It was this 'this' argument that was presented to council by City
Manager Marty Black and City Attorney Bob Anderson, with one word added: We must
do something fast. Out of all of the council members, only Taylor picked
up on the underlying fallacy.
There were certainly grounds to terminate both Wilson and
Lane's employment (or at the very least place them on administrative leave), if
only because of the recent agreement to pay fines to the Florida DEP
(second
item on page) for several violations that happened under their watch.
So why the rush to privatize the management, particularly with OMI?
Severn Trent
Services was the other company that was in the running for the management
contract, but staff recommendations favored OMI, ostensibly because OMI offered
a better interface with union personnel, an argument that Dana Kass, Vice
President of Operating Services for Severn Trent, dismissed by stating, "We
submitted a draft contract not knowing what it was that you wanted to
negotiate." Kass stated that he had to use a Freedom of Information Act request
to get some of the documents pertinent to the proposed contract.
The city really did need to do something. But was OMI that
something? Was contracting with OMI a bad move? Maybe, maybe not. Time will
tell.
But, and here's my point, the process that was used to
arrive at the decision to contract with OMI was very, very seriously flawed. The
decision process used was based on the second line of a textbook example of a
fallacious argument: This is something.
This is something, alright.
What it's not is a good precedent.
Statutory compliance is no longer a four-letter word
One of the first things that the OMI team discovered upon their
arrival at the wastewater treatment plant was that the street signs
designating the roadways Wilson Way and John Ln had been taken down. It wasn't Mussolini's body dragged through the streets,
but it was the Venice equivalent.
Along with Lane and Wilson, some 11 other supervisors, managers
and support staff members in total were handed their walking papers. In their place
at the end of Bloody Tuesday was a
7-member OMI task force, some of whom didn't even know where the bathrooms were
yet.
On Day 2, I was, for the first time, on the grounds of the
wastewater treatment plant.
Mike Green, OMI's replacement for John Lane, and I were
seated in his new digs, the same office formerly used by Pat Wilson. Green was
explaining to me that one of the first things OMI had to get out of the way was
a legal compliance check. For that, a team had been assembled, one that would go
through checklist after checklist to validate compliance with a myriad of
federal and state guidelines that govern the utilities industry.
Wow. We're actually going to have legal checklists to show
where the city is in compliance and where they are not. And it'll all be public
record. Hey, there's a first time for everything.
Contacts were already in the works for several of the laid
off city workers. Green stated he was definitely interested in getting ahold of
Warren 'Skip' Petitt,
one of the
EPA whistleblowers. Petitt was also laid off in the purge.
Green gave me quite a bit of information. Too much, in
fact, but all necessary, so I'll focus on that in a later article. Interesting
stuff, though.
Venice is poopalicious
The second amazing thing that happened to me was a sewage spill. Well, the
sewage spill didn't happen to me, and sewage spills in this town aren't all that
amazing, they are about as regular as the sun rising. I mean what happened at a
sewage spill later on in the day on Ridgewood Avenue, just a block or so from
the southern entrance to Bay Indies.
This was one nasty sewer spill that spilled into
Hatchett
Creek via the storm sewers -- 5,000 gallons would be later reported.
Every sewer spill I've been at, I've been shunned, and
understandably so. Anyone that I spoke to would be later debriefed as to their
conversation with me. Guys wouldn't talk to me or even look me in the eye out of
fear for their jobs. I've even had to stage false near-altercations with sewer
workers just to ensure that they wouldn't have to answer for being friendly with
me.
That's all over.
On Ridgewood Avenue last night, there was sewage all over
the place. It was a hell of a mess. I was allowed to get as close in as I
wanted, take as many pics as I wanted, talk to who I wanted. The guys were
openly answering my questions. Newly appointed Utils Director Chris Sharek (I
think that's his new title) and I swapped photos and camera tips.
I wasn't really that interested in the sewage spill --
once you've smelled one pile of shit, you've pretty much smelled them all. I was
totally amazed at the openness that was displayed at the scene. I wasn't an
intruder, I was just part of the natural scenery that accompanies spewing feces.
Mike Green showed up at the scene, making it the second
time that day that I'd met him. Standing next to him over the aromatic stew at
the bottom of a huge, freshly dug hole, there was only one appropriate thing to
say: "Hey, Mike -- you are now officially welcomed to Venice."
