Venice on the web
A semi-regular column

- John Patten, 06/26/02, revised 06/30/02 jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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Related:
More Turmoil Hits Computer Department
-- Venice Gondolier Sun, 06/26/02
Venice Lays Off Information Systems Worker
-- Sarasota Herald-Tribune, 06/26/02

The fix is in*
City Manager George Hunt went on a massive tirade at the June 25th City Council meeting, lashing out at Herb Levine of the Venice Taxpayers League and firing Information Systems employee Dan Acosta. He also had some kind words for this author, to the effect that Assistant City Manager Marty Black was the victim of an attempted blackmail plot, foiled and uncovered by Hunt himself. Even Mayor Calamaras jumped in on that last item, stating that it was a well-known fact that I wanted to take over the I.S. Department.

According to Hunt, "Mr. Black took copious notes" of a meeting that I had with him back in May. What Hunt didn't disclose to council was that I had given Black the name and phone number of an agent at the FDLE that already had much of this information, and that I had urged Black to give the agent a call. I've yet to ever hear of an extortionist urging his victim to call the cops.

Black was absent from the council meeting, on leave due to an illness in his family.

It was a wild ride, and George was in rare form. You could almost sense the wind whipping through his hair as he rode on, trampling heathens and unbelievers beneath his mighty steed. "Bogus accusations, witch hunts, unproven assertions and endless debate," is how Hunt summarized criticism of expenditures in the I.S. Department.

He then went through a long litany of documentation that ultimately said nothing to disprove any of the facts uncovered in Where's The Web (PuterGate Version 2.0). Hunt stated that I.S. Manager's Steve Randall's secret company Petra had first been formed in 1988, an item that Venice Florida! dot com had stipulated to in the article. He stated that several people had seen Jim Gardner do some work on the computer systems, another item that was stipulated.

At no time did Hunt attempt to explain why Steve Randall had omitted his name from purchase order documents submitted to the city under the guise of Petra, nor why Randall had deposited checks from the city made payable to Jim Gardner into his own company's bank account without Gardner's endorsement. Hunt did not dispute Gardner's account to Venice Florida! dot com that he was not an employee of Petra, that Gardner didn't know he was listed on city documents, and that he had never handled the checks that were made payable to him.

Also what Hunt did not dispute was Gardner's statement that he had been paid roughly $2,000, "...give or take a couple of hundred, mostly in cash," while Randall had pocketed a neat $10,000 in the deal merely for doing what normally comes under his job description.

Instead came a virulent and outraged cacophony of dazzling bovine by-product that wowed the crowd. Even I wanted to lynch me after the smoke had cleared.

It was brilliant. It was smoke and mirrors and staged fusepot explosions. And it worked like a charm.

Maybe.

Councilwoman Martha Hanneman wasn't buying it. The other five council members present applauded Hunt for taking a bold stand in the face of evil opposition, but Hanneman held out, requesting a meeting with Hunt, Levine and members of the I.S. Department.

Draconian methods
Blaming the Taxpayer's League for the city's costs in answering questions, Hunt announced that he was cutting a position in the I.S. Department and promoting Lance Heiss. The official reason given was that this would save the city a whopping $38,000 in annual salary.

While there is one unfilled position in the I.S. Department, the axe came down on Dan Acosta, formerly the Venice Police Department's computer guru. In a previous private meeting with Venice Florida! dot com, Hunt had accused both Acosta and previously fired employee Michel van Dreunen of being Taxpayer League spies.

Acosta and Levine denied knowing each other, both stating that they had never had a conversation ever. Acosta stated the reason he was 'laid off' was because "I won't lie, cheat or steal."  Having worked with Acosta on several projects, and knowing what I know now about the workings of the I.S. Department, I can safely state that Acosta is absolutely right in his assessment.

This sends a chilling message to city employees: if there is something funny going on in the workplace, look the other way and keep your mouth shut.

Here's the web
During his tirade, Hunt slammed down copies of the legendary Petra/Jim Gardner designed web site on CD-ROMs onto the speaker's table as though it were the ultimate proof of vindication. While Levine declined, stating he wanted to look at the original disc first, I couldn't scramble fast enough to grab my copy.

This is a web site that had been supposedly created two years ago, and had been hidden away in secret vaults deep within city hall for over a year. It was a web site that only a chosen few had ever seen or had known even existed. When questions were raised about its existence, it was a web site that had been valued by Emergency Services Director Joe Slapp at $30,000 to $40,000, an opinion that Hunt has echoed many times. It is a web site that was paid for by Randall's company, Petra Software, for $2,000, give or take a couple of hundred, mostly in cash.

