Village of Palmetto Bay's New Poll Tax

I have now had the opportunity to peruse ten days of Ron Williams emails amounting to approximately 500 sheets of paper.  You might think to yourself "that Ronnie Williams, what a hard working man - 500 emails in 10 days, that's 50 emails a day. When does he rest?" But you'd be sadly and unfortunately mistaken. What I got from my $700.00 investment to the Village of Palmetto Bay for 'public' records, which incidentally is an exorbitant fee equivalent to a poll tax, was government efficiency at its, ahem, very best.     Every email that was sent, forwarded,  cc'd  etc.  to Mr. Williams was meticulously printed with its entire thread of the previous conversation with all attachments no matter how many times it was forwarded. I basically got the same email and whatever was attached and forwarded around 4 or 5 times between staff and Mr. Williams.  What colossal waste of paper.  I feel trees weeping in the forest somewhere.  So much for the Village of Palmetto Bays attempts to be a Green Village.  Why couldn't they just email it to me or burned a disk.    Regarding the emails,  I've come away with the opinion that I'm not really sure what Ron Williams does to earn his relatively large salary.  Judging from small sample of emails I reviewed, one can surmise that Mr. Williams does not generate any original thoughts or emails.  He receives them and may or may not respond to them, and when he does respond to them it's with with three or four non-committal words.  Mr. Williams, it seems, prosecutes his duties verbally to avoid leaving a trail. I wonder why?   I was able read some interesting information that Mr. Williams was cc'd on.  For instance, I ran across a very interesting email from Village Attorney Eve Boutsis to Councilman John DuBois in response to a request by Mr. Dubois questioning the State of Florida's Attorney General's (AG's)opinion on the Sunshine Law with regard to releasing records related to the Palmetto Bay-Palmer Litigation.  Ms. Boutsis states to Mr. Dubois "the AG punted." Punted?  In other words, I assume, there is no legal opinion from the AG that states the shade sessions need to be kept from the public.  They can be disclosed.   I, along with numerous other individuals, have been requesting access to the Shade Sessions related to the Palmer Litigation for months.  I even went so far as to ask the Village Attorney to write to the Attorney General and ask for the opinion.  I figured since the primary litigation is finalized the shade sessions should be open to public scrutiny because revealing the Councils passed errors, if there were any, can't effect the outcome case anymore.   I think it is in the best interest of the Village and its Citizens to uncover exactly who made what decisions and why.  This way the Mayor and Council Members can clear their names from the suspicion that there was wrong-doing.   It seems to me that since we have the AG's non-answer, the Council should immeditately bring up the question of releasing the Shade Sessions in a public forum.  If there was a legal basis to hold back this information from the public, the AG would have given one in its opinion.  That the AG would "punt", Village Attorney's word, once again sounds like there is no legal basis for withholding this information.   In her email dated December 18, 2012, Ms. Boutsis writes "I need to do further research as I need to determine whose responsibility it is -- to make the final determination" to release or not release this information.  Now that it's the end of February, I wonder whether she's done that research or whether there has been pressure on her not to release the information due to the damage it could do to Mayor Shelly Stanczyk, Councilwoman Joan Lindsey and Ex-Councilman Brian Pariser.   If I was any one of them, I might want those Shade Sessions buried as long as possible if errors were made in the litigation process that could/will eventually cost the Village Millions of Dollars. Currently, according to the Village Attorney, there's no legal basis preventing the disclosure of the Shade Sesssions on the Palmetto Bay - Palmer Trinity litigation and if there's nothing to hide then why not disclose?  Once again, this topic needs to be be discussed at the next Council meeting.  The citizens of Palmetto Bay have the right to know what happened. Any effort by the Current Council to protect the prior Council from scrutiny will reflect poorly on the present Council.  It's time to open up the books, learn the facts and move on so this never happens again.     David Singer

