Let's Take Over the City

I can safely write this because, according to the built-in counter, nobody reads this blog anyway.

That means I can say things here that I wouldn’t say in, uh, public.

I could, for instance, muse about the upcoming vacancies on the Zephyrhills City Council. Yeah, that’s a good idea. Let’s muse.

The scorecard at this moment shows Council’s Fearless Leaderette, Cathi Compton, making good on her plans to run for the County School Board. To do that she has to resign her City Council presidency before beginning her school board run. Ever dutiful she has already given the city her resignation, effective right after April’s Municipal Election. That’s one seat up for grabs, although her lawyer husband is rumored to be thinking of running. He already dipped his toes into the political waters by serving on the Charter Study Committee, along with this writer and a bunch of others. Our suspicion is that now that he’s seen Council gut his work he’ll either see the light and run from elected city office, or he’ll become filled with a reformer’s zeal and will run for city office.

Next batter up is Liz Geiger. After she beat me last election by one – yes one – vote she pronounced she wouldn’t seek another term. This, of course, is coming from Liz who has been on Council for 14 years. That easily qualifies her as a politician and we all know what happens when politicians move their lips.

I’ve been asked at least twice if I’ll consider running again. My unqualified answer has been ‘NO,’ but then, I’ve run for office once so that qualifies me to be called a politician, and we all know what happens when politicians move their lips. Seriously, the only way I’d run would be if Liz asked me to, and if she’d promise to deliver at least two votes.

Third up is Gina King. Why is it the good die young? The blonde crusader is the best thing to come to city government in decades, but she can’t live on the $4,800 Council stipend and her bosses at Verizon are thinking of promoting her to a job that will put her on the road. One thing Gina knows is that you can’t govern Z’hills from afar. Of course the stress of dealing with the generally wrongheaded City administration and her equally wrongheaded fellow councilpersons is taking its toll. Add it all up and Gina may be moving on, at least she’s not taken out her re-election papers, and may not.

That means potentially three seats on the five-seat Council can be up for grabs in the next election. That, folks, is a majority. A majority.

Now here’s a novel idea. Yes, the Council election is non-partisan, but nothing prevents three like-minded souls from joining together to run as a ticket. Imagine that; three folks in Zephyrhills who agree on the direction the city should take, who can write a platform, run, get elected and TAKE OVER THE CITY.

Arjay

Implosion? Wingnut? Where do they find 'em?

Tom Jackson printed a column in Mother Trib this week that calls one city councilperson a 'wingnut' for her plans to put critical city governance issues before the voters, since the City Council won't. He says these modest proposals put the city of Zepherhills on his list of cities most likely to implode in the coming year. If casting out the rascals and revamping city goverment in a rational fashion is what prompts implosion, let me have a dose of one of those them, that, implosion cocktails. As for the 'wingnut' reference, I find wingnuts to be among the most user friendly members of the hardware family.

Full disclosure here: I was a member of the Charter Study Committee which came up with some of the radical ideas that City Council rejected -- Radical things like term limits (old time pols hate term limits -- are you listening Liz and Clyde?) Radical things like giving Council realistic tools to hire and fire key emloyees like the City Manager. Radical ideas like an article that makes the city provide locally-manned police and fire protection. Some of those ideas were hijacked during the Charter Study Commission's studies, others were hijacked when Council went after the recommendations with a meat axe.

If Councilperson Gina King, the aforementioned 'wingnut' and 'neutron bomb trigger' of Mr. Jackson's column, hadn't come forth with the idea of a citizen's referendum I would have.

Under state law we have to get 725 signatures just to get the questions on the ballot. We plan to get 800 -- that's 126 more people than those who chose to vote at the last municipal election. So, doing the math if every signer voted, the citizen referenda would win in a landslide.

Now, Mr. Jackson might call that an 'implosion' we call it a mandate.

In the meantime, keep your eye out for the petitions to sign. Better yet call Gina at 788-0090 and volunteer to get signatures in your neighborhood or stroll down to L.G. Hood's lawnmower shop and put your John Henry on one of the petitions he has there. Time is of the essence here folks, so do what's right, guarantee at the very least your right to vote on your future, not the Pablum City Council thinks you should vote on.

Arjay

Like Sausage

The writing of a city charter is a lot like sausage – if you plan to eat it you should never watch it being made.

