Dumb And Dumber

' We've got a list of bridges, some of which are unsafe, but we won't give you the inspection reports because we don't have to. There's no law that says we do.' That's the figurative message The Citizen got when it asked for the reports of bridge inspections from the The Florida Department of Transportation. What kind of crap is that?

Doesn't that just give you real confidence in the Florida Department of Transportation? Here is a public department - a branch of state government - designed to serve the people, and it won't even let you see any reports about bridges over which you have to travel. Where, pray tell, is the leadership in that department? In this case, asleep at what is supposed to be the bridge between the Department and the public.

This dumb move to keep the reports secret and the even dumber refusal to give the reports to a newspaper doing a follow up story on the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis is nothing less than appalling. What ever happened to common sense? Apparently the folks in the Florida Department of Transportation who made the decision not to release the reports have none.

That stupid decision is a case in point why the Florida Sunshine Law needs to be strengthened. Now, the question is: what is Governor Crist going to do about such arrogant stupidity? The wise move would be to say to the secrecy morons in the Florida Department of Transportation, "Give The Citizen and other members of the public the reports" or take a hike -- a permanent one from your job! "

Piss And Vinegar Is It?

"When Harry Bethel was in his 20s and 30s, he was full of piss and vinegar, but people grow and mature. . ."

That they do. That's why we don't care whether or not Harry Bethel was fired some 33 years ago, or whether back then, as he reportedly has put it so colorfully, he was "full of piss and vinegar." Bethel is right that what happened 30 some years ago shouldn't be a factor in whether he gets elected to the Utility Board.

What does matter is what kind of candidate Bethel is today and whether the current happenings in his political life as well as his political views make him the best person to represent the citizens on the Utility Board.

Now that Bethel is "mature," it's his record on the City Commission and current doings that need to be measured to see how he stacks up against the other candidates, Charles Lee and Ty Symroski, in the quest for the Group 1 seat on the Utility Board.

Bethel Has A Challenger

City Commissioner Harry Bethel who is not seeking re-election to the City Commission but, instead, is seeking the Group 1 seat on the Utility Board finally has a challenger. He is Ty Symroski, the former City Planner of Key West. He is 55 years old and has lived in Key West since 1984. He was City Planner from 1998 to 2006 when he left to take a job as the Growth Management Director with Monroe County. He left that job this year, indicating differences with the County Administrator. (Given the messed up County situation, voters should not hold that against him). As for his other credentials, Symrosky has a bachelor's degree in land-use planning and a master's in regional planning.

It should be an interesting, but tough race. Bethel will be a formidable candidate, despite his troubles. He is being investigated for an ethics violation in connection with a dinner on Sunset Key that he and City Commissioners Danny Kolhage and Clayton Lopez allegedly attended with a VP of one of the companies involved with the development of Wisteria Island. Bethel later returned a $1500 campaign contribution from the family of developers who had supported the annexation of Wisteria Island when it was before the City Commission.

Stay tuned.

Giving Back The Money

Key West Commissioner Harry Bethel: "The Walshes give money during campaigns, so does Pritam Singh, so do all developers," he said. "But with all this going on, I simply chose to return the money."

Like, hey, yeah, guess so. Already under investigation for an alleged ethics violation, Commissioner Harry Bethel, who is not seeking re-election to the City Commission but is running for the Utility Board, decided to come down from his mountain vacation long enough to give back a campaign donation of $1500 from the family of developers who had recently asked that the city annex Wisteria Island so they could build about 150 plus homes there. Without annexation, under Monroe County's current rules, the developers could build two homes.

While the now withdrawn annexation request was was an issue before the Commission, Bethel along with Commissioners Danny Kolhage and Clayton Lopez just happened to have attended a dinner on Sunset Key with a vice president of the Walsh family companies.

By way of background, in many places there would be nothing wrong with several legislators meeting and talking with others and among themselves including discussing how they might vote on a piece of legislation. In Washington, DC it's done all the time. But that is not supposed to be the way it's done in Key West. Commissioners here are not supposed to have a meeting where pending matters are discussed unless the public is given notice of the meeting so members of the public can attend. That is, as we understand it, the gist of the Sunshine Law. There are also ethical issues with accepting (if it happens) something of value from a person interested in seeing a piece of legislation pass. So, in Key West, we are supposed to have open and ethical government.

