Mickey Baker's Blog

The Hidden Secret to another $1,000,000+ in annual County Revenue Without Increasing Taxes

2008-07-29T00:42:00.004-04:00

Oprah isn't the only person in the world who has ideas about how to make money. Here's one of my ideas that was ongoing when Tom Willi canned me. A few of my ideas have been brought to fruition by people that worked for me - most haven't, and here's one of the biggest savers.

The reason that some politically-minded folks don't want you to know is that opening this treasure trove might annoy some of the most wealthy in influential part time residents of Monroe County - the folks at Ocean Reef. But I think I have a way to do this without upsetting ANY residents.

Somewhere around 800,000 vehicles a year cross the Card Sound bridge annually. Most of them pay a dollar, so the County gets $700,000+, cash money every year from the Card Sound Bridge.

The trouble is that it costs almost a half million dollars a year to pay the toll collectors and maintain the buildings there.

When I was Director of Technical Services for Monroe County, one of the least popular things I wanted to do was to fully automate the bridge tolls. I found that, for about what it costs for a year to pay all the people that collect tolls 7 days a week, 365 days a year, the County could replace the toll plaza with an automated toll collection system with camera enforcement that would then cost 10% as much to operate.

That's right. No people. Pay your money - cash, credit card, SunPass (or a KeysPass) - or get a ticket in the mail.

So that will eliminate several Public Works jobs. It will also put tight controls around the cash at Card Sound. The current controls there would give any auditor heartburn. I suspect that Danny Kohlage hasn't checked in on state of the art in cash management at toll booths lately.

I spoke with Emelio Suarez, who is the director of technology for Florida's Turnpike, who said that the Turnpike Authority might be willing to install collect tolls and maintain the toll plaza, like they do for a number of County owned bridges in the state, for a cut of the revenue.

This was ongoing when Tom Willi made the decision to part ways. I hope Emelio's not waiting to hear from me.

So, how would the County collect an extra $1,000,000+++?

Raise the tolls to $5.

Automate the toll plaza, tear down the current structures and give the lots to ROGO for the hotels the County wants to build.

Pay the Turnpike Authority to install and manage SunPass.

Offer mail-in rebates for over $50 per calendar year for COUNTY RESIDENTS (not transients) with a Monroe County address and proof of payment to SunPass.

That's just my million dollars worth. Will one of the Commissioners put this on an agenda?

Is there anyone at Monroe County that could execute this project? THAT, my friends, is the issue. GIVE IT TO THE TURNPIKE AUTHORITY!

Harry Miller's Poor Victims

2008-07-24T20:55:00.003-04:00

Gosh, I must tell you that I am surprised at the number of emails that I've received telling me about Harry Miller's arrest in South Carolina on multiple charges of sexually molesting a number of young people during periods of time immediately before and immediately after he resided in Key West, in Virginia and in South Carolina.

Did you know Harry in Key West?

PLEASE - remember that there are children involved in a heinous crime here that will affect them for the rest of their lives. IF YOU KNOW ANYTHING about this fellow's actions with children, PLEASE contact your local law enforcement agency.

Think, for one moment, about what he is accused of doing. Now, imagine - he was wanted on this for a crime several years ago. After investigating him where he lives now, in South Carolina, a different set of law enforcement authorities have accused him of similar crimes from June 2008 until now!

ARE WE PROTECTING OUR YOUNG PEOPLE? WHAT CAN WE DO TO HELP HARRY'S VICTIMS?

I've written what I think about Harry and his "friends." I obviously believe he is a lying scumbag. Several law enforcement agencies have reason to believe he is the worst kind of pervert. I have met the man and have spoken to him a number of times. I did not trust him, would have nothing to do with him and he did his best to have me fired from my job.

Is it my opinion that he is guilty? Yes, absolutely. Why? I have no evidence, but I'm a pretty good judge of character and it is my feeling that Harry is the lowest form of life. If he is found guilty of the things he's accused, I would wish the worse for him - to be incarcerated with a psychopathic rapist and subjected to worse punishment than he can imagine for the remainder of his short life.

Someone asked me yesterday if I was afraid of Harry. No, I said, only cowards rape children. Read my earlier blog. Do I sound like Harry worries me?

No, I'm worried about the children around this pervert in the event he escapes or is somehow released from prison.

Tom Willi, Mario Di Gennaro - you were quoted calling Harry your "friend."

What do you think of your "friend" now?

Karma is real. What people sew, they reap.

Monroe County Waste - Clean Up before Laying Off

2008-06-26T23:09:00.003-04:00

There are two big bucks items that the County is missing for potential savings.

1. Copy machines
There are huge Xerox copy machines in almost every office in the County. The last Director of Technical Services pissed off a commissioner's aide (guess which) by suggesting that they share a machine with the Marathon Airport. Nope. Didn't happen. "Too much confidential information" said the aide, in an office governed by Florida Sunshine laws. (Little do they know that investigators can snoop at any time, copying their "confidential information" for anything run through the machine to a disk drive. The marvels of modern technology!)

Now, both this commissioner's office as well as the Marathon Airport pay thousands per year EACH for a lease for 40,000 copies per month for a shiny new Xerox machine a total of almost 1,000,000 pages per year out of ONE BUILDING! Do you thing they're actually copying that. Nope. Not 10% of that, I'd guess. These deals were done individually by each department, "under the radar" by the use of a lease appoved by a County other than Monroe!

There are 4 or 5 of these Xerox machines at every facility. THE COUNTY IS PAYING FOR MILLIONS OF SHEETS OF PAPER PER YEAR THAT THEY'RE NOT USING! Budde's Office Supply is one of the highest paid vendors of the County. County employees have tried to buy copy machines competitively and Budde goes nuts and call every commissioner every time the issue is raised.

Solution: Get rid of all but ONE copy machines IN EACH BUILDING and save $100k OR MORE per year - two employee's jobs! Make those big ass county employees walk a few more steps! 2.

2. Telephone system maintenance
There is a full time technician from AT&T that is on site at Monroe County for which the County pays over $120,000 per year. He's made a career there and has worked there for more than 20 years - yes, onsite at Monroe County as an employee of Bell South, now AT&T. He's a great guy, but the County has likely paid more for his services than any other single employee.

Considering the fact that he brings his own tools and truck, $120k isn't a terrible deal, but I know of FEW organizations of fewer than 1,000 employees who has a full time tech doing nothing but telephone and wiring work.

Solution: Get rid of this contract by invoking the non-funding provision of the contract and BID OUT for a pay-as-you go contract for service. The huge Nortel switches the County owns have capacity for FOUR TIMES the current size, the County bought TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars worth of options that have NEVER been implemented by AT&T and it is hopelessly outdated. There are PILES AND PILES of purchased and unused telephone equipment lying in rooms all over the County. Call your commissioner and ask for a tour of the telephone rooms in the Gato and Harvey buildings, the Marathon EOC, Courthouses and the Ellis buildings. Ask, like I did, "whats this?" and you will find Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars worth of Unused Junk. Time for an eBay auction!

There are a number of LOCAL wiring and computer companies who would love to have this contract or get wiring contracts and save the County thousands. The County should follow the School Board's lead, who implemented a telephone system that is MUCH less expensive to operate and gets rid of EXPENSIVE customer AT&T services.

If you don't believe any of these things, file a Sunshine request with the Clerk of Court for information about BellSouth AT&T payments and payments to Xerox and Budde's. The smoking guns are there.

And a certain technical services director was fired about a year ago for, among other things, raising these issues of waste to the previous Administrator's attention. Gee, no one wants to look bad, do they?

Let's see if the new Administrator has the balls to clean this up, but beware - the Deputy Administrator and the Telecommunications Administrator say that they're "close personal friends" but, of course, that would, "never affect their working relationship."

Yeah, right.

Vandenberg Sinking is a Sinkhole for Public Funds

2008-03-27T20:26:00.005-04:00

I offer a single fact in the support of this statement:

One year ago, the price tag to sink the Vandenberg was $5.7 Million (Source: SportFishing Magazine: http://www.sportfishingmag.com/news/news/project-to-sink-vandenberg-off-key-west-begins-51046.html.) That's Five Point Seven Million Dollars. Today, the organization who wants to sink it says they're $2.3 Million short.

Oops.

That's a 40% cost overrun. Are the same people managing this as are managing the Key West International Airport construction or the Freeman Justice Center? Imagine what would happen to YOU if YOUR cost of living went up 40% in one year!

So, let's take a look at where the money was coming from originally...

The City of Key West contributed $2 Million,
Monroe County contributed $2 Million,
Monroe County's Tourist Development Council offered $1 Million,
And the remainder of the population of the planet contributed $0.7 Million.

So, the 70,000 residents of Monroe County were coughing up an average of $70 dollars apiece for every man, woman and child, while the remainder of the scuba diving community IN THE WORLD - millions of people - could not fork over any more $700k.

Whoo-hoo! Yeah, that's a hot potential dive destination.

Something stinks here.

I'd like to see a full accounting of these funds - from Artificial Reefs of the Keys (a 501(c)(3) organization) and exactly where their money is going. I suspect that MOST of it is going to a company called Reefmakers, Inc., which is a FOR PROFIT corporation. They ARE NOT a Florida Corporation. Who owns them? Who governs what they charge? Who are THEY paying?
Who works for them full time? How much are they getting paid? Who has received "consulting fees" or honorariums? Tips?

They've certainly been given a big pile of taxpayers' money.

It is time for public disclosure as to EXACTLY where these funds went in the form of an INDEPENDENT AUDIT of ARK and Reefmakers, Inc.

Why wasn't a requirement for audit attached to the money that they were given by the Monroe County and Key West City Commissions?

Write your commissioners, the Mayor and the Governor and tell them to submit these two organizations to an independent audit by a reputable public accounting firm (or the Florida Attorney General) before another dollar of taxpayer money anywhere in the State of Florida sinks down this hole.

But remember the names of the Commissioners who voted to approve this project come election time.

Dixie's Wishes and Navy Key West

2008-02-02T16:14:00.000-05:00

Wishes are a wonderful thing. Government SHOULD BE a wonderful thing.

I believe that everyone agrees - Taxes Suck.

In the February 1 issue of The Key West Citizen, Monroe County Commissioner Dixie Spehar suggests that the United States Government give 1,000 homeowners 350 Million Dollars for their houses because the Navy is making too much noise with those pesky jet fighters.

Maybe they should just fly quiet, mellow airplanes at Navy Key West - like gliders.

Dixie makes nice wishes. I heard that Dixie wished that Tom Willi would communicate to the Commission - and we see how that worked out. She's a nice person - so nice that she didn't have the heart to fire Tom Willi for cause and gave away another $282,000 of money taken away from property owners in Monroe County to support Tom for another couple of years.

Personally, I like Dixie Spehar, but the idea that the U.S. Navy is going to buy property owner's land because of jet noise is ludicrous.

I hope The Citizen got paid for Dixie's political advertisement. The buyout would be a good idea, except for the fact that the $350 Million would come from taxes from all over the United States and it will never happen.