Whose Information is it anyway - Part II

Village Attorney Eve Boutsis and Village Manager Ron Williams have devised a new and improved way to dissuade and undermined a resident's ability to get access to public information.    Before I touch on that subject, I would like to thank Councilman Tim Shaffer and Councilman Patrick Fiore for their time and effort in teaching and explaining to the Village Manager that if he read and understood the Village Charter and Florida Statues, he (the Village Manager) would realize there is no legal argument  for refusing me  public information I asked for over 30 days ago.   I must admit I am neither poor nor rich, as Goldilocks would say, I'm just about right.  So when I was given an invoice by the Village Clerk for $700.00, for the information I requested, I was a little in shock.  It's not that I can't afford the $700.00 but the Florida Statues state:   (4) The custodian of public records shall furnish a copy or a certified copy of the record upon payment of the fee prescribed by law. If a fee is not prescribed by law, the following fees are authorized: (a)1. Up to 15 cents per one-sided copy for duplicated copies of not more than 14 inches by 81/2 inches; 2. No more than an additional 5 cents for each two-sided copy; and 3. For all other copies, the actual cost of duplication of the public record. (b) The charge for copies of county maps or aerial photographs supplied by county constitutional officers may also include a reasonable charge for the labor and overhead associated with their duplication. (c) An agency may charge up to $1 per copy for a certified copy of a public record. (d) If the nature or volume of public records requested to be inspected or copied pursuant to this subsection is such as to require extensive use of information technology resources or extensive clerical or supervisory assistance by personnel of the agency involved, or both, the agency may charge, in addition to the actual cost of duplication, a special service charge, which shall be reasonable and shall be based on the cost incurred for such extensive use of information technology resources or the labor cost of the personnel providing the service that is actually incurred by the agency or attributable to the agency for the clerical and supervisory assistance required, or both.   If an average citizen had any inclination to ask for the same information  -  which, by the way, should have been readily available since it is basic financial information that consists of some bank reconciliations and 10 days of the Village Managers emails - they would be deterred by the financial obstruction put in place by the Village Manager.    And why should it be so hard and expensive to share this information in this day and age.  Google gives me a world of email, maps, books, and all sorts of information for free, but the Village charges me $700 for 10 days of emails and some bank statements which should be readily available to the public with the push of a button.    The only explanation is that the Village Manager's tactic is to charge a lot of money for public records so that I might go away.    Nice try Mr. Manager.   In case you were wondering, included in the $700 they billed me was time spent by the Village Attorney to review emails, time spent by the Village Director, time spent by the Clerk's assistant, time for the Village Manager's assistant and so on.   The invoice is not exactly legal according to the Florida Statues, but then again why should the rule of law be taken into consideration by the Village Manager now when it's never guided him in the past?  A very large portion of  the bill is for services by the same Village Attorney that was admonished by the Council in the last meeting for questionable billing practices, including over-billing.   And to top it all off, after months of the Village Manager's delay, obstruction, diversion and mis-direction to keep the public information I requested out of our hands, I still won't have everything I asked for in exchange for my $700 payment.   If you think about it, I've actually paid for this information twice now - once with my tax dollars and now with my Visa.   For a Village and a Mayor who profess to have run on the platform of "Transparency in Government",  we are experiencing nothing but the opposite at a jacked-up price. David Singer

The Neighborhood Protection Ordinance Misdirection

I recently received a Village of Palmetto Bay Public Hearing notice for a February 25th meeting   Usually, I toss these in the trash, but this one caught my eye because it relates to Coral Reef Park's tennis courts.    The Village has set up a Public Hearing to address revisions to the master plan of the park to include two new batting cages, replacement of tennis court lighting and the addition of benched seating areas.     A little research reveals that the Neighborhood Protection Ordinance (NPO,) passed by the Mayor and council in November, or thereabouts, prohibits the tennis court lighting to be replaced at their current height.   To meet the requirements of their own ordinance the Village must reduce the height of the new light poles for a cost that is budgeted at whopping $250,000.  Or they can just take the easy way out and exempt themselves from the rules that they demanded be in place to protect the residential character of the Village. Best I can tell, the Village is not asking for a one-time variance for this park update, but to exclude the park completely from the new NPO in perpetuity. They are attempting to do at tonight's council meeting - see Item 12C on their posted agenda.   The last council's main thrust - spearheaded by Joan Lindsey, backed by Mayor Shelly Stanczyk and their ousted pal Brian Pariser  - consumed over six months, hundreds of man hours and thousands of dollars of taxpayer's money working to pass their magnum opus of activist government:  the Neighborhood Protection Ordinance.  This was all done, as we were told, to protect the residents of Palmetto Bay from the ills (light pollution, noise pollution, traffic, garbage collection, etc.) associated with activities that occur on large parcels of land in residential areas that are not residentially zoned.   They claimed repeatedly that they were not targeting churches and schools.  And if the Village is successful in excluding Coral Reef Park and the other parks from the NPO, what properties does the NPO regulate?   The answer remains the same: Churches and Schools -- the same Churches and Schools that the Ms. Stanczyk and Councilperson Lindsay have been out to punish since their Palmer Trinity litigation defeat.   The true tragedy of this situation is the shamelessness on display by certain council members.  The last council created the crippling NPO targeting large parcels of land and was able to craft ballot language which was opposite of the NPO's true discriminatory intent.  This resluted in easy voter passage.  Proponents on and off the council have touted that the NPO was passed by a substantial voter margin -- a sure sign of rock-solid backing by the public. But now that the Village  finds itself to be subject to the parameters it has created for others, they can't stand the overbearing regulation.  So they plan to rewrite the rules only for themselves.   One or two or three or four or all five of the council should do the honorable thing and speak out at length against this deceptive dishonorable banana-republic-style action.  Someone up there on the council needs to make the plea and decry the utter duplicity and unfaithfulness to the public trust.  Maybe it will be Mr. Fiore -- he has shown to be a minority voice on the right side of issues time and time again.  Or Mr. Dubois who has demonstrated himself in short order to be a sensible breath of fresh air.  Or maybe Mr. Shaffer has this opportunity to cement his reputation of a man of honor early on.  But it would be best if it was all three.  Three votes to two.    What is at stake is a basic ethic and American value: the law must be applied uniformly. All large parcels of land must be subject to the rule of law or there must be relief uniformly applied to all affected parties.  If the Village gets exempt, so should the Churches and Schools.  If not the Churches and Schools, then not the Village either.  This attempt at preferential treatment smacks of discrimination.  How many times had we heard from the prior council that the 'rule of law' must be followed without exception?  Make no exception here, ladies and gentlemen of the council.  May the rule of law be applied uniformly -- no exemption for the Village without equal protection under the law for all other affected properties whether private or public. An American bedrock principle -- be sure to stand by it.   Co-Written by David Singer and Douglas Zargham.