But whether there are violations of the Sunshine Law or other ethical proscriptions depend upon what happened at a particular meeting and, of course, what was discussed. That is what no one seems to know, except those who were present on Sunset Key. And that is what the investigation is theoretically about.

What do you suppose these Commissioners were talking about? They certainly are friends (from time to time at least in the political realm). It is hard to serve on a political body for as long as these folks have and not like, or at least respect, each other even if your views are miles apart. So we think these Commissioners should tell the public in some detail just what went on at the dinner.

It would certainly be nice to know that, in fact, these Commissioners had only come for chicken and camaraderie and to listen to the sound of the ocean. After all, it is nice out there on Sunset Key. We've been there. Of course, never have we been in such august political company.

As for giving back the campaign contribution, that was certainly the right thing to do. Unfortunately the damage is done in political terms. The trouble is that the contribution now makes Utility Board candidate Bethel look bad politically. Now the savvy voters may well question whether Bethel should be their choice in the election; not because he returned the money, but because he got himself into the sticky wicket in the first place by attending the dinner on Wisteria Island.

It is ironic, sometimes, how the money every candidate needs to raise to run for office can, when obtained, be an unexpected political blunder that raises questions about the candidate's worthiness for office and provides grist for his opponents. But that's politics and what makes it exciting.

TAMPOA Board To Meet In Executive Session

The TAMPOA Board is having an "Executive Session" on Memorial Day at 4:00 p.m. The session was called by Board President, Tom Tukey. Executive Sessions are by definition secret. Here is the curious agenda for the meeting:

The Truman Annex Master Property Owners’ Association, Inc.
Executive Session
Board of Directors Meeting
201 Front Street, Suite 103
Key West, Florida 33040
Monday, May 28, 2007
Monday at 4:00 PM

Purpose: Conduct Business as Properly Brought Before the Board

AGENDA

1. Call Meeting to Order
2. Determination of Quorum
3. Proof of Notice of Meeting
4. Approval of Minutes
5. Reports of Officers
6. Reports of Committees
7. Unfinished Business
8. New Business
9. Member Input
10. Adjournment

* * *

This agenda appears to reflect that the meeting is to be held as an "Executive Session," that is, in secret, but raises a number of questions including the propriety of dealing with certain items on the agenda in secret.

Take item 2, "Determination of a Quorum." Why is secrecy needed for that. Either there is a quorum or there is not. If there is no quorum, the meeting is not legitimate. Of all things the TAMPOA members are entitled to be present for and to know, this agenda item ranks among the most important. What could possibly be the legitimate interest in hiding whether there is a quorum at the meeting? But, of course, we'll never know whether there was actually a quorum because the meeting is secret. In short, there is no reason to make this part of the meeting secret since, after determination that a quorum exists, the Board is free to go into Executive Session.

Take, item 4 on the agenda, "Approval of Minutes." Why the need to approve minutes in secret? The minutes likely to be approved are the minutes of a prior non-secret meeting. Why does it take a secret meeting to approve those minutes? What possible interest is served in talking about what has been written about a prior open meeting in secret? In our book no legitimate interest is served.

Then there is item 6, "Reports of Committees." Why have reports of committees in secret? Since when did TAMPOA establish secret committees? What, we're now turning into a gulag? Unless we really have turned into a gulag, not all business of every committee likely to report can be secret. There is no reason most reports cannot be made in open session, and then the Board could go into executive session. But apparently not here, not in the closed society that TAMPOA is becoming.

There is also item 9, "Member Input." You've got to be kidding us. If the meeting is secret, what member input can or will there be? This is a joke, right? Oh, we get it, that input is for the "secret members." Who do you suppose they might be? The Board members are not secret, unless we missed something in the voting and there are little green creatures from the Pleiades in our midst.

Why meet Memorial Day? We realize that Memorial Day was originally a Northern Holiday not celebrated in some parts of the Deep South, but as far as we know Key West was always, nominally at least, a Yankee outpost. And we assume the holiday is one recognized by all but a few members of TAMPOA, including most, if not all, TAMPOA Board members. So, why meet on Memorial Day?

One can guess that it must be something fairly urgent since only three days notice was given for the meeting. What is so urgent that it couldn't wait one week until the regular meeting of the TAMPOA Board on the first Monday of the month, i.e. June?

Why is there no particular subject or reason specified for the secrecy of the meeting in the notice of the meeting or the agenda? In most executive (secret) sessions, there is at least a subject of the meeting given in the announcement of the meeting -- e.g. review personnel matters, confer with legal counsel, etc. -- things that one might expect would ordinarily command an executive session. Not here.