Commissioner Spehar obviously wants voters to believe that she's working to get them a buyout from the Navy. She may work on it, voters, but there is no way on God's Green Earth that this is going to happen.

Buyouts of resident's homes near a military base has NEVER happened unless there was an associated expansion of the facility and mission of the base. Unless there's a war with Cuba, this will never happen and is only a wish.

So, while we're wishing, what else might the United States want to do with $350 Million?

For this much money, every child in America could get a medical exam and innoculations.
This could pay Social Security retirement for life for 1000 people.
Every resident of Florida who doesn't have health insurance could get premiums paid for a month.
Monroe County could build a sewer system. (Hold on to your shorts, that bill is coming soon!)
The Navy could purchase two F-35's, which are the quieter replacement for the Super Hornet. (The Super Hornet is being phased out!)
Buy 100 equivalents to the Hickory House Restaurant - probably every restaurant in the Florida Keys.

Commissioner Spehar uses the term "unintended consequences" quite often. If there was a buyout of the designated properties, what would the consequences be? Where would these 1,000 households buy houses with permits so difficult to obtain? Who would benefit? Do these 1,000 homeowners WANT to move or does someone just want to sell 1,000, $350,000 new houses to relocate these people?

Naval Air Station Key West has been on Boca Chica since 1940. I would agree that the Navy should buy ALL of these 1,000 homes that were built before 1940. Homes built AFTER 1940 were built with the full knowledge that there was a naval facility nearby. The homeowner should look somewhere else for compensation when, surprise, there's airplane noise overhead. Go sue the previous owner for "failure to disclose" if you wish, but I wouldn't have high expectations.

Dixie Spehar's column is at best, simply a wish for Federal government aid, and at worst, pandering with obfuscation for votes by giving the impression that such a deal is possible and in the works. It ain't.

Are voters really THAT impressionable? Who is going to read this and think, "Dixie's working for US!" when she voted to buy the Hickory House, sink the Vandenberg, pay Tom Willi $282,000 severance and eliminate permitting fees for "affordable housing," which benefits a very few (one?) contractors in the Keys to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

This is a Federal Government issue. The County is powerless to tell the Navy what to do. Time and money spent by the County on this issue is better spent working on the dire financial problems of the County. Commissioner Spehar should direct her concentration and energies to issues she can affect for the County until after the election.

And The Citizen should give equal column space for her opponents in this election.

Who will stand up and oppose Dixie Spehar for election? Could one of you intelligent, fiscally conservative retirees use a $48,000/year job with no boss and benefits?

Dixie, you're a nice person, but you should have helped us when you could have with the things that you could have done. Stop selling dreams and deal with reality.

Happy New Year, Harry!

2007-12-25T12:59:00.001-05:00

Many of those who read this blog as regularly as it is published will remember the circumstances under which I was surprised at being fired by the inept, now-fired, County Administrator Tom Willi.

Tom disputed that the threats that Harry Miller made to me on May 18, 2007, had anything to do with me being fired later that same day.

At the time, Technical Services was working toward consolidating all County cellular telephone service with one vendor. The County was purchasing cellular phones pretty much one at a time from several different vendors. Because of the size of our cellular phone bill ($200,000+ per year) I had expressed my opinion that State-mandated purchasing policy required that we either needed to go to competitive bid or to purchase from the vendor who had won the Florida state contract under those terms. That was Verizon Wireless. I brought Verizon Wireless in for a conference and switched all telephones that belonged to the Technical Services Division to Verizon. We also started switching all data connections from Sprint to Verizon Wireless.

During those efforts, Tom Willi got involved by examining all cellular phone bills and meeting directly with my subordinate, Lisa Druckemiller. As usual, Tom never spoke to me about it. Lisa came back with a plan to move a good quantity of County business to Sprint and save $40,000. Tom Willi was directly involved in this - I did not have purchasing authority or budget allocation for all these phones, Tom reserved that for the individual division directors and himself.

About that time, Harry Miller introduced himself to me as a Motorola employee and a "personal friend of the Mayor's" at a County Commission meeting. We swapped cards. He gave me a card that looked (to me) like it was made on a laser printer. He also told me that he had "been working with the Sheriff's Office" and was a serious fisherman.

Harry followed up and invited me to a lunch on what I thought was a personal basis to talk about fishing. When I arrived, he was there with Pat Preuss, who I knew was with Suncom Communications and a local Sprint service reseller. A large portion of the conversation was listening to Harry Miller speak about fishing with Mayor Di Gennaro. He complained about how the Mayor was quick to anger and expected everyone to help clean his boat. He told he that Tom Willi was a close personal friend and that he and Tom went fishing often. He also told me that Tom was currently on a fishing trip to Costa Rica that he had helped arrange.

Pat Preuss later came in with the Sprint corporate people, who later sent me a Sprint data card to evaluate vs. the Verizon cards we were using. The next time I heard from Harry, he called me when I had all of Technical Services in a group meeting and demanded to speak to me, wanting this card that Sprint had loaned me back. I asked a staff member to take a message and Harry became indignant and told the staff member that he (Harry) was "going to call Tom Willi."

About an hour later, Tom called me from Miami (or wherever he was) and fired me.

You can read in the article (pertinent excerpts below) that Harry told the Citizen that he had heard that I was fired and he wanted the Sprint card back. Either Tom told him I was fired before he told me, or Harry lied. Toss a coin, either of them seem to be a stranger to the truth.

In an earlier post in these pages, you might have read that the rumor is that Di Gennaro wanted to groom Harry to run for Commissioner against Dixie Spehar.

Who exactly IS this guy? Is he someone you want to trust with a government position?

By his own account, Harry has the support of 3 of the current commissioners - which three, you can only guess. Read the (public record) correspondence below. Below that, I quoted the Citizen article where Tom and Di Gennaro both denigrated the Miller incident when I was fired and Di Gennaro admits he's a friend. Strange friends, indeed.

Enjoy!

(Happy New Year, Harry!)

> *From:* Neugent-George
> *Sent:* Friday, December 14, 2007 8:27 AM
> *To:* Hutton-Suzanne; Shillinger-Bob
> *Cc:* Frederick-Debbie
> *Subject:* FW: Today's Visit from Harry Miller
>
> Suzanne & Debbie,
>
> You know as do so many others and, now, thank goodness we have one employee who now stands up to this kind of threatening behavior.
>
> It is absolutely unacceptable for any individual, commissioners included, to be allowed to threaten staff. I don't know what actions can be taken legally but this can not be allowed to exist in our staff's environment.
>
> This type of abusive demeanor which I have been told is even being exhibited by some commissioners must stop - now. I believe the ethics
> commission of the state should investigate immediately. For this individual to be saying he has the support of 3 county commissioners must have a modicum of truth to it. We know who he associates with; someone has empowered him with belief that he has commission support. And if he has assumed this all on his own - then he is mentally unbalanced and therein lies another reason for concern.
>
> Again, this is a very, very serious matter that should be addressed immediately. I would like a restraining order put on the individual to be kept from the Harvey Govt. Center.
>
> George
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
*From:* Druckemiller-Lisa
*Sent:* Thursday, December 13, 2007 5:54 PM
*To:* County Commissioners and Aides
*Cc:* Frederick-Debbie
*Subject:* Today's Visit from Harry Miller

I'd like to make you aware of a visit I had from Harry Miller this afternoon and a phone call earlier this week which were similar to the threatening phone call I received from him on July 3^rd .

On Monday, Harry Miller called me after hearing a rumor that Monroe County might be switching some of its wireless services to Verizon. I told him that Verizon had offered the possibility of saving Monroe County a significant amount of money and that we were meeting with them to discuss some details in January. Harry said that he was going to speak to multiple commissioners and put a stop to that.

This afternoon, about 3:30, Harry called again and said that he wanted to stop by my office with Pat Preuss from Sun Communications ( the local Nextel dealer ) and discuss keeping our business. I told him that was fine and he arrived at my office about 3:45.

Harry told me that I would have to get the approval of the BOCC to make any sort of changes to our wireless service agreements and that he had the ear of the commission. He said that there were three votes against me, and suggested that it would not be in my best interest to even try to use another company. He was not only threatening, but rude. He yelled loud enough that other employees in the office were concerned for me.

I told him that I didn't believe that I needed commissioner approval to save the county money, especially with the current financial situation, and told him that we don't have a contract with Nextel, we piggyback on a State of Florida agreement.

I reminded Harry and Pat of the problems that I had with Nextel over the past year. In particular, I recounted my efforts to straighten out 4 months of incorrect billing. I showed him the multiple emails I had sent trying to get a response and told him of the countless hours I spent on the phone to get a long overdue credit. I pointed out that this level of service isn't conducive to loyal customers.

After about a half hour of this, Harry got up and walked out, leaving Pat and I alone in the conference room. I agreed to try to settle some of the issues that we have with Nextel and meet with him and a Nextel representative on January 8^th . This seemed to diffuse the situation and they left.

About 4:30 I got a call from Connie Cyr in the Administrators office inquiring about Harry Miller. She had just received an upset phone call from him requesting an immediate callback from Debbie Frederick.

Verizon has offered to save Monroe County $80,000 over the next year, compared with the $36,000 savings that Nextel gave us back in July. Verizon has also offered to give us new equipment for no cost so there will be no switchover costs. We're meeting with Verizon to discuss details in January and hope to roll this out in February. All of my dealings with Verizon representatives have been pleasant and professional.

This is the second time in his dealings with me that Mr. Miller has implied improper influence over county business through his personal relationship with County Commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to relate this to you and welcome your guidance and support.

Lisa L Druckemiller,//CPM//
Sr. Administrator
Harvey Government Center

*Please note: Florida has a very broad public records law. Most written communications to or from the County regarding County business are public record, available to the public and media upon request. Your e-mail communication may be subject to public disclosure.*

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
End of quoted emails...

Here are the related sections of the Citizen article about my firing.

Becky Ionatta quoted me accurately in this account on the front page of the Key West Citizen on May 19, 2007:

Mickey Baker said he believes he was fired because he upset a friend of Mayor Mario Di Gennaro, although both the friend and Di Gennaro deny they were involved. County Administrator Tom Willi also denied that was the reason.

“It’s the only thing I can think of,” Baker said Friday as he packed his desk. “I don’t have any other detail on any complaints.”

Again, from the same article:

Baker’s firing came two days after audio problems prevented television viewers from watching Wednesday’s County Commission meeting in Key Largo. One of those viewers was Margita Di Gennaro, the mayor’s wife, who called family friend Harry Miller of Sun Communications to tell him of the problem. Miller, whose company has nothing to do with the broadcast of the county’s meetings, called the county’s technical services staff. Baker said Miller called him to complain about the employee’s response.

“I told him [the employee] is one of the most polite people I know,” Baker said.

Friday, Miller called Baker again to ask Baker to return an Internet connection card he borrowed. Baker told him it could not be picked up until Monday. Baker said Willi fired him shortly after.

“I really can’t think of a reason that makes sense,” Baker said.

