the Michael Frassetti story?) and has been known to look the other way on allegations of wrongdoing pointed at her favorites.

Dovetailing into this story is the tale of Officer Demitri Serianni, who Williams referred to as "despicable" for challenging an internal investigation against him earlier this year. While Serianni was cleared of any wrongdoing through the city's resolution process, that didn't stop Williams from stating to the Herald-Tribune's Kim Hackett that Serianni was a "despicable" officer for questioning a decision made by a fellow officer (coincidentally, the same officer that the above David Moore has accused of perjury and that Judge Bonner didn't believe).

Serianni is currently under yet another internal investigation, this apparently for the way he defended himself against the last set of charges, and as if that isn't overly weird even by Venice standards, wait until you read the next few paragraphs on this page.

Venice Florida! dot com has asked for paperwork surrounding Serianni's recent annual evaluation in which Serianni was taken to task for, among other things, making public records requests (in order to defend himself ) in writing. The police have had me bouncing back and forth between city hall and the police department in an as yet unsuccessful attempt to get the full documentation.

However, dealing with the partial documents that the police have provided me with, it becomes clear that Chief Williams is blissfully unaware of Florida's public records laws.

If I am reading these documents correctly, and if Chief Williams was actually stupid enough to make this accusation, Serianni was told that if he wanted to make public records requests, he was to make those requests verbally only. In his annual review, Serianni is taken to task for continuing to make his public records requests in writing. Such a chastisement itself is a clear violation of Florida's public records laws.

Serianni is also cited for his low "stats." What are stats? The department's desired amount of traffic tickets. This is not a quota, I am told, because quotas are illegal, and if the department had quotas, offenders would be able to successfully challenge their tickets in court based on the fact that they were merely a means to the end of meeting an officer's quota. So nobody at the VPD ever gets disciplined for not meeting their quota; instead officers are sanctioned for not meeting the desired "stats," which, the department wants me and you to know, are not quotas.

Also, read Kim Hackett's story on the arrest of Joshua Graf in today's Herald-Tribune very carefully.  Hackett raises an interesting issue, although she stops short of asking aloud the obvious question in the story: why did the cops wait a day to arrest a dangerous and violent person and why, oh why, haven't the police raided and searched the known drug dealing house in question? From out here in the cheap seats, it looks like standard VPD actions with drug dealers: give them plenty of notice and time so that drugs can be disposed of BEFORE an actual raid takes place.

Some members of the VPD will take great exception to this point of view. Such management members of the VPD should prioritize public safety over revenue enhancement through traffic tickets, and maybe this kind of criticism wouldn't be necessary.

I'll be back in a few days with more details.