That said, we’re now at the point where the efforts of the Zephyrhills Charter Study Committee become not only public (they always have been, but nobody’s been interested), but those efforts become a subject of public, governmental debate.

On Monday the members of the Committee meet in a workshop session with their titular bosses, the members of City Council. It all begins at 4 p.m. in Council Chambers. Here’s what to expect:

The city’s proposed new charter will be explored, dissected and discussed. More importantly, the members of the Committee will attempt to explain to Council why they did what they did.

One of the Committee’s sticking points was the matter of how many votes it takes to fire a City Manager. What will probably not come out is that the Committee’s disagreement on this issue became so heated that one member of the committee actually resigned over it. What also will not come out is his stinging letter of resignation, but I might just publish it on this blog in the interest of complete disclosure.

After the workshop the Committee’s report and Revised Charter will then be in the hands of City Council. Because of the way the charter revision study was structured the Committee’s work is only advisory and the ball will then be in Council’s court. The councilpersons can accept it as written, revise it or simply chuck it. It may or may not be presented to the voters and if submitted for a vote it could take any one of several forms, all of them confusing.

Better yet, under Florida law there’s room for any number of Citizen Initiatives addressing the city’s charter. In short, the cat is either out of the bag or it isn’t.

Keep tuned, the city’s political season is about to begin and we have some very interesting behind-the-scenes scenarios.
Arjay

How Low Can You Go?

Yard sale-ing is mostly a non-violent sport. Sure, there sometimes are disagreements over who bought what, but usually money talks. But not always.

My wife, Elayne, who uses a cane to get about, does her share of yard saleing in and about Zephyrhills. Last weekend she discovered an old water cooler jug and stand and bought it. However, another woman said she wanted it. The seller explained that she didn’t see any money from anyone but Elayne so that was that.

After getting some help in loading the item Little Elayne looked about for her cane which she had leaned against the car.

It was gone.

Yes, the other party seemingly got her revenge, but who is so low as to steal a cane?

Now you know.

Arjay

You try this

Let’s see if I understand this.

Attorneys write contracts.

Attorneys don’t read the contracts they write.

Or how about this?

What a prospective cop writes on his application only means what the police chief says it means.

Yes, it’s a confusing world here in Zephyrhills, but then it’s a town where Chicken Little is queen and Alice in Wonderland is the other title for the city’s Operations Manual.

Let’s start at the top:

The City Attorney, one Carla Owens, has a contract that says she’ll give monthly status reports to City Council. She hasn’t done that. Neither did her predecessor Tom McAlvanah.

When called on the contract violation by Councilperson Gina King, who has no love lost on Owens, Owens said she didn't realize.

A local newspaper quoted Owens response:

"There's no excuse. It's in there in the contract. I just didn't realize," she said. "If they want me to do that, fine."

Let’s just turn that around:

You have a contract with the city that says you’ll do such-and-such for a certain sum of money. You don’t do such-and-such, but the city still pays you.

Sounds about right.

King would like to fire Owens, but she knows she won’t get any support from the other four councilpersons – they all think Owens is doing just fine.

What do you think?

Oops, unfair question, you’re just the one who pays the bills for the Asylum that the inmates are obviously running.

How about the latest cop?

Naaw, let’s not. You wouldn’t believe it anyway.
Arjay

Suspended Reality

Sometimes you just gotta suspend reality.

Aaah, you figured it out: We went to the Council Meeting tonight (Monday).

Here’s the deal: the great County of Pasco has gotten into the fire and ambulance business bigtime, and in the process has begun to starve city fire departments. Better yet, the county has pointed to municipal borders and, in essence, told the City of Zephyrhills, "inside the city limits is your territory, outside is ours." The county has a right to do that.

But here’s where reality gets suspended.

The borders aren’t all that clean. One end of a street can be in the city, the other end in the county. Same street.

So let’s say you live in the county at 2201 Anystreet and I’m your neighbor at 2200 Anystreet, but the municipal border is between us, and I live in the City. Pay taxes there too.

As luck would have it we suffer heart attacks simultaneously

We both punch the last digit of 911 simultaneously in what could be our last moves.

The dispatcher notices that you are entitled to county ambulance service so she dispatches the nearest available county ambulance, which just happens to be one town away.

Another dispatcher notices that I live in the city where there just happen to be two ambulances waiting for a call. One of them is 10 blocks away, the other 20 blocks away. She sends me the closest one. The other remains in its stall.