Miller denies his complaints were involved in Baker’s ouster, and disputes Baker’s claim that the firing followed his request for the computer card.

“I called after I heard he was fired to get it back,” Miller said. “I don’t get involved in county business.” [Note: Technical Services Staff can verify that this happened BEFORE Tom called me - and Tom was in Miami! - Mickey]

Miller attends County Commission meetings as a concerned citizen, he said, and has publicly praised some of their decisions, such as the controversial purchase of the Hickory House restaurant.

Miller and Di Gennaro said they are friends, but Di Gennaro said it was ridiculous to suggest that he or Miller pushed for Baker to be fired. Di Gennaro said he learned of the firing from a Citizen reporter who called him for comment.

“I do not interfere with hiring and firing,” he said Friday afternoon. “I didn’t even know he was getting fired.”
-------------------------------- End of article quotation, Key West Citizen, May 19, 2007

Commissioners: How To Free Willi for Free!

2007-11-23T21:47:00.000-05:00

Most political pundits in Monroe County seem to believe that it is a foregone conclusion that Thomas J. Willi will be fired without cause at the next meeting of the Monroe County Commission.

Firing him without cause is easy for the commission - they simply write a check paying him for the time and benefits remaining on his contract and tell him goodbye after a 3 vote majority.

I agree with the calculations that I've read in two of the local newspapers that the total cost to the County of a Willi departure at this juncture will be about $200,000. I've heard that Willi has told some of his "friends" that it will cost the citizens of Monroe County $400,000 to get rid of him.

No matter. The County Commission can fire Tom Willi today under provisions in his contract that allow them to do so without paying him a damn thing.

Willi's contract clearly states that he can be fired for lying. It doesn't say, lying twice in a year, three times or seventeen times unless on a full moon, but clearly names lying as a cause for temination.

I believe that the Commission can prove that Tom lied about several things - I believe that there are too many examples to pass up this opportunity to potentially save the taxpayers $200,000 - or, if Tom makes other claims - $400,000.

After all, if you're going to have to fight Tom in court, you might as well fight for the entire enchilada. Litigating for $200k isn't materially much different that litigating for $400k and, given what I believe I know about Tom, the County is likely going to end up in litigation with Tom Willi.

So how do you fire him for cause?

Play back the audio tape of Tom talking to Jeb Bush about evacuation times during the public meeting. Note that then Governor Bush gave Tom a huge opportunity to correct his misstatement about evacuation times.

Compare Tom's statements with known facts.

Was he lying? Or was he just incompetent, misstating important facts that concern the safety of citizens of Monroe County?

I believe that Tom lied to the commission when recounting his discussion with Judge Sandra Taylor. Watching her at the meeting, it was clear that they had a different recollection of an earlier discussion about closing the Marathon courthouse.

So, ask Judge Taylor to come to the County Commission meeting. If she comes, ask her point blank in the public meeting - does she believe Tom Willi lied to the Commission?

I have a list of lies Tom told the media about me and my firing and can dispute them with facts. I have audio of Tom's statements and the facts are indisputable.

Hmmm... saying something that isn't factual... lies or not?

Lying is only one of the reasons he can be terminated with cause.

I suppose that there's a screw-in-the-lightbulb joke there somewhere - "How many Tom Willi lies does it take for him to lose his job?"

Twice during Tom Willi's tenure, his management has been characterized as less than competent by Grand Jury's.

How is this NOT incompetence - another reason for termination? The Grand Jury chose to look at two construction projects and found that both of them were mismanaged. Tom Willi is named in both reports.

Commissioners, now that you've found the courage to get rid of Tom, do it in a manner that makes it clear that you're not happy with him and without pouring another big pile of County money down a hole. Something tells me that the County Attorney's office would be more than happy to litigate this - Tom doesn't have a leg to stand on and this will give you the only position that may allow you to negotiate a reasonable settlement and the end of Teflon Tom's reign of incompetence at Monroe County.

Tom Willi is Toast at Monroe County?

2007-11-14T20:39:00.000-05:00

Wow, it's been a while since I've posted to this blog - I've watched the entire budget fiasco and the Sal Zappulla thing unfold and marveled at the staying power of Tom Willi.

I must admit that I've become a fan of County Commissioners George Neugent and Sylvia Murphy, who seem to be consistent in their opinions, involved in the community at a number of levels and honest to a fault. You may not agree with what they say, but they look you in the eye and tell you what's on their mind.

Today, watching the County Commission meeting I became a fan of Dixie Spehar. It seems as though she has been listening to her constituants (finally) and today attempted to introduce a resolution to terminate Tom Willi. She could not gain the supermajority (4 votes out of 5) to add the resolution onto today's agenda, but the issue was raised.

As you might recall, being an observer of Monroe County politics, Tom had the ill conceived notion to add the extension of his contract on to this month's agenda. Rather than going with the program and asking for a year or two, he asked for the Full Monty - a four year extension with a full-boat buyout if he was fired. Carte blanche to do what he wants for four more years.

He reportedly said he did that because he didn't want this to become an "election issue."

Tom, your contract won't become an "election issue." Your replacement will be. After today, you know how it feels, buddy. Worry. You won't find a job as easily as I did - you have no marketable skills and no Florida municipality is going to touch you after reading the local press and Internet postings. But don't worry, you'll be okay.

Is one of Di Gennaro's companies hiring?

County Commissioner Pleads Guilty - Faces Prison

2007-09-11T12:03:00.000-04:00

The Palm Beach Post tracked down Palm Beach County Commissioner Warren Newell's activities like a dog with a bone. Newell stopped talking to the press and complained about the press being "one sided" and "unfair."

Does any of that sound familiar?

Today, Newell plead guilty in federal court to conspiracy to commit "honest services fraud" in schemes that prosecutors said Newell used his elected position "to advance ventures and relationships in which he had a concealed financial relationship."

Newell faces up to five years in prison, supervised release of up to three years and fines of up to $250,000. He has also agreed to forfeit assets that prosecutors said he gained through "his illegal activities."

Newell received $366,000 through his company - he didn't even see all of the cash. For this, he goes to prison and is a convicted felon.

http://www.palmbeachpost.com/localnews/content/local_news/epaper/2007/09/11/0911NEWELL.html

This is what SHOULD happen to public officials on the take. I believe the federal government is all over local government corruption, as they should be.

Score one for the good guys!

Tales of Teflon Tom Willi

2007-09-05T23:13:00.000-04:00

I worked directly for Thomas J. Willi at Monroe County. Yes, readers here probably know by now that Teflon Tom Willi was my direct supervisor. According to members of the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners, Mr. Willi has a bad habit of not communicating. There was a special meeting of this Board in February 2007 where he was reprimanded by a few of HIS bosses - the Monroe County Commission - for exactly this.

Mr. Willi offered me long term employment with Monroe County and encouraged me to buy a house in the Keys. After dealing with him, I quickly learned that he should not be trusted - I signed leases with provisions that they could be terminated with short notice if, for any reason, I left the employ of Monroe County. It is a good thing that I did so - there are not many executive positions in the Florida Keys.

In person, Mr. Willi told me on a number of occasions that "everything was fine" and it was, I suspect, until I made an overt budget proposal to rid Monroe County of a contractor that was billing the county to the tune of hundreds of thousands per year for questionable work product under my supervision, as limited by Mr. Willi. I didn't know at the time, but I later learned that this company had worked for Mr. Willi in his prior position. It appears to me in retrospect that the principals of this company may be personal friends with Mr. Willi.

Within two weeks of making this proposal, I was summarily dismissed for ambiguous "management style" issues, none of which have been substantiated to this day. In my opinion, and that of many others, Mr. Willi flat made up lies to tell the press. One of them was that there were "stacks and stacks of employee complaints" about me, when, in truth, there are only a few complaints from non-productive employees who were being pressured to actually earn their paychecks.

Reader, when someone says, "Stacks and stacks of complaints," how many would you believe?

8 months before my termination, after the spate of complaints, Mr. Willi told me that he had investigated them. Afterwards, he shook my hand, looked me in the eye and told me that I had his "full support."

I was fired within 2 weeks of proposing eliminating Mr. Willi's friend as consultant, 4 days after discussing a protracted health problem with Mr. Willi's Deputy County administrator and 3 days after having surgery for the problem. In an on air interview, Mr. Willi told the local radio station that he "had to protect the County," which I took to mean that they needed to protect them from paying my medical bills and potential disability claims.

So much for his "full support." County Commissioners - has Tom promised YOU his "full support?" Who will he support against you in the next election?

I know that Mr. Willi has hired at least 5 department heads in the County. I count that he has fired 3 of those he hired, with the other two being awarded their positions within the last 90 days.

It is my understanding that Teflon Tom was awarded his prior job as Town Administrator of Davie, Florida, when the incumbent Administrator was fired for refusing to dismiss the Fire Chief. Mr. Willi was hired as Acting Town Administrator and, as one of his first acts, fired the fire chief.

I suppose this is something he has found pleasure in doing. He seems to do it a lot. It's too bad he doesn't realize how it disrupts peoples' lives and he doesn't know how to improve employees other than firing them.

Management Hint for Tom Willi:

When you have fired a large percentage of the people that report directly to you and more than half you hired, it is my opinion that you should look at your own management style. Why can't you improve performance without terminations? That's the hard part! That's what was going on in Technical Services, by the way, until you returned it to the control of someone who you evidently won't promote into the position!

It is my understanding that Tom Willi has:

Fired a department head who had interviewed for the Administrator's job before Tom arrived. It is rumored that this fellow applied for the Deputy County Administrator's position, but was told by Tom that he was "too qualified" and that he posed a threat to Tom's authority by being more educated than himself.
Fired a department head with 22 years of service who was a friend of a county commissioner who had demanded Mr. Willi be fired. This was under the guise of "eliminating the marine resources department" in the Florida Keys. This was the only employee fired by this elimination of this department.
Overspent capital project budgets by tens of millions of dollars.
Overspent into the General Fund reserve and was chastized for it by the Clerk of Court.

Two different grand juries have found Mr. Willi's management of construction projects to be inept, costing Monroe County tens of millions of dollars.

Why is he still on the job?

Can someone glean the facts and send them to Governor Crist? Maybe he has notes on the "Evacuation Lie" that Willi seems to have told Jeb and can kick someone's ass.

These blogs get around. Since starting, I've had hundreds of hits from IP addresses that belong to STATE government. Maybe someone in the Governor's office will read this if you, reader, generate those letters.

I'll bet Mayor Di Gennaro's ambitions go higher than County government. Maybe some Republican Party consultant/hack will read this blog 3 or 4 years down the road, print out a copy and put it on the table in front of Di Gennaro and say, "You could have been a senator if you'd put a stop to this. You've got to learn how to handle these civil servants."

Better yet, maybe there's an entire undercover FDLE or FBI team down here to find out what's going on with these construction projects. Attornies General tend to listen to two separate grand juries, two years apart.

Maybe they can start by finding out who pays for who's fishing trips? Gas is damn expensive these days and you can generally see and photograph who gets on and off whose boats. There is probably a lot of cash changing hands in all those "best catch" pools.

