E-MAILS, TEXT MESSAGES AND ORLANDO CITY HALL:
- Details
- Category: Justice
- Published: Tuesday, 04 February 2014 01:27
- Written by Attorney Ka'Juel J. Washington
by Attorney Ka'Juel J. Washington (Professor of Law at FAMU School of Law)
The End of Black Parramore: Part 3
In a card game, all participants assume a level of fairness. The players watch the dealer shuffle the cards and pass them out. It's assumed by the players that each person has a fair shot at getting any card in the deck. Therefore, whether you win or lose is just a matter of chance.
Sometimes though, the dealer of the cards is crooked. Using quick hands and a variety of skillful tricks, the card dealer intentionally makes sure that one player wins and the other players loose.
Such is the case with Black Parramore. Orlando City Hall is the
card dealer and the Black Community is the player who assumes the game is fair. Unfortunately for us, we continue to lose while City Hall continues to win. That's not chance; that's cheating. Now, we just need to catch them dealing us from the bottom of the deck.
One way to do this is to use the Florida Public Records Laws. Those laws allow us to read their emails and text messages. For those of you who want to look it up for yourself, the law is Florida Statutes section 119.01(1) and it states:
"It is the policy of this state that all state, county, and
municipal records are open for personal inspection and copying by any person. Providing access to public records is a duty of each agency."
As a Black Community, we need to know what our elected officials are doing. Some of them will tell us anything just to make us go away. What we need is proof. Proof of what they are saying and what they are doing when they think we aren't looking. Of course, once we go to City Hall and start asking for
their cell phones and I-Pads, the dirty politicians (whoever they may be) are going to try to cover their tracks. If you don't believe me, just look at an article that appeared in the Orlando Times entitled "Gov. Scott, Pam Bondi Sued Over Public Records." The article states: "A persistent critic of Gov. Rick Scott filed lawsuits on Monday accusing top Florida officials of flouting the state's public records laws by failing to turn over emails and other documents.
The lawsuits contend the Scott administration altered calendars of one top aide, relied on private email accounts and waited more than a year to hand over text messages of another aide.
Related:The Secret Plan To Destroy Jones High School
The lawsuit against Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi says her office refused to hand over notes from meetings Bondi kept on her ipad and didn't provide emails from private accounts that deal with state business."
"Another part of the lawsuit contends that public records were altered by the Scott Administration."
If you think this is only happening at the highest level of Florida politics, think again. The exact same thing occurred recently in Orange County Government. But don't take my word for it; just look an article that appeared in the Orlando Sentinel entitled "State police hand 'textgate' report to state attorney." The article states:
"The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has completed its "textgate" report looking for possible open-government violations among Orange County leaders and turned it over to State Attorney Jeff Ashton."
"Thousands of email and phone messages were released as a result, with some showing texts with commissioners and lobbyists opposed to sick time during the Sept. 11 hearing. Countless other texts from around that day had been deleted or lost.
In addition to the FDLE probe, the Citizens group filed a civil lawsuit claiming open-government violations. It's still pending and Circuit Judge Robert J. Egan has recently been reviewing cellphone bills and text messages at the heart of the fight."
In plain English, County Commissioners were caught with extra cards up their sleeves. Rather than playing the hand they were dealt, they decided to cheat and had to pay the piper. If you don't believe me, just look at an Orlando Sentinel article entitled "Orange leaders settle 'textgate,' pay $90,000 Deal ends long legal fight." The article states:
"Orange County leaders have settled the "textgate" civil lawsuit and agreed to pay $90,000 to advocates of paid sick time who sued them for alleged open-government violations."
"The documents were signed by a lead Citizens' plaintiff, and the officials accused of open government violations: Commissioners Fred Brummer, Jennifer Thompson and former Commissioner John Martinez, along with Mayor Teresa Jacobs' Chief of Staff Graciela Noriega Jacoby.
Each of the defendants had lost or deleted phone texts messages that they had sent or received with lobbyists or other opponents of the ballot measure."
As a Black Community, we need to know what the people we have elected are doing behind our backs. If any current politicians want our vote in 2014 and 2016, we should ask them to VOLUNTARILLY turn over all emails, text messages and notes regarding the soccer stadium and Jones High School WITHOUT us having to file a lawsuit. If they push back on us for this simple request; that should tell us something about what those documents are going to say. Consequently, we should fire them and vote for somebody else.
Please consider this article to be just one of a number of solutions that we, as a Black Community, can use to ensure our survival. In part four of this series, we'll talk about another measure we can use to protect ourselves and our interests.