No one knows what goes on behind the green door
This is sort of a dual story, so bear with me as I spin this yarn out. There is a point to all of this, and that is the premise that city hall appears to want all the trappings of transparency in the process of trying to win over the public in pushing for development at the Venice Municipal Airport without actually being transparent. There are some things that, for one reason or another, they just don't want to talk about.

The secondary point is that if you suggest more transparency, as I have, you will become an enemy of the state, as I have.

Let's start with a statement City Manager Marty Black made at city council on April 10, 2007, this in reference to the city's involvement with potential developers to date: "Actually there have been no negotiations whatsoever and the only thing we have done is schedule the workshop for council to hear from all of the interested parties... We are not inclined and city council's direction was not to have all of these folks come in and present their background and experience in some closed door meetings. It was preferable to bring that to the community and let the community hear the expertise and the financial abilities of all these companies and individuals... We thought it was best to bring that information to the public so that everyone has the availability to consider what is presented."

Sounds great, right?

Except that by Black's own admission, such back door meetings have already taken place, some of them going back some six to eight months ago

Approximately two months ago, I had a discussion with Black where he confirmed something that I already knew: that former city councilman (and husband to our current Vice Mayor) Ed Taylor was acting as a middle man for the Marriott and that Black had held closed door meetings with Ed Taylor. Black intimated that there may have been other meetings with other developers, but I couldn't pin him down on any names.

When I asked what had transpired or if any decisions had been made, Black stated that he was prohibited by state law from disclosing such private and preliminary discussions (huh?). I then stated that I could always do a public records request for his meeting notes. Black smiled and stated, "That's why I don't take notes."

Which is curious as all hell. There isn't really a problem with having any such meetings, they are a natural matter of course with running a city.

The problem is the secrecy surrounding them, even to the effect of having difficulty in trying to establish if and when they happened. That's a problem, a huge one, especially when Black is now trying to sell the citizenry on the openness of the process.

Mr. Black goes to Washington
Then there are the trips to Washington that Black and Mayor Fred Hammett have undertaken. When answers weren't forthcoming from city hall last year as to how the city was supposedly getting millions from the federal government to support construction of a marina at the airport, the Herald-Tribune sent reporter Paul Quinlan to D.C. to retrace their steps. It was then that that Quinlan discovered (and subsequently reported) that Hammett and Black had been asking for a FEMA earmark in support of a marina.

How you can justify a recreational marina combined with a restaurant as an emergency management item boggles the mind, but the pair tried the pitch anyway by using the justification that the marina might be needed in the aftermath of a hurricane as a landing base for emergency workers. This approach seemingly ignores the obvious: that in the event of a major hurricane, the Intracoastal Waterway is not very likely to be navigable. Isn't there an airport somewhere around there?

Black and Hammett have recently returned from yet another trip to Washington, purportedly after the same kind of money. Ed Martin has reported that Black and Hammett dangled the opportunity for the feds to place a National Guard armory on the airport as one mechanism for additional federal funding. So far, I haven't heard anything from city hall that mentions the National Guard. It is not at all mentioned in The Black FAQ, the city's official apologetic on airport development.

I'm not sure at all how I feel about a National Guard armory at the airport, but it doesn't sound like the end of the world. So why the avoidance of the topic?

No matter how much the city talks about openness of the process, they've already tainted the well. Now they could just admit it, say it was a mistake, ask "what do you want to know?" and then respond honestly and graciously. It would be backward openness, but it would be preferable to what is going on now.

They could still save face, at least, by doing that.

Which is kind of what I suggested at the last two city council meetings and that's where I suddenly became an enemy of the state (again - sigh) and this story takes its weird and surreal left turn into the Gonzo land of fear and loathing.

The pitch for Transparency
On March 27, I spoke before council to try to advocate more transparency in the process of dealing with the public. I was really and truly trying to be diplomatic as I discussed an article by Clive Thompson that had recently appeared in Wired Magazine. The online version was originally entitled The Naked C.E.O., but was later changed to The See-Through C.E.O.

The article is a revelation when it comes to how to do it right when communicating with the public, whether you are a business or a government. I'm not going to reiterate Thompson's ideas here, but I strongly encourage you to read his article.

And so, brimming with sunshine and optimism, I bumbled into council and for reasons that I have yet to understand fully, things went ugly fast when the mayor decided to take offense at a compliment and then tried to give me a pasting.

Here, you try and figure it out:

NOTE: The weirdness starts with about 2:00 left in the above clip and runs through to the end of the clip. Yes, the Mayor really did appear to be snoozing. After the mayor unexpectedly blows up at me, you'll see me looking over to the left of the screen, then back to Hammett and then try to suppress a laugh at what I was seeing. What you can't see was that Black finally got Hammett's attention by calling out to him (you can barely hear Black saying, "Fred..." away from his microphone in the background). Black then signaled to Hammett to keep quiet. Hammett scowled and gave a quick nod to Black as if to say, "Alright." Thrown off-track and trying desperately to suppress laughter at Hammett's sudden and unexpected behavior, I composed myself and cut short my comments, as everyone now seemed focused on Hammett's mini-tantrum and there was no way I was going to get any point across. The video clip then cuts to Hammett getting snippy again, this time after I had left the room.