Tom, I hope you lose as much sleep over this as all the people that you have fired have lost worrying about the personal issues you caused by your stupid decisions.

And don't worry about me. I'm not going away, despite your slanderous accusations - until you are gone. May all the search engines find this blog very easily for the remainder of your career in public life.

Sal Zappulla is Gone?

2007-08-22T17:01:00.000-04:00

Well, there's a surprise. Sal's a scapegoat for bad management. Sal stood up and complained in a loud and sometimes rude manner, but complained about stupid financial decisions on the part of the County Administrator and his deputy.

And got fired for it.

There are about 1,000 county employees. They’re a large part of the year-round community in the Keys. Morale is at an all time low. No one knows if they’re going to be a part of the next cut. Every blog I write gets hundreds of hits – a lot of them from County employees – and I get many emails and comments. Many are prefaced with a request not to publish or identify them, for fear of retribution. What happened to the first amendment in Terrible Tom's organization?

Demoralization is expensive - there are real, measurable dollars in lost productivity. The Administrator’s office is foundering, throwing darts trying to figure out where to cut. Hundreds of County employees are gossiping, wondering who's next. These kinds of cuts dragging out over time is the epitomy of bad management. Having been on the management side of these cuts, the way it SHOULD be done is that a list is compiled, everyone is notified and let go at the same time and the remaining employees are told that their jobs are safe and that they should go about their business. Otherwise, you lose good employees who are employable elsewhere first.

The way Tom has been doing it for the last 3 months is piecemeal, painful and smacks of sadism - death by 1,000 cuts. How can Tom call himself an effective manager? How is he qualified to judge the management style of others?

If Tom were concerned more about the state of the County instead of lining the pockets of his "friends" the County would have a contingency plans based around funding levels, the way most government agencies do. If Tom had spent the Sterling/Carroll Consulting/ADS money on a real consulting firm (Ernst and Young or Accenture, for example), he would know know exactly what and where to cut with a good, believable case for taxpayers.

For the money that Monroe County has spent on these backwater consulting contracts with Carroll Consulting, ADS, and the educational program, Tom Willi could have captured some real data about where the “fat” needs to be trimmed that would be accurate, and just as important, unbiased and believable.

Instead, Tom Willi’s buddies get the gigs and the cash. Tom is left with political poo on his hands and he is blaming everyone else, particularly Bill Becker and the Key West Citizen, for his own inability to address the County's problems.

A question for the reader to ponder - why would Tom hire these 3rd tier firms when he can get 1st or 2nd tier work for the same money? I believe the answer that comes to mind is obvious.

Political arrows are being flung, primarily at George Neugent and Sylvia Murphy’s districts and supporters. I see employees who dare say that the "Emperor has no clothes" getting fired.

Depreciating Marine Resources was a ploy to fire George Garrett. He's the only employee fired out of that mess and controversy. He remains a vocal supporter of George Nugent.

Now Sal Zappulla is gone, supposedly for insulting Debbie Frederick, the Deputy County Administrator.

I don't blame him. Debbie is on the org chart as not being anyone's boss, was the secretary to the prior County Administrator and is now making $120k per year. She's real big on filling out forms as opposed to doing actual work for the taxpayers. She once suggested that I be fired for taking 2 days off when I told everyone in my division where I would be, posted my absence on a publicly viewable calendar and arranged to miss no meetings. I hadn't filled out a form for vacation that was "optional, determined by the division director," according to Human Resources.

Debbie once demanded that I write a "pager policy" when 10 or so people had pagers, but no one could find any invoices for any of them. I suspect the Sheriff's office is paying $50/month for all the County's pagers, and frankly, I had more important things to do, like implement a self-service building permit system. Or find out where the pager bill was getting paid.

(Sheriff, you're likely paying the County's pager bill!)

When I filed for unemployment after being unjustly fired, Debbie appeared via telephone to appeal the ruling that I had been fired "without cause". Debbie kept saying, "the County doesn't have to give a reason," which, if you want to deny unemployment, is not true. The ruling said that the County's reason, "Management Style" was subjective and did not meet the standard for firing "with cause" to deny unemployment. If Debbie was worth her $120k/year, why didn't she know that? Having been an experienced manager, I certainly did. Debbie simply lacks the experience she needs to actually be a manager. I don't know how she got the job.

Maybe Tom should look at eliminating this expensive position and saving two or three others.

I don't know what Sal said and why he was suspended awaiting his "pre-determination hearing." I'm sure one of you sharp-eyed readers will let me know.

But if he said, "Debbie, you're a dummy," that would be close to accurate in my opinion.

And that statement would have got him fired in the Willi regime.

Commissioners, you're not doing your job. Whatever reasons that you have to not fire Tom will some day come to the surface - there are a lot of people looking for them.

Fire him now, take the heat off yourselves and maybe voters will remember something else next election day.

Or face the heat when the truth comes out. You may be gone when it does, but you may note that there are no statues or parks named after Bum Farto, although he does have a cool name.

Mean People Suck!

2007-08-02T23:24:00.000-04:00

Tom Willi replied to a citizen's insult on bigpinekey.com earlier this week with a mean spirited rant, evidently posted from his county email address.

This is in violation of the County's Internet Use Policy, but who's going to do anything?

No one, it looks like, unless people start hiring lawyers.

To read the original post and Tommy's response, check out: http://www.bigpinekey.com/Pages/kudos_and_whiners6.htm

A poster characterized this old photo with a fellow's head up his butt as Tom Willi reading the Commission Agenda. It must have really struck a nerve.

Pretty funny, huh?

Tom's response wasn't funny - it was just raw and mean.

Tom started with a "that's not me it's you" retort that he likely learned at the age of 4, then suggested that the original writer might find Tom's car keys that he lost up there. Tom - I know for sure that MY car keys have never been up someones butt. And I certainly would not ask for them back if they had been!

Maybe the $2,500 County notebook computer you lost is with your car keys. It seems that you're losing lots of things these days - including the respect of most people who live in and work for Monroe County.

I've thought for a long time that Tom has a nasty streak - like most Division Directors, I avoided him and dreaded meetings with him. Allow me to tell a story about one of the reasons I think like this and maybe you'll understand more about Tom's character.

While opening one of the first Division Directors meetings that I attended about a year ago, Tom told a story to the group about how he was going to get a non-County tag for his spiffy new County Dodge pickup truck that he bought for himself with County funds.

I wondered why he wouldn't want a yellow government tag on a government vehicle, but, whatever, Tom told this story...

Tom said he had made an attempt to get a civilian tag on the vehicle and Danny Kohlage somehow put a stop to it. Tom said that he went to Sheriff Roth and (paraphrasing Tom) "Rick said we could transfer the truck to the Sheriff's office and he would put a civilian tag on it," which, Tom explained, the Sheriff could do under the law, because he had the occasion to privately tag vehicles for law enforcement purposes.

Tom complained about the "control" that the Clerk exerted in the County and smiled - I inferred he was smiling at what he percieved to be his triumph in this issue by working with the Sheriff, being Machiavelli and maniputlating this behavior to his advantage. At the time, I was rolling my eyes as I looked down and doodled in my daytimer...

The last time that I saw Tom's truck, it still had a yellow County tag. Evidently something didn't work out. I smile ever time I see that tag. Now you can, too!

After all that has happened, I wonder if that was just a BS story - so many lies have been told. Perhaps the Sheriff or the Clerk will tell us what happened. If you know, send me an email.

Thank goodness that Danny Kohlage still has SOME "control" in the County. It appears that damn few other things are NOT out of control.

Some people would rather try to exert power and control rather than taking care of the business of the government. People who can't bite their tongue and laugh at themselves shouldn't be in a public position.

Mean people suck.

Throwing Away Public Money - Incompentence of the Worst Kind

2007-07-07T01:34:00.000-04:00

Students of history may recall that the story where Napolean Boneparte was delivered a dispatch of bad news from some distant battle.

Hearing news about the capitulation of a unit of the French Army in battle, one of Napolean's staff officers exclaimed "Treason!" to which the Emperor replied, "“Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence.”

The regular reader of this blog will recall that I have identified some specific areas of mismanagement within Monroe County. In this posting, I'll identify some more areas where Tom Willi personally made stupid decisions that got Monroe County into the financial mess it faces now. The State is only cutting the budget by 5% over LAST year, which was up more than that over the year before!

For example, there's the certainty of at least $130,000 lost and potentially millions in legal fees and liability for the cancellation of a lease for the rental of a Cudjoe Key office building where the County would move the Building Department.

This never should have happened.

In the June 23 issue of the Key West Citizen, Tom Willi was quoted as blaming Ty Symroski's mismanagement for this problem. Let's look closer at this issue and try to see where the mismanagement lies. I believe that Tom needs only to examine the nearest mirror.

During the October 18, 2006, Board of County Commissioner's meeting, the lease for this property was submitted to the Board by Tom Willi - Item H-8. This item was approved by the board without discussion. You can read the item as presented to the Board here: http://monroecofl.virtualtownhall.net/Pages/MonroeCoFL_BOCCAgendas/10182006/H8.pdf

Items do not get on the agenda without Tom Willi's personal approval. During the meeting, Tom has the opportunity to hold any item that is on the agenda for public discussion. As you can see from the stamp on the contract, the Monroe County Attorney's office reviewed this contract and approved it "as to form."

After the Board action, County Mayor (then Sonny McCoy) signed the lease.

After that signature, Monroe County was obligated to a lease of $163,958 per year for 10 years. This is over $1.6 Million Dollars.

I understand that Tom had a discussion with officials from the City of Marathon so that the city could have (rent?) office space being vacated by this project at Marathon county offices for Marthon city use. Tom was on board and aware of this project, and evidently looking to score political capital with the City of Marathon.

If you believe that Tom Willi was not paying attention to this, you must believe that he is incompetent. If he wasn't, he is. Actually, by blaming Ty, he admits his own incompetence, doesn't he? (Ooops, this is something that fell through the cracks, who can I blame?)

I understand that Tom asked Ty Symroski to resign less than 60 days after this project was approved and signed. So Tom, I would expect, would have some sort of plan for the continuity of projects for the largest and arguably the most important division of county government?

Nope. Nothing. Things were humming along, Tom doing whatever he does, which is certainly not talking to Division Directors about running the County.

You can read the contract by following the link above - there are ways the County could break the contract, but the owner of the building is due about $200,000 if the County defaults - which, by virtue of not occupying the building or paying rent, the County has already done.

The Commission has offered the owner of the Cudjoe facility $130,000 to settle this matter, but any court is going to hold this contract to be valid. If the owner decides not to "be a good citizen" and accept this offer by the County, the County will litigate this and he will likely be awarded the entire amount to which he is entitled, along with damages and attorney fees. This could be another few hundred thousand dollars or more down the drain, several years in the future. The question is if the owner's pockets are deep enough to litigate.

Would you sign a contract with this County government knowing this?

I'll bet Tom's discussion with Ty when he resigned went a lot like it did with me - there was no discussion of ongoing projects, just, "Goodbye. You'll be fine."

