Do records of Approval & Denial Exist OR Were they Destroyed ??
Thank you Robin,
As I explained in our conversation earlier this morning I have no issues with your fidelity to Florida Statutes in supplying public records.
That being said this is huge embarrassment for all concerned and in particular for a Manager who withheld evidence of a major internal control failure for well in excess of a month. Acceptance or rejection of the 04-22-2014 DF by Finance and or Legal will like confirm this suspicion.
While I can certainly wait until all public records requests including this one despite its sensitivity are filled, I would like to know if either Finance or Legal or the Manager’s office will be providing any ‘public record’ of approval or denial of this DF ??
It would be a well seasoned karma indeed if Florida’s Supreme Court were called upon to rule on Port Orange’s policy condoning the wanton destruction of public records in connection with either approvals or denials of ‘draft’ DF’s under Manager Kisela who actively disparaged my 1st Amendment rights in an attempt to shut me up politically under the pretext of fictitious public records violations.
Are you expecting to provide the public records I have requested or should the 1stAmendment Foundation be readied to give the City a needed nudge ??
Ted Noftall
—–Original Message—–
From: Fenwick, Robin [mailto:rfenwick@port-orange.org]
Sent: Friday, May 30, 2014 10:00 AM
To: Ted Noftall
Cc: Kisela, Greg
Subject: RE: Draft DF’s relating to Sunstate Meter & Supply
Ted,
I have asked several departments to check and double check for any copies they may have with or without signatures. I will forward anything that I receive to you.
Robin
ROBIN L. FENWICK, CMC
CITY CLERK
CITY OF PORT ORANGE
1000 City Center Circle
Port Orange, FL 32129
TEL: 386-506-5563
FAX: 386-756-5290
From: Ted Noftall [mailto:Ted@TedNoftall.com]
Sent: Thursday, May 29, 2014 8:36 PM
To: Robin Fenwick (rfenwick@port-orange.org)
Cc: gkisela@port-orange.org
Subject: FW: Draft DF’s relating to Sunstate Meter & Supply
Thank you Robin,
I understand the volume impractically of retaining pure drafts.
However once another departments approval is bestowed on a document, OR such approval is denied for cause or concern — that approval or denial becomes a separate public record unto itself independent of the draft itself.
I am un clear if approvals or denials are physically affixed to the DF or if they are conveyed by e-mail ?
In either even I would again inquire as to whether there are any public records indicating any approval, OR rejection of the agenda item we have been discussing.
Ted Noftall
Ted, you are not going to get anywhere with this city manager. He has been playing this game for his entire career in all his past jobs. He is so addicted to circumventing any and all rules that keep an organization honest it is surprising he has not been found criminal. You have to question what he says every time he opens his mouth. He likes to use procrastination and time to avoid addressing issues in the sunshine and increase the success of his whitewashing activities. Their has never been a city manager or for that matter any administrator in the history of Port Orange as despised by devoted citizens, community stakeholders, and the employees of the City of Port Orange. His shady practices are so deplorable it is amazing some councilman has not made a motion to vote him down the road yet. Keep up your good work and sooner or later if all honest people keep the pressure on and do not lose heart this dog and pony show will come to an end.
Comments on 6-3-2014 Council Meeting
Last night at the council meeting Ted raised questions about the reclaimed water system. I don’t think they were answered correctly While it was true that Donna submitted a report last year on the history and status of the reclaimed water system, that’s all it was. It was a slightly watered down, incomplete, politically correct report. Several of us employees and our consulting engineers along with some discussions gave written input to Donna which she used to compile the report. Not everything made it into the report. The report did not go into much detail on wasted money on useless parts of the system nor did it offer real solutions to the problems
From what I remember after the report was submitted to council it was decided that the CM was going to hire a engineering firm of his choice to do a comprehensive analysis of the entire reclaimed system and come up with some sort of plan to get us to a good fully operational system and council decided that they wanted to do a work shop that was put off until cooler weather because they didn’t want go out to the reclaimed lakes during the summer heat.
At that time some of us dummies with a few hundred years of combined experience in utilities recommended to management that instead of hiring an expensive engineering firm that the city could use the FRWA (Florida rural water association) to do the analysis. They are a non profit organization of top utilities professionals and utilities engineers that have done this type of work for other entities. They would have done it for a donation. Our recommendation fell on deaf ears. As usual management would rather bury their heads in the sand, let time pass and hope the problem goes away.
There are more problems and inadequacies in the reclaimed system than the lakes. I had a post on here recently called reclaimed 101 that detailed some things that need to be considered with the improvement project at the reclaimed lakes.