That raises a question of whether the notice of the meeting, which is required by law, is proper. If not, then possibly whatever action is taken at the meeting may also be improper. If the meeting and business to be conducted are such an emergency and so important that the meeting has to be held in secret on three days notice on a National Holiday, wouldn't you think the Board would want to make sure that the notice was such that it was beyond even the appearance of question? We would.

Did the TAMPOA Board leaders even think about that? We may never know since the meeting is secret. In essence virtually all the notice tells us is "Hey folks we're having a secret meeting where we can talk about anything and everything related to TAMPOA and all we're telling you is the headings found on our usual agendas without any further description of the subject of the meeting." Is that the kind of notice that gives a scintilla of the kind of information a TAMPOA member would want from a Board that is spending hundreds of thousands of the members' dollars a year? We doubt it. And since we are paying for the extravagant fiscal policies of this Board, we want more information than, "Hey folks we're having a secret meeting."

We are certain some will say, why bother, it's only one meeting. If that were all, we might chalk it up to ignorance and forget it. The problem is this conduct of TAMPOA is illustrative and symptomatic of what is wrong with many homeowners' and condo associations, and something the Florida Legislature needs to fix. It's called the tyranny of the majority.

These association boards -- and now we're talking not about TAMPOA but generally about a larger problem -- often spin out of control, become unresponsive to their members, treat those who complain like pariahs, and are very hard to remove from office because of the way voting is conducted and staggered terms of office. Moreover, they are able to meet and even spend money in secret. They are not required to put substantial expenditures to a vote of the membership, can change the rules without a vote of the membership, can make it almost impossible to force a vote of the membership on a given item, and generally can act any way they want short of committing some crime.

And sadly for some other associations, for as much as we and others have complained about our own association's foibles, some other associations have much deeper and more serious troubles of the kind we've just mentioned. Actually, when lumped into the total mix of problems TAMPOA may be one of the better run of the associations with perhaps a better board and better leaders. In that sense we are fortunate. But even though we don't have some of the serious problems of other associations, we can do better and expect more from those who would purport to lead us. With good leadership comes greater expectations.

We hope that in light of the problems with many associations now coming to light nationally that the Florida Legislature and the Congress will tighten significantly the oversight of such associations. We certainly intend to push for such reforms, and we invite others to do so.

Several reforms should be at the top of the list. The first should be an end to secret meetings except for actual face to face meetings with legal counsel that will involve attorney-client privileged discussions. Since most of these associations have some sort of corporate structure, we have been told that not necessarily every meeting with a lawyer a corporate officer or board has will qualify for that privilege, and it should not be used to avoid such a reform.

Second, the Florida Sunshine Laws should be made to apply to homeowner and condo associations and members of their boards. We know that all kinds of deals and doings go on behind the scenes with such association boards just as with government entities, but we suspect there is less back room dealing because of the applicability of the Sunshine Laws than there otherwise would be. They should be made applicable to homeowner and condo associations by the legislature so association members can have half a chance of knowing what is happening with their governing bodies.

Third, the Florida Legislature should require that association meeting agendas identify, even for executive sessions, the subject of the business to be conducted. This would do away with the kind of pablum and vague formula agendas that now come out of the typical board. The association members have a right to know what the board is going to talk about in some detail in a regular session and to know at least the subject of and reason for an executive session. It is no argument to suggest that well these board members are just volunteers and don't have the time for all that formality. Hogwash. Some of the largest and best organizations in the country are run superbly by volunteers. These organizations, many of which operate on a national level, seem to have no trouble complying with complicated disclosure rules.

Fourth, the Florida legislature should require that association minutes reflect in sufficient detail and plain language what actually occurs in the meetings of the association or its board so that an absent member can know in fact what occurred. A board should not be able to make the minutes of its meetings so vague that someone who hadn't attended the meeting will have to guess at what occurred.

Well run associations should neither fear nor oppose such reforms. These associations certainly have an interest in this kind of reform; the same kind of interest good landlords have in eliminating slumlords. They spoil it for everyone else.

Sunshine

"To Mayor McPherson: If you're going to break the law, don't go on live radio and admit it. When you got Bill Becker against you, your days are numbered."

Really?

Do you think anyone will be prosecuted? Should the nobility of the purpose for the violation be a consideration?