After looking at this cheesy piece of work, I'm thinking Randall was robbed just at $2,000, forgetting for a moment that the city paid Randall $4,700. The appraisal of this site at $30,000 to $40,000 is outright rubbish.

Venice Florida! dot com is still working out the logistics and legalities of bringing the entire site online so you can judge for yourself, but here's a rough summary:

It's about 20 to 25 pages made entirely from a Microsoft FrontPage template. These templates are called 'themes' in FrontPage, and this site uses the standard Tidepool theme entirely unchanged. 

Here's an example of a page that uses the Tidepool theme. Yes, this is exactly how the Petra-developed web site for Venice looks. Same page headers, same ugly brown background, same fonts, same bullets, same buttons, etc. Yes, this is exactly the design that was valued at $30,000 to $40,000.

It is the same exact unaltered web design that anyone can purchase at any Staples or Office Depot by simply buying a copy of Microsoft FrontPage for around $90. It is a pre-fab web site, pre-created entirely by Microsoft, ready made out of the box that only needs text and pictures to be entered onto the pages.

In the 25 or so pages included in the Petra-designed site, text was pasted into the unaltered templates, some standard simple FrontPage forms were used, and there's about 4 or 5 photos that were lifted from Sunline's Venice government web pages and used unaltered (which means Randall and Gardner may have accepted money for work created by Sunline). The opening page drowns you out with an annoying midi-music file, all the rage back in 1996.

So far, inquiries to Sunline and the Venice Gondolier have not revealed whether or not Randall and Petra had secured the rights to resell Sunline's photos from a competing site to the city. This may be a bit of a red herring, as Sunline may have borrowed the photos from someone else.

In short, the Petra-designed site for the city is amateurish, clunky and highly unoriginal. Having sold quite a few web sites myself, I'd give it a value of $0, less than the value of the blank CD-ROM it was burned onto. That sounds really harsh and biased, but true nonetheless. I cannot think of any commercial client dumb enough to fork over a check for this level of work, and the actual value of a web site ultimately is what is on the check given to the web developer.

Randall's own Petra Software web site* uses the Whoosh theme unaltered, a free downloadable third-party theme developed for FrontPage users by TRWebworks, an example of which can be found at the bottom of this page.

[*Note: Petra Software link in the above paragraph points to an archived version of the web site; Petra Software's actual web site was taken down from the web on June 28, 2002, two days after the original publication of this article.] 

Lest someone point the finger, it should be noted that the web site you are reading now, Venice Florida! dot com, uses a FrontPage theme as well, a theme that was designed in-house from scratch with original graphics.

Body parts and household appliances
Randall and Gardner created nothing. The artwork was all pre-made and the photos were lifted from another site. The only thing the pair of them did was some typing and some cutting-and-pasting of text. That's it. I could have knocked this sucker out in less than six hours, total. Even the input forms used were pre-created in FrontPage via a template wizard.

This has all the look and feel of the first homework assignment in an Intro To FrontPage course. I'm not kidding, I'm not exaggerating for effect, I'm not dragging this web site unfairly through the mud just to make a point. It's really that bad. Really.

In talking to me about the city's main frame computer, Hunt once told me that I wouldn't know an IBM AS/400 from my a**h**e. He substituted the words 'washer and dryer' when he made the same analogy in council on June 25. Hunt is right, I know very little about the machine other than the specs I looked up recently. After looking at this fiasco of a web site, valued at $30,000 to $40,000, I can safely say that Hunt couldn't tell the difference between quality web work and any given body part or household appliance.

OK, so big deal, it's a bad web site.

It is a big deal, a very big deal. Going back to Where's The Web, this site is the crux of the city's defense in being lenient with Randall a year ago when the Petra Software debacle first came to light, for ignoring admitted illegalities, deceptive paperwork and pocketed monies. It was the crux of the city's statements that "...we had received more than what we paid for." With the release of this web site to the public, it was going to be plainly evident that that statement was simply not true at all.

Hunt was forced to release copies of this web site. Under mounting pressure from threats of Freedom of Information Act actions, he had no choice.

Thus, the thundering noise surrounding its release. Bogus accusations, witch hunts, unproven assertions and endless debates. When you are caught with your pants down in a crowded theater, yell "Fire!"

Hunt says he is through with the matter, he will not discuss it again. We shall see.

*Apologies to Hunter S. Thompson for stealing his phrase, "The fix is in."