You might believe that this is hubris and ego on Tom's part, but remember what Napolean said. This is inexperience and incompentence.

As one who has been a senior manager and director for many years, I know that you must know what you're risking when you dismiss a senior staff member. You have to have process and checks in place so that important projects survive staff. You can't blame them for things that are not done after you fire them!

Marine Resources Debacle
As I wrote this, I've heard that Tom has fired the entire Marine Resources department, saying that they have "nothing left to do."

This is just plain stupid. It is another indication of the lack of experienced leadership in the Administrator's office and Growth Management and likely retribution for some percieved environmentalism or political offense.

George Garrett is one of the smartest people in Monroe County government and is likely being fired for political reasons. He has been a supporter of working waterfront. For over 20 years as a County employee, he has worked to protect the environment, secure major grant money for the County, clean up the mess from hurricanes including traps and abandoned and derelict vessels. He has a family with children here in the Keys and is a committed, hard working person.
The "trouble" is that he has friends and family that are active in the environmental movement. Not necessarily George himself, mind you - guilt is by association.

I know some of these people myself. Hmmm... maybe that's why I'm no longer there!

I first met George in 1991 when he was working to establish a working Geographic Information System for Monroe County. This system became the prototype and generates data for systems used by the Property Appraiser and Sheriff's Office today. Almost $300,000 has been spent on GIS over the past 3 years - most of it from Federal grants secured by George Garrett.

No, Tom Willi, this isn't a "revenue" stream, but government isn't about generating revenue, is it?

And what civil liabilities will be created by your arbitrary dismantling of Marine Resources and these firings? I'll bet there's proof of a political motive, exactly what the state Career Service statutes are there to prevent - maybe in Andrew Trivette's requests for George Garrett's telephone records that came across my desk?

Tom, you could pay for the entire Marine Resources department with the money YOU have pissed away on Cudjoe, ADS and your "Sterling" program, which is now tarnished. By the way, where's the REVENUE from Sterling?

Dixie Spehar - you claim to be a friend of "working waterfront." How can you stand by and let this happen? Please, add on an agenda item, fire Tom Willi for cause, and find us a retired Naval officer with ethics and experience - this is gross incompentence. You already have the lies that Tom told about his discussion with Judge Taylor and the lies on the Bill Becker show about my cause for termination. Yes, there may be litigation over it, I'm sure Tom has already secured a lawyer, but do your job!

Citizens, call and write your commissioners. Call and write the newspapers:

Dixie Spehar
District 1
305-292-3440
boccdis1@monroecounty-fl.gov

George Neugent
District 2
305-872-1678
boccdis2@monroecounty-fl.gov

Charles "Sonny" McCoy
District 3
305-292-3430
boccdis3@monroecounty-fl.gov

Mario Di Gennaro
District 4
305-289-6000
boccdis4@monroecounty-fl.gov

Sylvia Murphy
District 5
305-852-7175
boccdis5@monroecounty-fl.gov

The Key West Citizen:
Citizen's Voice: 294-5800
citizen@keysnews.com

The Keynoter
The Florida Keys Keynoter
3015 Overseas Highway
Marathon, FL 33050

Newsroom: 305.743.5551

Editor
Larry Kahn - lkahn@keynoter.com

The Key West Citizen's Four Questions - Answers?

2007-06-18T23:34:00.000-04:00

Perhaps the most surprising attitude within Monroe County government that surprised me was Tom Willi's low expectations as far as actually providing services to the public.

The Internet web site support staff was very slow this month in getting the links from the agenda to the backup material fixed. My understanding is that Mr. Will has commented that "there is nothing requiring us to post [the agenda] to the web site at all."

That's a statement that reflects low expectations. Do the words "Public Service" mean anything to you, Tom? That's a great message to send to your subordinates. Yes, Tom, I guess we do have a difference in "management style." I looked for inexpensive ways to do things for the public. "Low hanging fruit," you called it once, I didn't know if you were being critical or complimentary.

You seem to look for reasons not to do things, unless it ingratiates you to your favorite commissioners. I never met the people who support me and this blog until AFTER I helped deliver services to them.

I guess a lot of us read the Key West Citizen's article on Sunday, June 17, that asked four questions. Excerpting the questions from the editorial:

Why has there been a laissez-faire attitude about spending taxpayers’ money?
And why has it taken so long for that attitude to change?
How much mismanagement will the Monroe County Commission put up with just to have an administrator they can easily manipulate?
And how much will voters put up with before turning out commissioners who put their own interests and egos above the public’s interest?

These are excellent questions.

Here are my opinions from being an insider. The numbered answers match the questions above.

1. Low Expectations. "We have one of the lowest millage rates in the State." - Tom Willi

2. Danny Kohlage has identified this as a problem. Several times. Mr. Kohlage actually has some political clout around here, but no one wants the State Attorney General to send an audit team down here, so something is being done. (THERE's an idea that merits investigation...)

3. We already have 2 Commissioners (out of 5) on record as wanting Tom Terminated. Only one more has to look beyond the bullshit, see the mismanagement, and take action to Terminate Tom Willi.

Dixie Spehar and Sonny McCoy - you are both reasonable people. I spoke with you both the day I was unfairly terminated. With all that has come out in the month since, shouldn't you take another look at Terminating Tom? What are your answers to these questions?

4. It's another 1 1/2 years until election day for Commissioners McCoy and Spehar, if they decide to run again. The unelected Mayor won't face the electorate until 2010. Tom's Contract is up for renewal just before election day 2008. My prediction is that it will not be renewed with the current board sitting.

But who knows? If a current commissioner were to leave office, the Governor would appoint a Commissioner. Who's next?

Could it be that this is a Lame Duck majority that doesn't care about public trust? Are they simply "feathering their nests?" I thought that many years of public service and earning the trust of the public would mean something to the veteran commissioners.

Commissioners, if you want something done about this, do it now, yourselves. You're going to keep losing the public trust and talented employees until you do.

Read the comments of veteran fire fighter and "Acting" Fire Chief Jim Callahan in today's newspaper. Don't you see another Division Director with no confidence in leadership?
“Fires are just not a priority in this county,” he said.

(And, almost a year after the medical retirement of an excellent Fire Chief, can Tom not hire a permanent fire chief?)

So, Commissioners, if you left office today for some unforeseen reason, would you leave a leave the legacy you want or would you leave a mish-mosh of mismanagement and discontent?

Let's recap Teflon Tom's last month in charge of the County:

$20M (now only $7M, I guess) shortfall on projects (Now where's that money going to come from? And how did it happen in a month.)
The "disagreement over recollection" with Judge Taylor?
ANOTHER disgruntled Division Director (OMB) who has threatened to resign? (Oops, that's another "disagreement over recollection" about a promised salary increase.)
The loss (and no replacement) of the County Public Information Officer, resulting in NO NEWS RELEASES and problems with the agenda postings since his departure on May 29.
Dismissing me. That's covered in other posts, still, no valid reason has been given to me.
MORE MONEY for ADS requested on this month's agenda! (Maybe THAT's why I'm not there anymore!)

Can the County Commission make something STICK on Teflon Tom?

[Here's a crazy rumor - Harry Miller, a fellow who claims to be buddies with Tom and the Mayor, is rumored to have told folks that he is going to run against Dixie Spehar for County Commissioner next year. Harry has claimed to be "an executive with Nextel" at a BOCC meeting and gave me a business card with the Motorola logo on it, no address, and his own telephone numbers. Anyone else have any different Harry Miller business cards? Let's trade! ]

Teflon Tom and the Truth!

2007-06-09T02:07:00.001-04:00

The sitting Chief Judge of Monroe County , Sandra Taylor, has a different recollection of an earlier discussion with Tom Willi than Tom admitted to during the June 6, 2007, meeting.

Please, reader, if you doubt this, go look at the video of the public meeting at http://www.monroecounty-fl.gov/. Judge Taylor appeared VERY unhappy about Tom's failure to honestly recall his previously stated intent to close the Marathon Courthouse. Tom implied that he had never told her anything of the sort and chalked it up to "politics." Of course, he compared the complicated budget process to a blender, but that's another issue...

Judge Taylor is not just someone who walked up to the microphone at a public meeting to make some vague claim about what Tom Willi had said. This is a trained, experience trial court judge and educated attorney who has been sifting through testimony for YEARS, discerning shades of meaning, linguistic nuances, and statements of fact and intent vs. opinion and ideas. This is a judge with NO controversy or history of scandal - this is the Chief Judge in Monroe County. Is her recollection flawed? I doubt it.

I suspect that someone is lying about what was said. Who, Judge Taylor or Tom Willi?
Who benefits? Who was ON the political hot seat, Judge Taylor or Tom Willi?

Another issue - Who's telling the truth - Sal Zappulla or Tom Willi?

Sal Zappulla, the County Budget Director, has evidently told the press that he was promised a raise that he hasn't received yet. Newspaper reports say that he spoke with the Deputy County Administrator (Where was Tom?) and was told he would have to "wait until October" for a raise.

Sal claims he was promised a raise earlier. I have no doubt that he was. Read on.

In a Keynoter article today, Tom cites Sal's "Interpersonal Skills" in denying Sal's raise. Evidently, Sal called another division director a "moron" in an email message.

Sal is passionate about his work. When the Vandenberg sinking was proposed I personally heard Sal raise the issue about taking the money for sinking the Vandenberg out of infrastructure funds, saying to Tom, "You'll bankrupt the fund" and questioning that sinking a ship was "infrastructure." It appeared that Tom directed County Attorney Suzanne Hutton to research the legal infrastructure issue, but ignored Sal's admonishments about the fund balance. We see how that has turned out.

You can imagine the pressure Sal has been under over these issues, standing between Tom and the Clerk of Court - the Chief Financial Officer of the County. This pressure has come to a head with rising project construction costs, managed by Engineering. Is there any wonder Sal lost it, calling Dave Koppel a "moron?" Dave's not a moron, but he is subject to daily pressures from Commissioners and Tom Willi to push ahead with all these construction projects.

Tom Willi's background is construction. He might naturally side with Dave Koppel. After all, Finance is like a blender, just put stuff in and push a few buttons and a budget plops out. Anyone can do that, why do they need Sal? Division Directors are a dime a dozen in Tom's vision of the County, evidently.

During last year's budget workshops, Tom emphasized to the County Commission and the Public how complicated it was to change even a single line item in the budget.

Now, it is as simple as a blender, and, according to Tom, Sal's assistant can do it, no problem.

The denial of a raise is a familiar story to me. I have no doubt that Tom promised this, perhaps to defuse a confrontation, then reneged on the promise when it became inopportune to Tom politically or an opportunity for retribution. This seems to be a part of Tom's "management style." No wonder he cited "differences in management style" when he dismissed me.

Before I came to work for Monroe County, during salary negotiations, Mr. Willi offered me a lower salary than I needed, with a promise to give me "another 9% in October."

When October came and I received the standard 3% cost of living that everyone got, he couldn't recall that he promised me 9%. I remember thinking, "What a slime ball!"