 

Accusation?
It wasn't until the next day when I was watching the meeting on TV that I caught that last bit from the mayor about an accusation. It came from left field. So, thinking this was all some weird mistake, I wrote to Hizzoner:

03/28/07
To Fred Hammett

I am deeply sorry if I offended you in some way, shape or form. According to your comments, I made some uncalled for accusation against you. If you would be so kind as to explain how a suggestion to blog was somehow an accusation, I would be glad to apologize publicly for any uncalled for accusation that I made.

I am, however, somewhat limited in my understanding of what it is that either I accused you of or that you thought I was accusing you of. Maybe I am totally wrong and I am now accusing you of accusing me of making an accusation when in fact I have misunderstood you and you made no such accusation.

I could have hallucinated the whole thing. I'll check my meds, you check yours, and we'll compare notes. Would that be OK?

Again, my apologies.

-- John Patten
-- Venice Florida! dot com

Hammett responded, strangely sounding both irritated and amicable at the same time:

03/28/07
To: John Patten

You said something to the effect that SiteScape was in the blog business. I said that was not what they did, their product is one of collaboration software. You then responded that one of the SiteScape marketing folks had a blog. site, and that may well be true, but it is NOT a SiteScape software application. Period.

The only real problem with blogs, in my view, is that there is no accountability on the blogger. In many cases, it is not fact and occasionally borders on libel. For example on your site it was stated that I was conducting personal business in Washington DC while the City was paying for me to be there. An outright lie. I have no personal interests in Washington DC or the area. After living there for 25 years, I have many friends and old associates there, but while I was there, I neither saw or called any of them even though it would have had no financial impact on the City. I guess that, as an elected person, I am fair game for anything anyone wants to say whether it is true or not. I  do, however, attempt to correct lies and it is usually too late. Plus on blogs, the comments are anonymous which exacerbates the problem and encourages perpetuation.

You think that blogs makes transparency. To what? Reread above. Perhaps invisibility to the accusers would be a better statement.

-- Fred Hammett, Mayor

Huh?
Hammett has a valid point when he talks about the down side of anonymous posts on the web. While this is akin to using a valid criticism of anonymous statements in the Venice Gondolier's "Let 'Em Have It" column to dismiss newspapers as an invalid form of communication, there is a deeper misunderstanding here -- he has confused a message board for a blog.

Blogs and message boards are two entirely different beasties. A blog's content is driven by the blog's owner -- he or she writes a specific article or diary entry. Some bloggers allow for readers to post comments on each specific article, but reader posts are not an essential part of a blog. True, the original blogger can choose to be anonymous from the start, but I was not suggesting that the city or its individual officials put out information anonymously, nor is that  an idea that Thompson was advocating in his article.

A message board (like the one here on Venice Florida! dot com) is the exact opposite -- readers drive the content, post opinions and mini-articles, and cross comment about each other's posts. The mayor's complaint about anonymous postings are directed at message boards, not blogs, although he has totally confused the two concepts and keeps referring to message boards as blogs. Someone who posts words on this web site's message board is a poster, NOT a blogger.

So, despite working in the tech sector and being a board member of a pretty innovative tech company, Hammett has no clue as to the difference between a blog and a message board. Thus, he has no clue as to what I was advocating when I was talking about transparency. Additionally, as will be shown, he has no clue as to what his own company is up to in their flagship product, which includes the framework for creating blogs.

And this is our mayor, who is going to lead us into the airport development promised land?

Uh oh.

I was beginning to feel uncomfortable again, and here's why:

First off, Tom Witkin's blog (mentioned and argued about in the above video clip), although outdated, and seemingly abandoned as of last December, is indeed part of the SiteScape marketing program, despite the mayor's statement that Witkin may have a blog but it has nothing to do with SiteScape. Witkin's blog is an officially sanctioned part of SiteScape's online advertising scheme. It's linked to on the front page of SiteScape's web site.

Secondly, the words "blog" and "wiki" are all over the front of SiteScape's web site.

Thirdly, their flagship product, a collaborative software suite called Forum ZX, proudly includes blog and wiki creation tools. All of the modules in the Forum ZX software suite appear to be aimed at one thing and one thing only: transparency, both within and without the organization. This would appear to be in direct contradiction with the mayor's statements as captured in the above video.

As a result of what looks like a pretty innovative product line combined with some savvy marketing, SiteScape is getting rave reviews, a lot of it from...

get ready for it...

bloggers.

And all this science, I don't understand; I'm a rocket man, burning up his fuse up here alone
The whole purpose of collaborative software is so that closed or open groups of people can all look at, write, re-write, and share the same documents, ideas, and information. These are the very tools that would be ideally suited to create the transparency that Thompson wrote about in his article for in Wired. You can have transparency without SiteScape's products, but their products appear to have been made with one major purpose in mind: transparency in the workplace for topics and projects that need as much team-wide or corporate wide openness as physically possible. Another word that is synonymous in this context: collaboration.