My ambulance gets to me in about two minutes.

You ambulance has a much longer distance to travel. You die.

I live.

The second ambulance never moves.

And, it’s all about money and power.

How do you feel about that? Oops, sorry, you can’t answer ‘cause you’re dead.

Somehow, the folks we elect to run our cities and counties and even our nation seem to have lost sight of the fact that we, the taxpayers are their customers, not their servants.

They also seem to have lost any sense of honesty. You know, a man’s word is his bond; silly old fashioned stuff like that.

The interesting thing about this is that it didn’t used to be that way.

In this country we sort of instinctively did the right thing without even being asked.

Also at the council meeting was the latest city ordinance which closes all the city’s parks at 10 p.m.

This came about after complaints that there was rowdiness and drug dealing at the city’s Lincoln Park.

Councilperson Gina King wondered out loud why all the city’s residents should be penalized because of the actions of a few. She also wondered how closing a park at 10 would help the cops deal with the drug dealing since, to her recollection, drug dealing was illegal no matter the time of day.

FEMA Ice

Got a call from a friend who is currently deployed by FEMA on Katrina duty. He’s in, of all places, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He reports that when the New Orleans contingent of evacuees arrived at that location the Native American residents looked upon them as — food.

Seriously, the evacuation/resettlement effort is proving not to be one of our nation’s finest hours. The bungling which undoubtedly led to loss of life, and which continued through the director of FEMA being sacked, continues.

Remember folks, this is not play money we’re talking about. It’s YOUR money, but I digress.

For a couple of days now there has been this story floating around about a convoy of ice-laden trucks that have been wandering about the country like a tribe of lost Israelites. Seems somebody high up in FEMA ordered too much ice and wouldn’t admit to it, so the trucks have been moved about under the pretense that they’re doing something useful.

Now, U.S. Sen. Susan Collins is asking questions. Her letter is so well put that I’ll just reprint it here. Read it.

Sen. Collins' Letter To FEMA's Acting Director

The following is the letter from U.S. Sen. Susan Collins to acting FEMA director R. David Paulison and Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
September 20, 2005

Dear Acting Undersecretary Paulison and Lt. Gen. Strock:

I am writing to request that you inquire into an apparent decision to send ice initially designated for Hurricane Katrina relief efforts to cold storage in Portland, Maine.

My office has been contacted with information that the federal government paid truck drivers $800 per day to haul bags of ice to the Gulf region for Hurricane Katrina victims, only to order them to turn around, leave the Gulf region, and drive to Portland for storage of the ice at a refrigerated storage facility.

More than 200 trucks reportedly might arrive in Portland this week to store their loads of ice. As a result, the resources spent to procure this ice and retain these truck drivers will have been diverted from Hurricane Katrina relief efforts.

If accurate, this situation raises concerns about whether the federal government is using relief resources efficiently in order to provide maximum benefits possible to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Please let me know as soon as possible: (1) how may trucks carrying ice intended for Hurricane Katrina relief have been diverted to Maine; (2) why the decision occurred; (3) who made the decision; (4) how much it is costing the federal government to transport and store ice in Maine; and (5) why substantially more ice than was needed was purchased in the first place.

Sincerely, Susan M. Collins Chairman

One Tangy Whiff of Anhydrous Ammonia

Okay, granted, responsibility for emergency planning falls to the counties under Florida law. However, nothing prevents a local municipality from putting in place its own disaster plan, even a little one that deals with disaster, whatever it might be, until the county cavalry arrives.

That’s why my modest proposal for a Zepherhills Emergency Plan has legs. And, with a little forethought it could be made to dovetail quite nicely with the country plan.

Right off the bat the city has the moral obligation to plan for its transient, elderly population which is often confused, lost and half bonkers on even a good day.

Then there are the unique problems here that the planners in Port Richie would never think about. An example: 70-ton tank cars of anhydrous ammonia, of which there are many rolling down the tracks on the east side of town. One unfortunate accident that releases that stuff has the potential to kill us all. Just one good whiff is all it takes.

Or how about the gravel mine just south of Chancey Road? They do use high explosives to make the little ones out of the big ones.

Then there’s the big phosphate processing plant that CF industries has down on the county line along Route 39. A little spill in a plant that size equals a big headache for those of us who are downwind.

