I am a little underwhelmed by the information provided
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David,
Thanks for getting the berm investigative report last night. I have to say that I am a little underwhelmed by the information provided, as it seems to be somewhat basic and cursory.
I have a few follow-up questions:
1. Is this the final report from Mr. Meyer?
2. Is he scheduled to formally present the report to council so that we can ask questions?
3. Did he make any inquiries as to why the close-out report presented to council did not include a line-by-line reporting of the work completed?
4. He recommended a review of specific archived emails and meeting minutes. It seems he could have easily requested this from the clerk to achieve thorough results. Was this not in the scope of his investigative authority?
5. Did he request any documentation from Quentin L Hampton showing who in the city communicated approval of the berm’s removal? The QLH project manager indicated that he communicated with one employee. Was this by phone? Email? I was wondering if there is a corresponding email to complete the paper trail of this authorization, and if it contained an email tree of who the city employee communicated with and received authorization from.
6. I was also curious if it was discovered what the time gap between the request from QLH’s project manager and the city’s confirmation to QLH that it was okay to remove the berm. Whether it was asked and answered immediately or whether there was a gap of hours or days would indicate how much consideration and discussion had to be given to the request by other individuals in the chain of command.
7. Was there an examination of who prepared the closeout paperwork for council?
These just came to mind after reading the report, and it is my hope we can get sufficient answers for council to discover the facts.
Thanks!
Don Burnette, Councilman District 2
City of Port Orange
www.port-orange.org
Sent from my iPad
It is nice that Don received the long awaited berm investigation. What about the rest of us? Per Don’s questions it sounds like we are being fed more incomplete propaganda. Maybe they can hire a consultant to review the results. If they string it out a little longer we will all forget about it until the next flood. Who are they covering for? I guess they think we are all stupid. If they keep up the shenanigans someone is going to end up in jail. Long overdue. Council needs to get a grip unless they are part of the smoke screen. Glad to see at least Don is calling Harden on this one. This whole mess is SO disrespectful to all of the poor flood victims. I think I’ll take them up and sell my now flood prone home to them for market value. Looks like the only solution. The Ruth St. Neighborhood is one of the oldest in the city and made it this far until the city started playing with the lay of the land. I once again feel scammed.
Based on the recent history of this city.
The council should create a new Department of Audits & Investigations
To Don Burnette from Hank Springer.
I am impressed with the questions you asked.
It is good that you are not content with answers that fall short of the whole truth on this issue.
Hank, If you are impressed with Don’s questions I cannot help but think how much more you would be impressed if he had been concerned enough with the integrity of this investigation from its inception to have made clear to the Manager in an open meeting that he expected a real investigation would be undertaken complete with depositions and video recording, to forestall the exact kind of phony report that has been served up.
Do you remember hearing any such concerns from Don ?
Come to think about it the recent Pegasus Engineering Evaluation Report of the berm was just about as useless as this I Don’t Know Nothing Report that Don is questioning and I don’t remember him letting the Manager know what he expected from that engineering evaluation either. Do You ??
And that brings us to the final leg in the missing berm stool and that is the forensic accounting review to determine where the money went for its deletion. I have questioned the status of this forensic review on umpteen occasions including last Tuesday evening and once again do you remember Don ever telling the Manager anything about how credible a forensic accounting report he is expecting ???
Why would any report, investigation or study be accurate when the devil does the hiring and paying for such information. Perhaps it’s time the citizens should be in charge of who gets hired and paid for information. when needed. Then you may get the truth. Let’s pull citizen names out of a hat next time and let them pick. That’s the only way to bypass the good old boy system. Better yet, take out the trash and then you won’t have so many problems!
the investigatin was xactly what was asked for and allowed to happen
You are absolutely correct TBT.
Manager Harden asked for a minimal effort designed to un-cover nothing, AND Council allowed that to happen.
The same exact scenario played out with the Pegasus Engineering Evaluation.
The question is why do Council and the Manager want nothing of substance disclosed regarding a host of issues ???
Wasnt this the same as the Kisela and Parker noninvestigations of the past. Must be the ICMA school of Investigations 101.