The Trouble With Secrecy

The trouble with the lack of open records is that the secrets are bound to get out. When that happens, what was hidden always gets sensationalized and the revelation always seems worse than it probably would have been had the event not been covered up in the first place. This is almost always the case when the event ordinarily would not even command a page 20 position in the local newspaper.

While we realize that even a traffic arrest can seem like major news in Key West, in a city the size of Miami, there are hundreds of arrests in an evening. Of those, only the most serious felonies (usually involving violence or large quantities of drugs) are likely to raise a news-brow. But let an intrepid reporter even think that something is being covered up or someone is getting "special treatment" and the journalistic pheromones go into such an uncontrollable episode of heat that a hound dog could drown in the saliva generated by the panting to get the story. This appears to be true even when the "story" is more than half a dozen years old, has little relevance to any current event concerning the person in the "story," or otherwise would generate only a titter -- among the consigliere.

The only other time an event generates such a journalistic feeding frenzy is when the event has the scent of sex. Then journalists (who must appear starved for it ) seem to lose all sense of restraint and don their National Enquirer waders to slog through muck to bag their quarry. Such sex-driven feeding frenzies of the National Enquirer variety usually involve quarry seeking attention, directly or indirectly. A case in point: the erstwhile "star" whose crotch recently was memorialized by the paparazzi. But arguably that story at least was a "current" event, if one can call crotch-watching an "event."

Harder to understand, much less explain, is the fascination with an almost seven year old arrest in Miami that did not result in a prosecution or a conviction. Perhaps part of a rational explanation is to be found is in the philosophy of journalism that drives any particular reporter or editor. That philosophy is usually made up of a combination of instinct, news acumen, ethics, drive, political sense, passion, and character all operating together in assessing and producing a story. Another part is whether a tip was involved.

Reporters are almost cop-like when a tip is involved, particularly when the tip comes from another reporter or a trusted source. Reporters are duty-bound to follow up on a tip for a whole variety of reasons. First, a tip is just that. You never know where it will lead. It may be nothing, but it may also be the story of the decade. A part of your job is detective work if you are an investigative reporter. Second, if your tip is from a trusted or credible source, it is journalistic malpractice to ignore it. Another reason you have to follow up on a tip, especially from a trusted source or another reporter is that if you don't, you won't get any more tips. Tips are like favors. If you ignore them, people will stop giving you favors. Your thank you for the favor is your follow-up. Your extra thank you is the resulting story. That story says to the one providing you the lead, "Well done." Your follow up and the appearance of that story is empowering to your source. It vindicates his or her notions of justice, whether or not you intended that result. So there are compelling reasons for a reporter to follow up on tips and get the facts.

What a reporter (or editor) chooses to do with those facts is another matter. That decision is often at the root of the criticism the press receives because the public is a great second-guesser and Monday morning quarterback. Many journalists (and editors) solve the "what-to-do-with-the-information problem" by simply going with the story. They prefer to err on the side of telling most, if not all, as accurately as they can while depending on the readers' ability to sift and winnow the information appropriately. Otherwise, the journalist must take on the very dilemma posed by the secrecy of the information the reporter has uncovered: whether the secrecy was appropriate in the first place. If it was not, then why is the reporter continuing to perpetuate that inappropriate secrecy by sitting on the information?

The sifting and winnowing approach seems to work fairly well and has another advantage. It keeps the press independent from influence by the rich or politically powerful and results in a more open society. The truth is that the public is a pretty forgiving lot, and is able to cut people it feels have gotten a bad rap in the media a good deal of slack, even if what was said about them turns out to be accurate. That was likely the case with President Clinton's interlude with Monica Lewinsky. What most of the public got steamed about was not his interlude but was that he was not exactly forthcoming about it. To be sure there were some who disapproved of the relationship with Monica in general, but the polling seemed to show that the public was more concerned with the denials than with the details of Clinton's Monica folly.

So will anyone really care about what really happened to Tom Tukey, or whether it (whatever IT is) happened, as Dennis Cooper portrays it? Some may, especially Mr. Tukey. However, the people we have heard from in the Annex, who are not particularly rabid Tukey supporters, seem to care little about the event, if they even are aware of it. For these folks, and perhaps others, ultimately the burning questions will be these: what does whatever happened, if it happened, in Miami on some date almost seven years ago have to do with what is happening NOW with TAMPOA? And, how, if at all, does it affect the job (yes, volunteer or not, it is a job) he does or must do in the future as TAMPOA's President? Until those questions get aired and answered, the whole event, even if it produces an abundance of back-porch-cocktail-hour tongue-wagging among the power elite at the Annex and sells a lot of newspapers, is a yawn.