Then there’s communications. Forget ‘em in a big storm, but ham radio operators operate when all else fails. One ham wants to put a crucial repeater link on the city’s water tower – free to the city – but right now he’s bogged down City Manager tape, despite there a commercial wireless internet provider getting what we’ll bet is a bargain-rate ride on that tower. What’s more important; dispatching cops and ambulances, or being able to pick up your pornographic email?


Just asking
.
Our firemen are all certified in the national NIMS system. Nice. Problem is they don’t have such a system here in town. Instead they’d be using their skills in a bunker someplace else, getting food and water to someoneselse.
In the first 24 hours of a major disaster here or near there needs to be a well thought out plan for what the cops will do, what the ems will do, what the firemen will do.

Who is going to deploy the automatic sand bag filler and keep it filled. Oh we don’t have a filler? Maybe we ought to get one, I, for one, get really tired seeing those 90 year old women shoveling that heavy sand.

The point here is that a town like Zephyrhills has its own set of unique hazards, hazards we’re aware of, that need to be addressed before the big boys get here. And we haven’t got a plan and we need one, if only to keep the cops out from under their own feet.
Arjay

Reporter's Notes

My friend, Fred Phillips, who reads this blog from the heart of Phoenixville, PA., home of picalilly and shoe-fly-pie, has some cogent thoughts on the ongoing FEMA mess.

With regard to the fact that the agency seems to have stopped answering reporters' phone calls Fred says,

"It was not that long ago as young, and still stupid reporters, we faced the same problems of getting information out of agencies and people at all levels. The easiest solution they have is to blame the press. The press, on the other hand, continues to use a velvet glove when they should be saying, you were stupid enough not to comment, this is what you get.

"The public will always believe that the press "makes things up." Whoever coined the phrase, truth is stanger than fiction, was really right on the mark. I only heard one comment recently that no one at FEMA (in the top ranks) had any experience dealing with disasters.

"Next step - Avian virus. We have no vaccine, nothing prepared. FEMA is nothing more than a place to put political hacks to make a buck.

"thus endith the lesson."

Thanks, Fred.

If you think the disaster-heaped-upon-disaster which is Katrina was bad, how about this -- Murphy Oil refused to take cash today. How's that for a lack of confidence in the government? Its money is no good any more.

The kid stopped me as I was pulling in, informing me that only credit cards or Wal-Mart cards were being accepted -- no cash.

Come to think of it, it's not all that surprising when we learn that Wal-Mart had a better disaster plan than did the U.S. government.

Wal-Mart.

-------

Now that the mea culpas are coming thick and fast (it seems that everyone from the Governor of Louisiana to ol' W. himself is fighting to take blame for the supreme Katrina screw up) it will be interesting to see how George manages to cover himself with both blame and glory at the same time when he addresses the Nation tonight?

Why do I also think this administration would dearly love to prevent people like me from making comments like this?

Consider this; it's the same administration which has trampled on your Fourth Amendment rights. Fourth Amendment? Yep, the one that gaurantees you to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.

Don't believe me?

Just go to an airport and watch the T.S.A. slugs feeling up the women and confiscating nail clippers.

This is America?

Arjay

Signs of Disarray

In the FEMA of old it was an article of faith that the Public Information Officers always returned reporter’s phone calls or emails.

Always.

Even if the question was difficult or unpleasant, you always returned it.
The reason you sometimes waited a bit was to seek higher authority for the answer, or to formulate your thoughts so you could give a good answer that, at the very least, put the agency in a somewhat favorable light.
That’s why it’s so disturbing to this former FEMA PIO to see more and more news stories saying, “FEMA did not return calls.”

That, folks, is a clear signal that the agency is in disarray.

Bad enough that the head of FEMA, Mike Brown, was sacked in the wake of Katrina.

Bad enough that the president has to do public penance for the government’s failure in this disaster.

Bad enough that the confidence of a nation is in the trash barrel.

All because of a hurricane that hit a city that should never have been built, and the inability of a central government to respond because it has had its collective eye on the wrong target.

And now the spinmasters aren’t even returning phone calls. What’s with that?

And, if you don't believe me, there's this insider look from Stephen Barr of the Washington Post.
Arjay

Disaster Lessons

If ever there is a lesson to be learned by Zephyrhills it’s right now, and the place to learn it is the town of Wiggins, Mississippi.

For all intents and purposes what happened to Wiggins during Katrina is a blueprint for what can happen to Zephyrhills should a major storm come ashore on the Pasco coast.