I also heard last night that there is a committee or board that is evaluating engineering firms for possible contract with the city. Was that publically announced? Who is on this committee? Are they well experienced utilities people that know what to look for in a utilities engineering firm? Our current consulting engineers are pretty good, they just need better direction and control from competent utilities management. Whatever engineering firm the city uses they must have good direction and control by experienced, knowledgeable utilities professionals (internal controls). Our problems in that area as it relates to utilities have always been due to our politically driven utilities management and city utilities engineers with no practical utilities experience or operational understanding. There is a difference between doing what is perceived as politically correct or politically driven and doing what is right for the city. One thing that made me unpopular with management was that I didn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, I told them what they needed to hear. That is the philosophy that management should have with the council and citizens. And back it up with true facts.
Myself and some of our utilities employees could greatly assist council and the city with information to help them with difficult decisions. All they have to do is ask but they would have guaranty that no action would be taken against the employees by management. Fear of management was also brought up last night. Fear of management does exist big time! Employees do not trust management and are in constant fear of losing their jobs. I know some utilities employees that have been threatened. I was threatened on numerous occasions. The work environment was unbearably hostile and stressful for me and was greatly effecting my health, contributing to worsening my disability I stay in contact with my former colleagues and from what I’m hearing the work environment is quite hostile.
I don’t quite understand all of the document requests regarding this matter. I am sure that when granted the initial $500,000 they gradually spent it and tracked the number downward. It was stated they thought there was an additional 500,000 more allocated. That would move that tracked number upward. That is the document or entry that I would like for us to see. It is an embarrassment to be missing $411,000 and not only grant that but fork over an extra $500,000.
If they didn’t know what they were doing with the first $1,000,000 why should we believe they will properly utilize the extra $500,000. I think it was stated that items not even in the first contract were purchased as well. Then they want RATE hikes. Please no more of my fixed income until you get some competent management or complete direction by council until they find some.
The city manager will go to unconscionable measures to cover up the incompetence and lack of professionalism of his FCCMA MIT imported management team. We have already established that his public works, public utilities, and finance directors are all washouts from their last jobs and two of them have been obligatorily hired by Kisela as an insurance policy with the FCCMA/ICMA in case he soon becomes an MIT and needs to be recycled for another high paying administrative position himself. He knows that once his top administrators are exposed for their incompetency and become obvious liabilities to the citizens of Port Orange they will have to be discharged which will result in a domino effect that will lead to his own dismissal.
It will be like pulling teeth before he will acknowledge that he is the leader of a buffoon senior management team. Out of desperation he will use obfuscation and time to hopefully induce amnesia in the city council and break down the citizen’s resolve for transparent government and clear evidence that the existing debacles have been cleared up. Mr. Kisela and his senior management team simply do not have the ability to identify the proper solutions to the serious problems that exist in the city and are not only intensifying existing problems but are creating brand new ones. The lack of due diligence and definitive action by the city council has given him hope that he will survive the sunshine and inevitably orchestrate a climate of darkness and indifference to operate unchecked going forward.
Due to the dedication of citizen activists like Ted Noftall, the Gardeners, Richard Woodman, and a large contingent of dedicated long term city employees who still care about the state of the city and the future of its citizens he has been kept on the defensive. Hopefully the council will due their research and utilize the power that has been invested in them by the citizens of Port Orange. This is only going to get worse and worse if no action is taken, and the insidious nature of the organizational damage that is being perpetrated by these interlopers will ultimately result in the organizations implosion.
Do we have a similar problem like this at city hall?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYQKFpeq_Zg
Hey Trickster is this a video about the FCCMA?
Yes, the rats are running rampant throughout the city. Two rats have already fled with their goodie bags, Parker and Shelly. Papa rat, Green and Jr. rat Kisela are filling the house with more rats, big fat rats, smaller rats, female rats and rats that don’t know a rats ass from a rats elbow and they keep coming. Soon the city will be over run and will have to change it’s name to Rat Town.
No public record will be provided if humanly possible. The reason being is that it is much easier to use a lower level employee as a scapegoat than one of your department heads. The city manager would rather give away one of his pawns than give up a rook or a bishop in his chess game. In the end he will cannibalize them all, even his queen. Hopefully before he cannibalizes them all, they will give him up and expose the coercion he has insidiously subjected them too. The rodent receives his orders from the silver fox and when the heat is on and the shit hits the fan he looks for the most vulnerable person to cannibalize and works his way up. When he runs out of lower level scapegoats, he will eventually work his way up to assistant directors, directors, and at last resort assistant city managers. Remember when rodents run out of food they begin to cannibalize their own weak in inverse order of hierarchical power. After he cannibalizes the last one its game over for him, and then the silver fox looks for another head rodent. In the Hall Of Valhalla we do not suffer any rodents!