The real lesson that is lost on the tongue-wagging-cocktail-set is that the story would have been a non-event, even for Key West The Newspaper, had some in the Florida justice system not tried to cover it up. That's the trouble with improper secrecy in government. The fallout is always worse than the initial event.

Creating A More Open TAMPOA Government

Monroe County, Key West, and TAMPOA could take a lesson from Governor Crist on the notion of open government. Florida's Sunshine Laws are often violated, and Governor Crist has determined to do something about it. One of his first acts as governor was to create an Office of Open Government to train state officials and employees about open government and public records laws and to require compliance with them. As part of the compliance process, the governor has directed State Agencies to designate someone to oversee public records requests and insure that they are responded to quickly and completely.

The apparent lack of knowledge regarding the applicability of the Sunshine Laws by some on the Monroe County Commission was recently brought to light. The side deals that have gotten made in the past in the City Commission, while not violations of the Sunshine laws, probably would not have been made had more light been shed on them. The latest example is the effort by the City Commissions to reverse course once they were sued by Last Stand. A final example is the tempest now unfolding over sealed court records in Miami-Dade. It is not enough to obey only the letter of the Sunshine Laws and the requirement for open records but they must be observed in spirit as well.

That's where TAMPOA comes in. We realize that TAMPOA is private and can thumb its nose at will at both the letter and spirit of the Sunshine Laws. But wouldn't you think that a group that is battling for public acceptance in the Key West Community would want to embrace the notion of open government within its own ranks? Wouldn't you think that the TAMPOA leadership would want to be more proactive about providing the broadest array of information to its members?

Instead, it appears that a member of TAMPOA who may not be a permanent resident of Key West has to go to some to get information that would be readily available to the average Joe dealing with the City of Key West. TAMPOA certainly has the technology to make it's government more open to its members, so it's not a case of "can't" but a case of "won't." And we don't see how, for example, TAMPOA got away with inviting the Mayor to speak to its Annual Meeting while excluding the public (and the media).

Despite its claim that the Annual Meeting had the largest turnout in a long while, the reality was that only about 88 owners showed up in person -- the rest appeared by proxy, i.e., gave their vote to someone who was already there or showed up in their place. Since there are at least 267 owners in the Annex, not counting Shipyard, it's hard to claim (at least in real terms) the Annual meeting was a crowd. But we suppose it's all relative and if 88 real owners show up in person and you've never had 88 before, then maybe you are making some attendance progress.

Think of the progress that could be made in having a more informed membership if TAMPOA would simply use it's existing technology. Many of the TAMPOA Board members already attend the Board meetings by conference call. Why not let the membership in on the call as well and let members who want to dial in?

Why not be more proactive in updating the TAMPOA website? The site still has an old newsletter from 2006 on it, and even though TAMPOA has added the two new board members to the posted list of board members, the list is still being referred to as the "2006 Board" when the two new members were elected January 29, 2007. The Board appears ready to spend money on (some think fruitless) litigation but won't spend money on improving the TAMPOA website to better communicate with members.

There are even advantages in using technology to better communicate for those few on the Board who want to keep some matters secret. There are numerous organizations, both smaller and larger than TAMPOA, that use secure and confidential web technology to communicate with their members. TAMPOA has simply chosen to remain in the dark ages as far as informing its membership is concerned. Frankly, we don't understand why. But its choice to do so is short-sighted and is hurting its members understanding of its actions.

Perhaps TAMPOA's choice will prompt some folks, including Governor Crist, to seek to include homeowners' associations like TAMPOA within the ambit of the Sunshine Laws. These associations often function as virtual governments, with the power to police, fine, tax, and spend with little oversight. They are subject to few federal or state constitutional controls and hold sway in Florida over a large number of peoples' lives. The actions of these homeowners' associations affect the cities, towns, and villages where they are located, and yet they are not accountable (in the same way the cities, towns, and villages are) to those within their often-gated walls.

The Mayor of Key West was right when he noted at the TAMPOA Annual Meeting (from which the resident citizens of the rest of Key West were largely excluded) that Key West is changing. Judging by the number of condo conversions and gated communities being planned and built in the Keys, the day may not be far off when all Key West will be is a series of gated communities governed by private homeowner associations that are not subject to the Sunshine Laws or the requirements of open government.