So, Willi has "selective recall." As a Division Director, where do you go when your boss has no supervision and no integrity? He's proven to be a loose cannon - just follow all the stories in the newspaper!

If a Division Director calls a County Commissioner, he or she risks the Wrath of Willi. Read today's (June 9) Key West Citizen and see what Tom told the press that he was going to do to Sal Zappulla about calling Commissioners. Reading this, I'll bet that Tom will seek a required "pre-determination" hearing to fire Sal. One thing I've heard said about these "pre-determination" hearings in Monroe County government, is that the outcome is pre-determined.

Remember when I posed the question last week about who would get fired over the $20M issue? I believe we have an answer!

Is there any wonder that there are communications problems within Monroe County government? This is a culture of fear, not constructive cooperation.

MAYOR, Commissioners - why don't you take action? With all these problems stacking up, I don't know how you can look citizens in the eye when you meet them in public places without action. Tom is in this job WAY beyond his level of competence.

This blog gets hundreds of readers every day. I promise to keep adding to this blog so that all the issues with this inept County Administrator are documented until you do something about it.

Don't worry about Tom. I've heard that some construction company has a good cushy job waiting for him.

$20M Surprise -Mounting Evidence of Mismanagement

2007-06-07T11:08:00.000-04:00

Did anyone watch the Monroe County Commission workshop today or read the Key West Citizen's account?

"There’s a TWENTY MILLION DOLLAR shortfall in what we need to maintain the commitments now, and those are just the Band-Aid fixes." - Tom Willi at yesterday's meeting

Surprise!

So, how did this happen?

My ex-peer, Division Director Dave Koppel was quoted in the Key West Citizen in the June 7 issue on page 5A as saying, "I'm assuming it was a mistake" and the Citizen says that Dave "asked Willi to clarify the deficit, but that Willi did not."

There are two things I believe about Dave Koppel. One, he is impeccably honest. Ask him a direct straight question and you will get the truth as he believes it to be. Two, he is the strongest Tom Willi supporter amongst the Division Directors. So I believe that this is Very Bad News.

Here's another example of a critical communications breakdown between Tom Willi and two Division Directors. No doubt that Sal Zappulla is doing his usual thorough job tracking costs and reporting to Tom. It appears that Tom is not sharing this financial analysis with Dave Koppel.

Here is YET ANOTHER COMMUNICATIONS PROBLEM!

Which Division Director is going to get called on the carpet (or fired?) for this?

The responsibility to put the mechanism in place for the Office of Management of the Budget to clearly communicate with Engineering falls clearly at the feet of the County Administrator.

Haphazardly swinging the axe among Division Directors has created a culture of fear, where no one communicates bad news for fear of their job.

That's why these deficits and costs continue to grow. People are afraid to say anything - no one will come forward with "bad news."

Not me. Not anymore.

The Emperor has no clothes.

Teflon Tom: Close the Marathon Courthouse?

2007-06-02T17:32:00.000-04:00

Well, we're beginning to see the more stupid ideas that Tom Willi has to reduce the County budget.

They've posted my job at a salary that's up to $50k/year less than I was making. I saved the County $300k year over year, and, likely, the truth is that Tom was more concerned about my salary than anything else. Since he hardly ever spoke to me, that makes as much sense as anything. Less on me, more about this insanity on this post.

In a county where most government buildings are chewing up energy by being air conditioned 24 hours per day, vehicles are assigned to departments and people permanently instead of being "pooled" and there are many, many people making $50k/year or more that aren't doing much of anything, the best Tom Willi can come up with is to "close the Marathon courthouse?"

Folks, I believe that this is a vindictive pot shot over the complaints about the delays of construction at the Freeman Justice Center (that Tom is responsible for constructing) and Tom's continuing attempt to battle with the Clerk of Court. You may remember that the Clerk was responsible for identifying Tom's reckless spending the crap out of what should have been reserves.

Helicopter, Hickory House, Vandenberg. Add those numbers - $3.5M, 3.1M, $2M. That's Eight Point Six Million Dollars. These should ALL be private enterprise projects.

(Oh yes, the Vandenberg - the Tourist Development Council kicked in another $1M from the bed tax, so Monroe County funds paid $3M toward the Vandenberg, not the $2M commonly thought!)

Add the amount that the County is pissing away to ADS and BellSouth (oh, sorry, the new AT&T) based on past bad decisions, you've got a good start toward a combined courthouse, libary, EOC complex. Oh yeah, there's an EOC grant already out there. How about a combined use facility? What a concept... but it will take more intellect to pull that one off than we current have in the Administrator's office.

Next target, I'll bet, are the libraries. I've already heard it said, "Let them read the books they've already got." You see what is happening in Marathon - promises are already being broken about a new facility there.

Is this County retaliation for Marathon incorporation? Shades of Boot Key bridgetenders!

So, what exactly is the reason for government?

What should be funded by taxpayers - recreational facilities for tourists or a courthouse for residents?

I think George Neugent and Sylvia Murphy have it exactly right.

Call, write or email your commissioner and ask them to put an end to Teflon Tom's regime, today, before even more damages pile up. Can you imagine the "equal rights under the law" lawsuits when people in Marathon have to travel to Plantation Key or Key West to deal with the court system?

FOLLOW UP ON VIDEO: For those of you who asked about the video, I am looking for the copy I made of the unedited version when I heard of the censorship. Basically, the edited section was a comment someone made about someone else smoking pot. It made no sense to censor it to me. I will post a copy and a link here when it turns up.

The Bully Pulpit - Abuse of County Resources?

2007-05-30T09:02:00.000-04:00

Today Jonathan Weinshank is leaving Monroe County. He had sold his Key Haven home a while back. About a month ago, he gave notice and is moving to North Carolina.
Jonathan will be missed - he personally wrote every press release and created the monroecounty-fl.gov website the way you see it today.

The day he resigned, I sent Tom Willi a copy of the resignation and a request that we fill the job immediately rather than wait for 30 days - a practice he has mandated to "save the 30 days of salary". True to form, he did not reply directly to my direct request, but replied to a person who worked for me in an incidental email. He almost never replied directly to me, as I've written here.

So watch the quality and quality of web site changes going forward. It will be interesting.

President Theodore Roosevelt's referred to the White House as a "bully pulpit," meaning a public platform from which to persuasively advocate an agenda.

It is frequently referred to by politicos in the minority who find than incumbent politicians have access to government outlets like Government Television Stations.

No matter what you think and how hard the Monroe County TV staff work to make it so, the government TV station isn't journalism. MCTV is a "bully pulpit" despite the best efforts of the staff to be balanced and neutral.

For example, last fall, before the elections, there was a mandate from the Administrators office to rerun Ken Sorenson's farewell speech to the State Legislature over and over and over. I believe it ran 8 times during the month before last year's primary election.

I watched the speech. I don't know how this helped anyone to get elected, but I'm sure it helped Mr. Sorenson's ego.

A more objectionable order came from the Administrator's office on the Friday before the Primary Election in 2006. Technical Services was told to edit - remove - comments by a candidate before rebroadcasting a candidate forum. When they were told that could not be done before the schedule airing, we were told to "pull" or not air the rerun of the candidates forum and to make the edit before the next scheduled airing.

The MCTV staff was angry and told me that this had never been done before.

Fearful for my job (as are most Division Directors), I backed up the order and told them to comply with the request. "MCTV isn't journalism," I remember saying, and spoke of the "bully pulpit."

Privately, I was surprised that the Administrator's office was so intimately involved in this political move.

Taxpayers, this is YOUR money at work to promote and protect the political careers of the incumbents.

How many "mistakes" Constitute Lying? (Chuckle)

2007-05-24T23:43:00.000-04:00

Hi readers,

I did get around to listening to Mr. Willi's interview with Bill Becker today.

Bill I really do appreciate you questioning Mr. Willi. You asked good questions to which he gave you what I believe to be false answers - but I'm sure he would just say that they were little mistakes that we should ignore, and why are we talking about this anyway when we're trying to sell the Hickory House and hurricane season is just a few days away?

Bill has contacted me and asked me to respond to Mr. Willi on the air. I haven't got back to him.

I'm not really sure that I want to get in an on-air debate about this. When dealing with important topics, I like to be accurate. Perhaps next week, if this is still topical. I obviously have a lot to say, but I'm not sure that this will still be news.

I wonder, after exercising my right to free speech, whether or not I'll get my final paychecks. Thankfully, this is handled by the Clerk of Court, who I believe is one of the fairest and most honest people in Monroe County government.

This is getting weirder. Tom could just refuse to speak about it, but instead, he tells the public things that I believe are not true to justify this bizarre decision.

I have some questions for Mr. Willi:

Tom,

Did you really not speak with Harry Miller about firing me? You sort of dodged Becker's question in the interview. As you know, Miller called wanting his aircard back before we spoke (remember when you fired me over the phone?)

He threatened to call you after he was told that it would be Monday when he got his card back. When your office called with instructions about turning in my keys, notebook computer and cellular phone, they were sure to mention my "Nextel AirCard." Mr. Miller works for the Nextel dealer, but the air card was on loan from Sprint, who now owns Nextel.

I read that Mr. Miller told the Citizen that he called to get his air card back after he found out I was fired. A week earlier, he had told me that you and he were close personal friends. If he told the truth, then you told him I was fired before you told me. Can you relate the circumstances how this happened and why you thought that was appropriate? Or did Mr. Miller lie to the Citizen?

You spoke of "sit down sessions with the division to blow off steam." According to my records, you, me and Debbie Frederick met to address a specific complaint on September 7, 2006. On that date, we had the one and only division "sit down session to blow off steam" right after you shook my hand, looked me in the eye and told me that I had "your full support" in the door of your office.

That would indicate that you use the singular, not the plural when referring to this. "Session," not "Sessions."

The plural would be misleading - and false.

You and I discussed these issues again on December 21, 2006, during my review. You said that I was a victim of "mother hen syndrome" and I told you that I was working to maintain good relations with my staff.

Have you and I personally discussed this issue as a disciplinary issue at all at any time since that date until you called and fired me?

The correct, truthful answer is NO, Tom, no matter what line of crap you're telling anyone else.

When asked about the innovations that Technical Services implemented during my tenure, you stated, "You make that statement as if you think these were his ideas, which they weren't, Bill. When he was hired, these were mandates that we wanted to see happen. Those are part of his evaluation."

Yes, I guess now would be a good time to take credit for all of this, huh? How come you didn't get any of this done (or even underway) before I arrived?

I don't know for sure, but I suspect that the bullshit meter of the Technical Services staff went off the scale on that one. Can you recall giving me any such charges or direction? I CERTAINLY DO NOT.

Technical Services knows exactly how these projects evolved and how they were funded. I suspect that the County Commission does as well.

ALL of these ideas and solutions came from, were designed by and implemented by Technical Services staff on a shoestring budget with expenditures within the Director's purchasing authority. No, they were not my "ideas" - I'm not Al Gore, who invented the Internet - but would they have happened if you didn't hire me?