This isn't rocket science, it's more of a philosophy. Transparency is a fairly simple concept once you get over the first learning curve hump. It's a concept that Hammett still wasn't understanding and he didn't appear willing to make an effort. Hammett may have memorized the phrase "collaborative software," but he clearly doesn't understand its meaning or purpose.

OK, so Hammett and I weren't playing with the same set of orbital thrusters.

Eh.

You can't get mad at someone due to a lack of understanding, you can only laugh and shrug it off. That would have been the end of it (and this article would probably never have been written) except for one thing: an email that the mayor sent to Brian Hays, the CEO of SiteScape. While Hammett was being sort of nice to me (and it did seem like he was making an effort), behind my back it was a different story:

03/28/07
To: Brian Hays (C.E.O. of SiteScape)

SiteScape is sucked into Venice politics!

A local aggravator indicated that the Company on which I am a board member does blogs that he thinks is a good thing and that the City should have a blog site. I will forward another email to you on the same subject and my response. Any response to this email address becomes a public record and a copy goes to the press.

-- Fred Hammett

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.......

Aggravator? Aggravate this, pal
Not only was there no hope for transparency in the airport development process, at least from the mayor, but it was plainly evident that any such future pleas by anyone would be taken as a hostile action by Hizzoner and probably by Black as well.

But still... an aggravator? Just for asking for a more open process?

And what is the deal with the paranoid end-of-the-world tone of the email? OMG, somebody mentioned SiteScape, what do I do? Aggravator, aggravator, arrrrrrggggghhhhh!!!!!

It's a flipped out email. Really strange.

And so...

03/29/07
To: Fred Hammett

Sometimes you come across as dumber than a box of rocks because you just don't listen to people. You have no clue what I was saying or advocating, you still don't. What's worse, you probably still won't check it out, not because you think it's a bad idea, but that it came from me.

Given the nature of this conversation and even some other e-mails that I've read from you (your long thread with FWC, e.g.), it becomes readily apparent that when you get your dander up, you shut your neurons down. Then you either open your mouth or hit your keyboard and say or write some really fundamentally dumb things.

For that reason, I heartily suggest that you never blog. I don't think it would be in your own best interest to let the public in on your thinking processes.

-- John Patten

Alright, so I was angry, and I vented. It happens. I got over it.

I was, however, curious as to what SiteScape would say about Hammett's assessment of their products. Since SiteScape had already received copies of my emails from Hammett, I saw no harm in asking for a clarification of what their company does and does not make. When you have a board member saying "Our company doesn't do X" and the company's web site loudly proclaims "We do X," something is seriously wrong.

Besides, Hammett had pretty much labeled me as an idiot for not understanding his company and I was pretty darned sure that I was right.

03/30/07
To: Wendy Wheeler, SVP of Marketing, SiteScape

I was doing a bit of background research on your products. One individual, who is highly placed in the tech sector, wrote to me about your products, and I quote:

"You said something to the effect that SiteScape was in the blog business. I said that was not what they did, their product is one of collaboration software. You then responded that one of the SiteScape marketing folks had a blog. site, and that may well be true, but it is NOT a SiteScape software application. Period."

Now I'm looking at your site and you appear to have blog creation as part of your product line.

Could you please clear up any confusion on this issue?

-- John Patten

Wheeler responded:

03/30/07
To: John Patten

We most certainly do provide a product that is used to create blogs. However, the blog capability is not sold separately from the rest of a very extensive collaboration suite. In other words, our product is used by organizations to allow people to collaborate in a variety of ways - by blogging, building wikis, sharing real-time and posted discussions, sharing and managing document creation, assigning team tasks, sharing calendars, etc.

Does that help, and if I may ask, what is your interest in our products?

-- Wendy Wheeler, SVP of Marketing, SiteScape

I sent back a polite reference to the fact that I was interested in their software, which actually, I am. In spite of the mayor's botched marketing job, I wouldn't mind playing around with some of SiteScape's software. I wouldn't mind incorporating some of it into this web site if it works as well as their marketing materials say. I especially like their implied philosophy about corporate openness as exemplified by the products they make that can only encourage it.

One could only wish that our mayor, who coincidentally happens to be a SiteScape board member, would also embrace that very same philosophy. It is a sad irony that right now is when we need such openness, such transparency, perhaps more than we've ever needed it before, and that the one man who could lead us there and should understand the concept of transparency better than anyone else in this town absolutely refuses to consider it as an option to the point of getting aggravated at the mere mention of the idea.

Lessons learned:
1.) Transparency ain't gonna happen, especially with Hammett in the mayor's seat -- he is totally opposed to it on the grounds that he doesn't understand what it is;
2.) Apparently, I will always remain an enemy of the state, no matter how I approach city hall;
3.) Senior politicians in Venice will always be incapable of change, introspection and anything approaching deep analysis of a problem -- it's something in the power chair that reaches up into them and freezes up their medulla oblongata.

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.