This is not fiction. Wiggins sits almost exactly as far inland in Mississippi as Zephyrhills sits in Florida. The topography is much the same – flat. The town demographics are different, Wiggins is smaller, but the things that make up a town are the same – roads, churches, sewers, water systems, electrical power systems and, of course, people.

What you are about to read has been culled from news reports from and about Wiggins. All you have to do is put ‘Zephyrhills’ every place you see ‘Wiggins’ and you’ll have a pretty good idea of what’s in store.

First, a bare fact: Winds in Wiggins, just east of where the eye of Katrina passed through, approached speeds of 130 miles per hour while Katrina pounded the county for about eight hours.

“There isn’t a power line in this city that is not on the ground. I remember Camille in 1969, but this is the worst I’ve ever seen. You take everything for granted until it’s not here,” said a survivor.

Brick walls were ripped from storefronts in downtown Wiggins, windows are blown out and metal traffic signs are bent over on sidewalks like plastic straws. The storm shaved off roofs, sliced mobile homes in half, turned barns into splinters and snapped the steeples from churches.

There were deaths, but the storm itself is just the tip of the iceberg. The really nasty stuff comes after the winds die down and the rains stop. Usually, the weather is quite nice after a hurricane, but the peace and tranquility is deceiving. Storms bring human misery almost beyond endurance.

Wiggins resident Cassandra McDonald said she lost all her possessions and the home she rented five days ago, as Hurricane Katrina ripped through her life. An insulin-dependent diabetic, she and her two daughters, ages 3 and 16, now have no place to call home.

If it weren’t for the food and water available at the Stone County fairgrounds Saturday, “we would die,” McDonald said.
“It’s hard and it’s sad,” said McDonald, crying. “We have no water, no lights, no phone. We don’t have nowhere to go.”

Sitting at a makeshift table in front of the drug store in Wiggins she owns with her husband, Vickie Parker doled out blood-pressure medication and anti-seizure pills to some of her regular customers Saturday.

Parker, 58, issued hand-written receipts while her husband, Wes, filled prescriptions inside the darkened store with a flashlight. But while the Parkers were able to provide dozens of people with a 10-day supply of crucial medications, they said they weren't able to address what they said is one of the most pressing problems across Stone County in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: sick people in rural areas who need oxygen tanks to breathe.

"They're running out and asking us what to do," Parker said, adding that "hundreds" of people have come to her store, County Discount Drug, seeking oxygen.

Several dozen hurricane victims were eating fried chicken and corn Saturday afternoon at an emergency shelter at Stone High School.
Dianne Massey, who runs the shelter, said she has been staying there since last Sunday.

Her Ford Taurus was parked outside the school gym, crushed under a pile of bricks that flew off the building during the storm.

Massey, who lives in Wiggins, said the city normally has no homeless shelter. Some of the residents at the makeshift shelter were there simply because they couldn't find gas, she said.

Some were from Louisiana, while others came from Gulfport or Bay St. Louis.

In Wiggins, the county seat and home to about a third of the county's estimated 14,000 residents, Mayor Jerry Alexander said the first outside help didn't arrive until Wednesday.

Several dozen hurricane victims were eating fried chicken and corn Saturday afternoon at an emergency shelter at Stone High School.

The stories go on and on, but by now you’re probably depressed enough.

In the emergency management business there’s a saying, “The best disaster is the one you don’t have, second best is the one you’ve planned for.

Does Zephyrhills have a plan?
Arjay
Copyright © 2005, Arjay Morgan, All rights reserved.

Zephyrhills prepared???

With the Katrina disaster and the ensuing rescue foul ups clearly in mind it’s time to think about just how well or ill prepared Zephyrhills is.

First, a few major-storm assumptions:

No power
No water
Lots of debris in the streets
If it’s late in the hurricane season lots of dead Yankees who didn’t leave their mobile homes. Those who didn’t die will be confused, stumbling, homeless elderly folks who now have no roofs, no cars and little understanding of what it’s like to be hit by a hurricane.
Some flooding, but nothing like New Orleans.
No cellphones or land line phones.
No help from outside for at least 72 hours.

The first thing the city needs is a plan. Who is going to do what with whom.

