Charter Study Explosion

The latest defection from the Zephyrhills Charter Study Committee came from Art Reynolds, who said he had to resign in protest.

That says a lot.

We won’t belabor the point. Mr. Reynolds’ letter speaks for itself , and we’re going to reprint it right here and right now:

“I was compelled to resign from the Zephryhills’ Citizen’s Charter Revision Committee as a protest for the following reason(s):

“As an idealist and one who has faith in America and the democratic process, I was forced to come face to face with the reality that there are others in high places who will put self-interests ahead of the right thing to do.

“My previous letter to the editor stated that I was adamantly opposed to the 4/5 council vote needed to fire a city manager. This provision, reaffirmed by the Charter Review Committee, was wrong on so many different levels that a novice in a civics-101 course could readily se its absurdity.

“I came out strongly opposed to the 4/5s provision with the hopes that the reigning City Manager would be magnanimous and volunteer to do the right thing by rejecting the 4/5s provision. I was hoping that he would continue to earn his position of City Manager by virtue of sound decision making and exemplifying strong leadership. But instead, he pled his case that he needed the extra protection that would shield him from public scrutiny.

“As of this writing, the new City Charter has not been finalized and there still is a chance that Mr. Spina (Steve Spina, City Manager) can revive my faith in the city’s government by ‘doing the right thing.’ He can stand tall and reject the 4/5s provision and by requesting that the customary 3/5s vote be implemented in the new charter. This would be proof positive that he honestly cares about the future of Zephyrhills, more so than he does for himself.

“This is the proverbial fork in he road. Which way will he go?”

Art Reynolds
Zephyrhills, FL

Venal Newspaper Tricks

UPDATE:
Actually, there is no update because the newspaper has yet to respond either to this blog or to the email sent to the newspaper's Corrections Editor.

Through a back channel we have learned that the writer of the original piece, C. T. Bowen or C. L. Bowen, or whatever his name might be, said he'll probably never see the email and besides what he wrote was perfectly OK. That's what happens when they let the inmates take over the asylum.

Now, on to much more important things like. say, the City Manager, Charter Study or even public civility.....stay tuned.
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When a newspaper decides you aren't one of the good guys, you automatically become one of the bad guys, and thus, subject to all the mean, venal and nasty tricks a newspaper can use to make you look like an ignorant peasant.

One of those tricks is to routinely identify you in an unflattering way, often ignoring the mitigating facts. Here's an example:

The mighty and self-congratulatory, whiter-than-the-driven-snow St. Petersburg Times didn't like fact that I wouldn't meet with their editorial writer when I ran for Zephyrhills City Council two years ago. I felt that was my choice, the newspaper apparently thought otherwise. Not unexpectedly, the paper trashed my campaign. I lost the election BY ONE VOTE, and that's a story in itself. In all fairness, the Times reported on the irony of a single vote loss against a powerful incumbent who usually bested her opponents by 2 to 1 margins.

Now, watch how things change. Today I was identifed in that newspaper as, "Rj Morgan, who ran unsuccessfully for City Council in 2004"

See what happened?

Through the miracle of journalistic license I went from a one-vote loser to just a loser.

There's an old adage: "Never argue with a man who buys his ink by the barrel." But, it's equally true that there's nothing to be gained by sitting and suffering silently. That's why the following note is presently sitting in some editor's In Box.

Sirs:

I believe if you examine your own standards of
fairness you will agree that errors of omission are as
damaging as errors of commission.

In a Pasco edition editorial on Monday you wrote of
me, "Frequent City Hall critic Rj Morgan, who ran
unsuccessfully for City Council in 2004, shared
Reynolds' sentiments."

If you check your archives you will find that your
newspaper wrote several stories about my loss of that
election: stories which placed great emphasis on the
fact that I lost by one vote. The closeness of that
race was significant then and it is significant now.

If for no other reason than consistency I would
suggest that in the future you identify me as
"Frequent City Hall critic Rj Morgan, who ran
unsuccessfully for City Council in 2004, and who lost
by one vote, shared Reynolds' sentiments." It's just
six more words, but they are essential if you wish to
be fair and correct.

Sincerely,

Rj Morgan

Will anything come of this note?

Who knows? The paper could use it as a springboard to bring up every nasty, mean and evil thing they can find out about me. Or, it could do the right thing and admit that just because one expresses, forcefully, a differing opinion he's not the spawn of the devil. It's their choice.

Arjay

How a Story gets Spun

Gina King, Zepyrhills councilperson, has been accessable to just about anyone who contacts her. It's been that way since her landslide election just over a year ago.

So, what was a girl to do when she was approached by a bunch of guys, all wearing guns? Seems they had a bunch of beefs and they wanted to take them up with her. They came by twos and threes to her house. Then they mojoed up a big meeting to which she came. I did mention these were big guys with guns didn't I?

The point here, and it's an important point, is that these guys were persuing her, not the other way around.They were most of the city's police officers, and they felt that Ms. King was the most approachable member of the city's governing structure. Remember now, they sought her out, she wasn't out trolling for cops with grievances.

And grievances the cops had. They hated working back to back weeks with no days off. They hated that because they could do the math and match up hours to be covered by men (and women) to cover them. They also were embarassed by their Chief and some of his antics. And they were afraid to use their chain of command because it would lead right into the lion's jaws. So they sought out Gina.

Now, watch how things spin.

A story appears in the St. Pete Times that purports to tell the story, but it includes lenghty quotes from the city manager to the effect that Councilwoan King violated City Charter rules by meddling in operational affairs. Fact is, there is no provision in the charter that prevents a concil person from doing about whatever they want. So that's a misstatement.

Then there's the quote from the Chief who states that it's 'unusual.'