My evaluation is a document available to the public. Anyone can request it and see if streaming video, indexed video on demand, wireless in the library, cost reduction on the network or all the other projects that are in my reports and I spoke to in front of the Commission are on my evaluation or assigned to me by your office in any way.

Honestly, as far as projects and priorities were concerned, I felt like I was poking around in the dark. The budget as it was when I arrived was all out of whack and, if you'll recall, ADS was telling you that you needed to spend $400k on a project that we never did do, did we?

The things you DON'T do are as important as the things you do.

Tom, you were, and continue to be, out of the loop. I honestly don't know what's worse, your inattentiveness to me and to Technical Services while I was aboard or this attempt to justify your bad decision to fire me.

Think of other reasons, Tom, because these don't hold water.

Now, go and "have a good chuckle" about that, quoting you on Becker about my reaction to the press about 2 hours after an unexpected firing over the telephone with no good explanation.

County Commissioners - are you paying attention? Are you going to stand by and let this crap continue or are you going to download the US1 Radio audio, check out Tom's statements and the facts and determine if all these mistakes constitute prevarication - or just inept handling of an interview. Either way, is this the path that is right for the County?

What would you have said if Tom came to you with a $400k request for equipment and another $125k for ADS instead of hiring me when he did? You are headed there again...

WILLI Radio and Technical Services

2007-05-23T12:02:00.000-04:00

I suppose that a lot of you heard Mr. Willi on the radio yesterday morning. I have emails and telephone calls commenting on it. I have not heard it - I'm waiting for it to be posted on the station site.

The entire thing he seems to have missed is that there have been no complaints or discussions in a long time that I am aware of. The incidents Mr. Willi discussed on the radio happened before September of last year.

So why didn't he sit me down any time in the last 8 months, face to face, and have a discussion with me and either fire me then or work on correcting existing problems? Why did he wait until I moved my family and boat here and signed a long term lease?

I believe because (1) There were no current complaints and (2) Mr. Willi planned on keeping me until last week, when he "agonized" over this for some reason that is yet unrevealed.

Again, from my view, all complaints were:

From my staff who were unhappy with being required to report to someone who expected a higher level of activity;
From staff members who wanted me out and their prior boss back, because there was no technical oversight and a lower level of activity;
Maybe (I've heard but not seen) from vendors who were underperforming and being called on it.

On a funny note, someone has done a parody of this blog, posted yesterday afternoon, with a photoshop'ed photo and all.

The work is familiar - likely a Technical Services employee who doesn't seem to have much to do. Although the majority of the staff works hard, there are a few people who don't, but complain loudly. These few seem to believe that the purpose of County government is to give jobs to people.

Mr. Willi should get someone to look on the computers of Key West staff for this kind of "extracurricular" activity. Early on, I did - there's a ton, including music, movies and bittorrent servers, but I was hobbled by these "complaints" and Mr. Willi's emphasis that I should not have any complaints. Not getting complaints from employees seemed to be my highest priority task.

The reverse correlation between the activities of these people and their complaints is high. The less they did, the more pressure they got from me and the more they complained.

For example, I assigned an employee to prepare a simple report to help with fuel management 3 months ago. Nothing's delivered - not even progress reports that I asked for. Knowing that this employee has complained to the Administrator, I kept the pressure off - but my feeling is that he's goofing off.

And folks, that's the way it is at Technical Services. There's a lot of sitting around, putting in time, watching movies, listening to music and Internet surfing on County time.

Maybe one or more of them decided to time a personal attack to correlate with my career service probationary period ending. I don't know, but the County Administrator should be smart enough to figure this out.

When you drive by the Harvey Government Center in the middle of the business day, look for those people standing in the front center of the building smoking and talking. Likely technical services people. Do they look burdened?

There are folks working hard, delivering the things that Technical Services has been praised about. Some folks come in early or stay late all the time.

But most don't. Their activity level is low and when they're called on it, they complain to the Administrator. They are bright and complain well.

I once told the group that Technical Services was going to need to take calls after hours to support Information Technology at the Library and Fire Rescue.

One employee refused to do it and complained to the Administrator's Office and Human Resources.

Technical Services has no plan to support Fire Rescue off hours as a result.

Your tax dollars at work.

Employee Complaints

2007-05-23T01:03:00.000-04:00

Wow, thanks for all the emails, phone calls and comments on the blog. I understand that this site was mentioned on the Bill Becker show on Tuesday. Thanks, Bill.

Thanks for reading. I promise more commentary on my view in my 4-days-short-of-a-year career at Monroe County. I hope you're enjoying this and will come back and read these postings and PARTICIPATE in government. I believe ALL the county commissioners are listening, will speak with you and appreciate YOUR point of view.

Those of you who are wondering if there's new information or if there are things to write about, I believe I have several months of blogging left to do. Every day I get another piece of information - I have hundreds of emails and hundreds of megabytes of documents to draw from.
There are vague threats among the rumors circulating about some unknown "other shoe" that will drop if I don't stop the blog, like the letters the staff wrote complaining to the Administrator about me. I know of none since my last review in December and have never actually seen any of them. I was told there were "a few complaints in writing" last September by Mr. Willi (in the Handshake meeting I referred to in an earlier post) and they haven't been mentioned since.

Maybe there's even a new letter, but I don't know - I can't correct what I don't know about, and it is too late now anyway, isn't it? What kind of "management style" hides the truth?

It was my impression the last time these letters were clearly discussed (September 2006, just after Labor Day), that it was Mr. Willi's opinion that, in almost every case, these were issues from a group of people that had no technical direction before my hire. I took these complaints seriously, though, and was careful not to swear and to work to establish trust relationships. It was clear that respect for management was not easily given by this group of people and their preference was for their previous "acting" director who has no technical background.

I know that several people were unhappy that this person didn't get the job. I know that she was personally unhappy she didn't get the job because she resigned a few weeks after I started, gave a very long notice. I was told that that this action was to make good on a threat that she would resign if she didn't get the Director's job. Mr. Willi didn't take the resignation seriously - he shook his head and said, "She's not going anywhere." He was correct. A few days later she rescinded her resignation.

A number of people suggested to me that this person was "out to get my job." Maybe that's so. If someone believes that they know what someone else is (or isn't) thinking, they're wrong - there is no such thing as telepathy. I don't know what anyone intends unless they tell me or do something and try to reserve judgement.

This does leave me open to covert action, and obviously something happened here, didn't it?

Having employees who want your job is frequently an issue when you're the boss. In my opinion, the best way to deal with this is to take a long term approach and to build a relationship with those who would take your job. As I've said before in this venue, it is my personal philosophy to trust what people say at face value.

But it was my impression that all of this unpleasantness was over before my last review in December. Everyone was getting along and we were moving our relationships forward. It is obvious that I didn't appreciate the Machiavellian, fear based culture that seemed to permeate the County at all levels.

I had a hard time understanding why people wrote letters to Tom Willi about me without discussing issues directly with me, or at least copying me on the letter. My opinion is that this is cowardly. I've been told (by the some of the same people who told me someone was out to get my job) that these people were coached by third parties and that these letters were, in some cases, not actually written by the person who signed them.

Managers who hold people's careers in their power should NOT act on accusations and innuend without truth. When people make accusations, their reasons for making statements should be examined along with content.

NO ONE ever came over from the Administator's and spent a day (or even a few hours) in my office. When I arrived, I was met at the Administrator's office by one member of my staff and taken to my office. There was no anouncement and no introduction.

After 3 months, after a particular incident, Tom and his deputy came over and spent an hour with Technical Services. That was pretty much all the help I got.

It wasn't enough.

The Third Rail - Monroe County's Technology Partners

2007-05-21T09:16:00.000-04:00

I promised in my Saturday blog to detail contracts and issues that I attempted to resolve that likely added to my dismissal. My apologies, but this one is a bit complicated and a TAD technical.

Having been on the paying end of taxes, like most people, all of my life, I was appreciative of the opportunity to be add a bit of good sense to government. It is obvious to me that the bureaucrats within Monroe County would rather pay out the taxpayer's money rather than admit they've made bad decisions and correct them. This is a place where a bonus system for budget control makes sense - no wonder taxes are out of control!

In my opinion, there are at least two outside companies engaged with Monroe County that are wasting money.

In this first of two parts, I'll examine one of these companies, some history, what they do for the County, how I got in trouble managing them, and why I think it is a waste of money.

Advanced Data Solutions (ADS) from Oldsmar, FL.

ADS is one of the few resellers in Florida of a software product called "Alchemy", document imaging solution, which isn't stellar in any terms and is only used by a few municipalities and counties in Florida. They sold Monroe County the Alchemy product originally in the late 1990's (1998?) and, since then, have been given contracted scan documents for Monroe County's Building Department.

ADS is a relatively small company that does business with a handful of County and Municipal governments. My impression is that their primary business is scanning. Monroe County has been introduced to only 5 people that work for ADS. ADS has been awarded 3 contracts with Monroe County, worth a total of over $300,000.00.

Before I was offered the job at Monroe County, I was required to interview with Rob Buell, the principal at ADS, and Phillip, an ADS consultant. I didn't know it at the time, but they had been hired to "manage information technology" at Monroe County in an interim basis.

For months, ADS stopped work at Monroe County and I don't think we missed them. The reason that they stopped coming is that the County Clerk's Office had some heartburn with travel expenses on invoices dating back to before I started work with the County. The County Attorney's Office wasn't allowing them to be paid. I understand that, within the past two weeks, ADS has agreed to come back to work and to not be paid for $20,000 or so worth of invoices. Good for ADS, I'm sure Monroe County is highly profitable.

Let's take a look at what they're doing,

Infrastructure Support

This is the area in which ADS has done a reasonable job, in my opinion. They have a good consultant (Phillip) who is a hard worker. The only problem has been that, when I started, he would travel to Key West for two days every two weeks and then leave. I asked Buell to have him come for 4 days every four weeks, and, without looking at a calendar, he told me he couldn't accommodate that. I suggested three days every month and he told me that he could do that, so we agreed and, except for recently (see above), that's been happening.

Alchemy (document management software) Training

There is an ADS person who is very knowledgeable who comes to Monroe County to train on Alchemy. In our first meeting, she complained that people weren't making their meetings. We set up a process so that she would schedule her time here and Tech Services would set up meetings for her. It had been very adhoc. (Hi there, County Employee, would you like some Alchemy training today?) She would basically show up and do training.

I asked for ADS to detail a plan to train people so that we could know how much training that would make Alchemy users competent in specific areas. I asked for a curriculum and lesson plans. None of this was forthcoming, but we did finally get a list of topics. We did get ADS scheduling their visits, however, but there were issues - dates would "shift" and appointments would be missed.

During one memorable occasion, two people visited for two days, all billable, and a two hour class was conducted. But the Administrator's office people attended that class, so it must have been worthwhile.

After holding up training for this plan, ADS responded that they would need to bill us to prepare this lesson plan. I authorized 8 hours consulting to prepare such an plan and suggested that, if that wasn't enough, we should talk about how much time it would take.