What role will the police have? It can’t be business as usual because there will be no central dispatch capability, the Nextels won’t work. Is there a car-to-car radio function? Does anybody know how it works? Is there an alternate communications plan in place using, say, ham radio operators and their equipment to dispatch and coordinate police operations? No? Has anybody been tasked to put such a plan together? What will be the police priorities? Safeguarding WalMart, or protecting its citizens houses from looters? Where will arrestees be detained?

Pretty much the same goes for fire and ambulance services, but fire may have no working hydrants and ambulance may have no local hospitals in operation. Has anyone planned for those contingencies? (Yes, there are ways to work around those problems.)

Does the city have tents, portable flood lights, generators to set up a central disaster center? A place to meet the needs of the residents for food, water, clothing? If not, has anyone been tasked with gathering and storing the assets and developing a plan?

Has the city stockpiled any MREs, bottled water, emergency fuel supplies?

Does the city have a sand bag filling machine, or do the elderly have to shovel their own bags full and then lug them around just like last time?

Has anyone been detailed to be in charge of emergency operations? No, not the city manager or the police chief, but somebody who has actually managed a disaster.

When the storm clears what’s the plan of action? Will the streets department have the city divided into quadrants so that debris removal is an orderly thing, or will there be certain thoroughfares that have priority?

Is there a plan to keep the sewage system operating, or at least the lift stations? How about the water plant? There won’t be electricity. Is there a fall back operations plan?

If the nursing homes decide to shelter-in-place is there a plan and the means to evacuate the residents should that plan fail? Are there means to resupply them in case it doesn’t fail?

What sort of identification criteria will be required to ensure that those who are here belong here?

Is there a shelter of last resort? Is it capable of withstanding 140 mile an hour winds? How will its location be communicated to those who should go to it (all those trailer parks again)?

This is by no means a complete disaster plan for a small city, it’s just the top of the list of things an emergency manager thinks about.

Although we like to think that our geography is our floodwall, it’s really not prudent to look to our history and say we have nothing to worry about since there hasn’t been serious, really serious damage to Zephyrhills for lo these many years.

It’s equally foolhardy to believe the cavalry will come galloping over the hill at the last moment. The Federal government has certainly proved it’s a very weak reed, and certainly not to be relied upon. The county emergency managers have a bunker in New Port Richie, 39 miles from here. It might be easy to rely on a timely county response, but it’s not realistic. The state folks are waay up there in Tallahassee. They won’t be along to help for quite a while, if ever.

Clearly, basic self reliance in a time of increased hurricane activity, not to mention terrorist attack, is the only prudent path.

What I don’t want to have to do is sometime down the road to have to print out this blog and stuff it in the face of Spina, Moore, Burgess, Barnes, Hartwig, Sellers as I stand in the middle of the rubble and ask them where they’ve been. I’ll have the same message for the councilpersons and the mayor just as soon as they show up.
Copyright Sept. 2005, Arjay Morgan All rights reserved.
Arjay

Can you spell....?

President George W. Bush has just announced he's going to head an investigation into, "what went right and what went wrong" with the Katrina disaster response.

Can you spell W H I T E W A S H ?

The Bureaucratic Menace

Why do we have to fear the bureaucrats, the government ‘officials,’ the people in charge?

It’s because they aren’t like us. Their priorities are different and even when they cast themselves in the role of rescuers or emergency managers their real priorities are to themselves and their status in the hive they have created. Let me give you an example.

The person occupying the slot of Regional Public Information Officer in FEMA’s Region IV is entitled to an ‘executive’ office chair. It says so right there in the General Services Administration catalog. It’s a perk – an $800 office chair.

In our little example the occupant of the PIO slot is one Mary Hudak. Her office is in Atlanta and she has such a chair.

The scene shifts to a Disaster Field Office set up in a former supermarket in Raleigh, N.C. The disaster is a hurricane – Betsy I believe. All of the worker bees are toiling in their folding chairs and folding tables, set up in a PIO ‘pod.’

Mary arrives. She says she’s there to help, but in fact her agenda is to exercise her authority. Translation: throw her weight around. But first things first.

Upon arrival, she gets on the phone and begins to browbeat a GSA employee for her executive chair. Yes, her perk, her chair. Remember, this is in the middle of a disaster, but Mary will have her chair, she’s entitled to it, the regs. say so.

And, yes, the chair was delivered and Mary sat in it for the next two months, threatening to fire folks who displeased her and basically taking over and disrupting what had been a smooth operation. Also on hand was the Lead PIO, a person she’d appointed. His role during this fiasco was, at full pay, to sit quietly and do nothing. Mary, after all, outranked him.