What's unusual is that the Chief didn't seem to know there was discontent in his rank and file. We have noticed that the Chief seems obsessed with kids riding skateboards at the city's skateboard park without helmets.

The city manager whined that the officers should have come to see him. Sadly, he was on vacation when the issue percolated to the top.

But then, look at it from the cop's side: if they played strictly by the rules they would be taking their grievances directly to the people who had put them in the pickle, and these same folks were the ones who could discipline them. They looked around, found Ms King who has an open door policy and exercised that age old tactic of lobbying their legislator. If that suddenly becomes a no-no there will be a lot of Washington types looking for work.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) the Tampa Trib should have a story about the embroglio, probably with a slightly different spin and hopefully, some nice tart quotes from Ms. King.

Our prediction is that heads will roll if there's even a scintilla of hanky panky. It's one thing when you have a squad of cops looking for evildoers all over the city. It's quite anothere when they all are looking indwardly at just one or two leaders. Just one misstep it all it takes.

Meanwhile the story will keep spinning and maybe even escalating until something else comes along. As I recall, it was about this time last year that the city administration managed to misplace about a half million dollars. Gosh, never a cop around when you need 'em.
Arjay

Taken to the Woodshed

Two posts ago I wrote about the attitudes of several members of the Charter Study Committee, of which I'm a member. I wasn't particulary charitable, but then, if you can't be passionate about what you do, you shouldn't be doing it.

At today's meeting two of those members voiced their displeasure at what I wrote, in fact, they voiced displeasure that I dared write anything. One member claimed it was contrary to the ground rules that all the Committee members agreed to when we started. Happily, a copy of those rules was produced, and nowhere did it say we couldn't write about our experiences. Now, dear reader, do you think that I didn't know that? Do you also think I, a writer, would have continued to serve on a body that stifled my writing?

Back to Wednesday's meeting.

Since nobody was named as the culprit I immediately 'fessed up, pointing out that my First Amendment rights had not been cancelled, and that any member of the Committee could avail themselves of those selfsame rights and write their own blog. I guess that would be called a counterblog. And, no, I didn't tell them they could simply make a comment to this blog to avail themselves of the same forum I have.

That embroglio ended with the hope that 'we can put this behind us.' Unsaid was the hope that these writings would stop.

Fat chance.

As for the meat of the meeting: the Establishment won.

At issue was whether it should take a supermajority (4/5 vote) to hire and fire a City Manager. My argument was that such a setup gave inordinate power to the minority and that a simple majority was the way we do things here in America. Nobody was buying that argument, so I conceded, gracefully as always.

But, we agreed that the Police Chief, Fire Chief and City Clerk would all be Charter Officers, hired and fired by City Council with a simple majority vote.

Of course, all of this may well be moot.

Whatever the Charter Study Committee does has to be approved by the sitting members of City Council, then submitted to the voters. Council can easily gut what we've produced and the voters can easily toss what remains.

Here's the scariest fact: The city has about 12,000 residents. Of that number about 7,000 are registered to vote, and of that number about 700 turn out on election day. Is it any wonder that citizens get the government they deserve?

Arjay

Super Majority is Just a Bad Idea

The last post dealing with a Bill of Rights for the city of Zephyrhills, Fl. triggered three articles in the local, Zephryhills News. Gary Hatrick, the editor, told me that the whole issue of the deliberations of the Charter Study Committee was, "something that had to come out."

Fact is, the Bill of Rights for the citizens of this small city is just a small item compared to the deeper division that is splitting the Charter Study members. The group is really hung up on how many City Council votes it should take to, say, fire the city manager. As it now stands, a former Charter revision has left the Council hamstrung with the requirement that it must generate a super majority to fire one of its own employes. That is, it takes four out of the the five councilpersons to do the deed.

Half of the committee members favor the super majority because they argue that it gives stability to the managers of the city's business.

But let's look at the other side of the issue: The requirement of a super majority gives undue power to the minority. It takes just one vote to stymie the will of the majority. Don't believe me? Do the math.

Now, I'm going to tip my hand.

At the next Charter Revision Committee meeting I plan to use a bit of history to bolster my position on the simple majority side of the issue. Some of the finest political minds in our nation's history had a lot to say, and they said it a lot better than I can, so, read on and see if you agree.

"Where the law of the majority ceases to be acknowledged, there government ends; the law of the strongest takes its place, and life and property are his who can take it."
Thomas Jefferson to Annapolis citizens, 1809
Memorial Edition, Vol. 16, p. 337

"It has been shown ... that all provisions which require more than the majority of any body to its resolutions have a direct tendency to embarrass the operations of the government and an indirect one to subject the sense of the majority to that of the minority. ....And the history of every political establishment in which this principle has prevailed
is a history of impotence, perplexity, and disorder."
Alexander Hamilton, March 26, 1788
Federalist No. 75

"A majority held in restraint by constitutional checks and limitations, and always changing easily with deliberate changes of popular opinions and sentiments, is the only true sovereign of a free people. Whoever rejects it does, of necessity, fly to anarchy or to despotism.
Unanimity is impossible; so that rejecting the majority principle, anarchy or despotism in some form is all that is left."
Abraham Lincoln, first inaugural address, March 4, 1861

"Majority rule must be preserved as the safeguard of both liberty and civilization. Under it property can be secure; under it abuses can end; under it order can be maintained -- and all of this for the simple, cogent reason that to the average of our citizenship can be brought a life of greater opportunity, of greater security, of greater happiness.
...pioneering for the preservation of our fundamental institutions
against the ceaseless attack of those who have no faith in democracy."
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, August 18, 1937

Bottom line, uncomfortable as it may be for some, is that requiring a super majority for anything is a bad idea. Period.

Arjay