ADS complained to the Administrator's office for "stopping training", I was called on the carpet for stopping this training (not by Willi personally, but his name was invoked.) I have objected to continued training because the training was not planned and the engagement was "open ended." There is no Statement of Work (SOW) that is common in consulting engagement to define scope and time frame - just contracts with buckets of money.

There is excellent Internet based training directly from the folks that make Alchemy, and having a person wander about Key West and Marathon without a plan isn't getting Monroe County much value. I have suggested this and guess what - NO REPLY.

Scanning

Whoa, doggies, this was a "third rail" issue.

There is a state created program, called PRIDE, where the Florida Department of Corrections will scan documents for municipal governments at a fraction of the cost of ADS. I attempted to make a change to this and was verbally told not to do it. This would save the County $20k or so a year.

So, in the area of training and scanning, the County is wasting a ton of money.

Document Management System - The Problem at Monroe County

Monroe County's implementation of a document management system is ill conceived and needs overhaul, but, as always, it will take money to fix. A remedial solution would be to use a document storage and retrieval system that looks like (or uses) Microsoft Outlook instead of special client software, eliminating special training. I proposed this in the 2008 budget when I spoke with Mr. Willi and proposed cost justifying it by "eliminating ADS." Mr. Willi looked directly at me and said, "When I selected Alchemy..." and made his point, although it was here before he arrived.

Third rail issue? Probably so. But why? Why is Mr. Willi married to ADS and Alchemy?

I don't know, but it is expensive for the taxpayers.

The problem with this specialized document imaging system is a general management issue.

There is no clearly defined menu of County services, the process behind those services or the tasks identified that would include document flow for any one or two things the County does.

Services need to be identified, processes need to be clearly defined and tasks and document flow needs to be established BEFORE a document management system is even purchased. This has never been done.

This would cost several million dollars. The entire technical services budget is only $2.8M per year.

But the rewards would be several million dollars repeatable every year IF the County could eliminate paper shufflers.

Without doing this, in my opinion, Mr. Willi's dream of getting a Sterling award will be just that, a dream.

Unless the Sterling Award is given out for sock puppet shows.

Monroe County - Clarification and Amplification

2007-05-20T11:39:00.000-04:00

Wow, I'm surprised at the emails, the blog got around quicker than I thought.

Here are some general facts that people wanted to know:

Q: Was Tom Willi your immediate supervisor?
A: Yes, in title at least. I was hired as a Division Director. My immediate supervisor was Tom Willi, the County Administrator. I had a lot of people telling me what to do, but there was never any clarification of any other reporting structure.

Q: How many people in your organization? What do they think about this?
A: There are 14 positions with Technical Services, including my own. There are (now) 12 employees. There is 1 open (vacant) position, and my position, which is now vacant.
I can't answer for what they think, but there were several people in tears when they heard the news Friday.

Q: Why weren't you at the County Commission meeting Wednesday? (May 16)
A: I had a procedure on my shoulder last Tuesday (May 15) called "manipulation under general anesthesia." Is was (is) painful and I was unable to travel to the Key Largo County Commission meeting, but I was in the office most of the day Wednesday and the remainder of the week.

Q: Why don't you get together with (all the other people who have been fired by Tom Willi) and sue?
I'm not that concerned for my own welfare and I'm not so sure that I have a case, since I was in my first probationary year. The loss is the County's, not mine.

I was working on the basis of a firm handshake in a personal meeting with Tom in September where he said looked me in the eye and said, "You have my full support." I tend to trust people to hold their word.

Leaving Monroe County Technical Services

2007-05-19T23:44:00.000-04:00

EX Director, Technical Services, Monroe County BOCC

Warning - this blog is, in its entirety, my opinion. If you want facts, these opinions might point you in the direction of truth, but that's up to you!

I just completed my first day as the ex-director of technical services for the Monroe County Board of County Commissioners in Key West, Florida. That is sort of like the Chief Information Officer. I was responsible for Information Technology, Telephone Communications, the Public Information Office and Monroe County Television, the local government channel.

I've never been treated so shabbily in my life.

So why blog about it?

In Florida, government operates under what is commonly called "open government" or "sunshine." In Monroe County, the culture seems to mean "never put anything in writing that you don't want in the newspaper." There is a lot of talking about ways to do things and opinions expressed that make the public record look sort of stupid in the light of sunshine.

There are a lot of memo's that travel around in brown envelopes as communication. There is a full time courier to cart these things around buildings. I haven't seen that in 20 years, but came to realize that a lot of these messages weren't being captured for the public record. I was tasked to "make us paperless" by Mr. Willi when I was hired and proceeded to set an example by using electronic communication almost all the time.

I expected to "go on the record" for most of what I did and have done so for the most part. My email has recorded many of my opinions and recommendations. I have always thought that this provides a good record of action in a public or private organization and, if you're honest, a good record in the event of litigation.

One of the first projects I undertook in this position was to install an email archiving system. Emails should all be there from sometime last summer.

When I started sending emails, I noticed that some people wouldn't reply. They would call or even call a third party to relay a message. My boss, Tom Willi, particularly would not reply. When I asked him about if he read a particular email during one of our infrequent meetings, he told me to assume that he reads his email.

A typical message circuit would be that I would email Tom and he would reply verbally through the Deputy Administrator, who then would, most likely, call a supervisor in my department who she went to high school with. So, more often than not, I was getting direction from a supervisor in my department. Sometimes Tom would give the message directly to this supervisor - never directly to me. Is that just weird or is it by design? I honestly don't know. I suspect that this convoluted message route is at the heart of Mr. Willi's "management style" issue with me. I expect straightforward communication and don't like playing "telephone".

So, this blog is to bring my opinions to light. These are just my opinions. If you want the truth, feel free to contact Monroe County and ask for emails or any supporting documents for anything I refer to in this blog. Likely, you can examine documents, like emails I sent that were never answered, personally.

Suggestions for public requests: 1. All messages sent from Mickey Baker that includes Tom Willi as a recipient, either in the "To:" field or the "CC:" field. 2. All messages sent from Tom Willi to Mickey Baker.

I'm not happy about raising issues and having them ignored. The taxpayers deserve better.
My ex-coworkers and ex-employees deserve better.

Tom, if you're reading this, you know this is true. Communication and culture starts at the top.

Performance and Firing

I did the job for 4 days short of a year, and, in my own opinion, which I believe is defensible given the record, did a great job. My employees love me - with a couple of notable exceptions. I provided new services for citizens, stabilized and upgraded a scattered and failing information technology environment and improved (but did not fix) the abysmal license compliance situation - all on a budget that, for the first year, didn't even include my own salary.

My boss, the County Administrator, Mr. Tom Willi, called me from 150 miles away where he was attending a convention and gave me no other reason than, "it's not working out" and "management style" with absolutely no specificity when pressed.

Other than Division Director and County Commission meetings (large, once per month meetings) we met maybe a half dozen times over the course of the year. Mr. Willi has no specific schedule for Division Directors and required an appointment, which I did seek (and was granted) several times.

In fairness, I was out Tuesday (a rare occurrence for me) for a surgical procedure and he had a County Commission meeting on Wednesday in Key Largo - I did not travel there, but was in the office in Key West, most of the day after my procedure. I had no warning, coaching or any comment from Mr. Willi other than a December 21, 2006, performance evaluation, where he depreciated his "below expectations" evaluation in the "managing people" category, and told me that I was a "victim of mother hen syndrome", told me I was "doing a great job" and to "keep it up". Of course, he and I were the only people in the room, but the evaluation is part of the public record.

I had "Exceeded Expectations" evaluation in technical areas. I had never worked as a manager in the public sector before, so, given attached comments, took the review in stride.

Mr. Willi's Management Style - Communication?

Mr. Willi has been criticized harshly elsewhere for "poor communication." The local newspaper and two of five County Commissioners have called for his resignation. On February 8, 2007, a special meeting was called to evaluate terminating his contract. He was, in my opinion, contrite and promised to "improve communications." His answer has been to hire a consultant and conduct communications workshops with groups striated by management level.

Here's the entire 3 hour meeting if you're really interested, but a Google of "Tom Willi" will get you a good flavor of what the perception is about Tom:
http://ecweb4.ecstreams.com/EarthCastIndexerViewer/programViewer.aspx?client=MonroeCoFL&show=Archive_20070208_001.ecx

So, I'm left to wonder why I was fired because Mr. Willi won't (or can't) come up with a reason other than the ambiguous "management style" with no details. I find this offensive and just plain bad management. It benefits no one except Mr. Willi.

My Speculation About Why I Was Fired

Yesterday, a reporter with the Key West Citizen (newspaper) called me within 2 hours of Mr. Willi's call. Here's an accurate reflection of what I thought and told the reporter at the time:
http://www.keysnews.com/353107084789789.bsp.htm

I don't know any different than that now. Assuming that Mr. Miller (in the article) is telling the truth, he knew that I was getting fired before I knew. Mr. Miller told me that he is a close personal friend of both the Mayor and Mr. Willi, so this is entirely possible, given Mr. Willi's communication issue. Was Mr. Willi telling his friends that I was fired before he told me?

Taking the Job was My First Mistake

I knew when I took the job that would be the 4th director in about 5 years, so I’m a bit to blame for taking the position without clearer ground rules before beginning. What happened to the other folks is a story in itself... the last guy died, literally, in the office.

Fear Based Culture - Communications

A recent workshop with the Carroll Group with most of the County Division Directors in attendance was held in the first part of May, entitled, "Knowledge Based Leadership." The workshop assigned this group the task of evaluating and addressing what we thought were the most significant communications problems within the County. The group concluded that "communication without fear of retribution" was at the top of the list of problems. Coincidentally or not, I was the only member of the group who did not have the one year career service that would prohibit Mr. Willi from summarily firing me.

Good luck to that group on that topic. Now that the consultant has backed away from the group, the leader is Andrew Trivette, who is up for a huge raise as he gets promoted from "acting" to actual division director. I'm sure Andrew intends to be objective - he is really a good guy - but I don't see how he can be, given reality.

Back to why I might have been fired

I really don't know WHY, I got fired. My best guesses are:

I uncovered some bad decisions that someone made a while back and I had asked for money to fix them in the 2008 budget. It seems likely that I may have touched the “third rail” at some point, criticizing expenditures for technology projects or consultants in place that are, evidently, controversial or worrisome to someone. (Future blog topic.)
I pissed bureaucrats off when I suggested that they might actually change the way they're doing things, like discontinuing brown envelopes in favor of email or eliminating 3 reams of manual telephone bills in favor of an electronic system.
I KNOW that I upset some long term county employees by complaining of workplace behavior and changing responsibilities.
I pissed off this fellow who is a friend of Tom's and the Mayor and he ranted.
County is short-sightedly eliminating payroll - I saved a LOT of money this year, stay tuned I will detail it in a future blog, but a lot of it came from reining in consultants (see item 1)

It is difficult to know what you're doing wrong if your boss doesn't tell you.

More detail later on problematic projects and consultants in place when I arrived...

Mickey Baker