What did this do for the hurricane victims? It caused them to be fed conflicting and sometimes inaccurate information.

Now, look at the Katrina situation.

In Louisiana the governor’s press secretary is quoted in The New York Times as saying, "We wanted soldiers, helicopters, food and water, they wanted to negotiate an organizational chart."

It’s not just governmental incompetence we’re talking about here. It’s criminal incompetency. For example:

When Wal-Mart sent three trailer trucks loaded with water, FEMA officials turned them away. Agency workers prevented the Coast Guard from delivering 1,000 gallons of diesel fuel, and on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA.

Let’s look at that assertion again, “on Saturday they cut the parish's emergency communications line, leading the sheriff to restore it and post armed guards to protect it from FEMA.”

What’s sad is that it’s not surprising. It’s simply the lion protecting its turf.

If you’re not a government insider it makes no sense, but to one who has been there it’s perfectly logical, and that’s what we have to fear in Zephyrhills or just about anywhere else when the ‘rescuers’ ride into town.

Don’t say you weren’t warned.
Arjay

FEMA Shame

Let me say up front that I’m ashamed to admit that I ever was part of FEMA.

Let me also say up front that the FEMA I was part of is not the FEMA of today.

Under the command of James Lee Witt the agency had Cabinet stature and Witt had the ear of President Bill Clinton.

It’s not that way now.

FEMA is a poor stepchild inside the cobbled together Dept. of Homeland Security, its head, Michael Brown is a political appointee whose only disaster credentials are his own – trying to save a career after being asked to leave the International Arabian Horse Association.

Now, why am I writing this in a blog that ostensibly is about Zephyrhills, Florida?

Simple, the same government that abandoned its poorest and most helpless citizens in Katrina’s wake, no matter how lawless they became, can be depended upon to do the same to the citizens of this usually quiet community.

Here’s the deal, folks: Don’t put your hopes in your government when the chips are down. As long as we keep electing politicians who are beholden to themselves first and big business second, those of us who pay the bills will be left to suck hind tit.

A governmental failure of the magnitude we are witnessing and enduring often causes the knee jerk reaction of ‘throw the rascals out.’ Not a bad idea, but it fails to take account of the fact that one set of rascals has to be replaced by another set. Hopefully, a better bunch of rascals.

What does this mean to us here in Zephyrhills? It should be a clarion call for self reliance. We need to put in place, right now, the support infrastructure we’ll need to survive disaster when it hits us – and believe me, there IS a disaster with our name on it.
Arjay

Katrina Fiasco

I spent a number of years working as a Public Information Officer for FEMA, the Federal Emergency Management Agency. I might just know a few things about disasters, having worked some of the biggies and a lot of the little ones. I also still keep in touch with the emergency management community. Today (Thursday) was especially disturbing. But first a bit of history.

A Katrina-like storm was the stuff of innumerable training scenarios. It was truly the cataclysmic event that we all gamed and pre-planned, and we all knew it could happen. We also hoped it wouldn't be in our lifetimes. But it did happen. Then things went from really bad to awful. Expected responses weren't there. People like me began to think something was really wrong when we realized we were busily rebuilding Iraq, but when our own citizens were devastated we offer them 'low interest' SBA loans. Wonder what kind of interest Ali Mohammed pays on his new, courtesy of the U.S.A., home in a lovely Baghdad suburb? But that's another whole posting.

Then came the really bad news. It reads like this:

<http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=2802>

"Hurricane Katrina has obliterated so many homes, churches,
communications systems, fuel supply lines that the normal channels of disaster response have simply ground to a halt...

"With gas supplies faltering, communication disrupted, and an
unprecedented number of homeless people in the U.S., government and faith-based responders alike are being forced to rethink plans they've used in other disasters."

That's from the publication of the folks who make disasters their business. It isn't network hype, nor is it soothing words from a bureaucrat. It's the assessment of the people who know their business. It's also a terrible commentary on what can happen when the central government loses sight of its primary function: the well being of its citizens. It's also scary as hell.

Even moreso it is scary when you live in a place like West-Central Florida. Yes, folks, it can happen here, not quite on the scale of New Orleans, but certainly on the scale of Biloxi.

Think of that when you vote next election day, or, worse yet, when you don't vote.

Arjay

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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.
_________________________________________________
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