Can't we just sell the trees?
At Tuesday's city council meeting, City Manager Marty Black informed council that the city would face a $5.7 million shortfall in its expected budget for 2007. Black blamed the shortfall on Governor Charlie Crist's proposed tax reforms.

Black informed council that they need to get input from their constituents as to how to handle the coming crunch. Does the city want to raise taxes, cut services, perform layoffs, or some combination of the three?

Black apparently never clued in his own employees but felt free enough, once the issue blew up, to blame Venice Florida! dot com for the misinformation and the panic that was rippling through the ranks due to lack of information.

Thanks, Marty. I appreciate that. Anything else I can do to cover for your mistakes, just feel free to ask.

Stacy McKenzie sees corporate bigwigs, promptly flips out
The melee started out with a panicked e-mail from a rattled utilities department supervisor, Stacy McKenzie, addressed to Black:

"I just want you to know that there is a rumor going around here at the Water Plant that is causing the employees to be very uneasy. Apparently, John Patten made a visit to the Water Plant and told an operator directly that you, as City Manager, is [sic] looking to get rid of 50 employees from the Utilities Department. There are also some high ranked officials from OMI [the private firm that is managing the city's utilities] taking a tour of the plant which is, under any other circumstances, would be no big deal. We are going through some changes over here and employees are not sure what else is coming."
-- Stacy McKenzie, e-mail to Marty Black, 02/28/07

For the record, I never made any such statement, nor did I say anything close to what McKenzie is attributing to me. Additionally, I don't think I've had any direct conversation with McKenzie in over two years. Whatever McKenzie heard, it was either grossly mischaracterized or she twisted it herself. I'll get back to all that in just a bit.

Black cops a contact buzz, starts freakin' and peakin'
Realizing that he had failed to inform the troops, Black, in turn, panicked and blamed me for the bad news, stating that I was spreading a rumor. He sent his response out to *ALLUSR, meaning every person with a city e-mail address except council:

"I received this email upon my return to the office this afternoon and thought the information would be valuable to share with all employees. The John Patten that Stacy is referring to below is the same John patten who thought the city appreciation gift cards should be stopped. Mr. Patten is spreading a rumor."
-- City Manager Marty Black to all city employees, e-mail dated 02/28/07

Black then blamed Tallahassee for all of the city's pending financial woes and reiterated the possibility of layoffs, raising taxes, etc. But he couldn't let go of blaming me for the whole mess and for the panic that was caused by his own failure to communicate any of this with his own employees:

"I know that this is not a rosy picture, but it is far from what Mr. Patten may be spreading to meet his own agenda. We don't even have 50 employees at the water plant..., so that should have been a good indicator to utilities employees regarding the accuracy of Mr. Patten's perspective."
-- Black, ibid

He went on to accuse me of raping babies, causing AIDS, cancer, world hunger, and being a former roommate and gay lover of of Mohammed Atta.

It's always everyone else's fault, isn't it Marty? In this case, you're looking at political suicide and a huge financial fall, and it is all because of Governor Charlie Crist and me. OK, I'll take that company. Crist is a pretty good guy, even if I didn't vote for him.

But I am not taking the blame for panic caused by your failure to communicate with your own employees.

Curiously, Black spent all of his rather lengthy e-mail addressing the shortfall issue and tossing in my name here and there as the bad guy. He never addressed McKenzie's main question: why were the OMI bigwigs floating around the drinking water plant? With the resignation of his utilities director and Black's near near simultaneous use of the word layoffs in conjunction with budgetary shortfalls, the city manager raised more questions than he answered by ducking McKenzie's core question.

While I take issue with McKenzie incorrectly putting me up as the bad guy, she raises an issue that I didn't know about and that has my eyebrows arching: what the hell are those OMI bigwigs sizing up the drinking water plant for, especially at this very curious time?

Whatever the reason, Black was asked and he ducked. I'm sure that calmed everyone back down.

Say, here's a thought: Are you all on drugs?
I fired off two e-mails myself. The first was to Stacy McKenzie, with the subject line "Are you on drugs?"

From your -email:

"Apparently, John Patten made a visit to the water plant and he told an operator directly that you, as City manager, is [sic] looking to get rid of 50 employees from the Utilities Dept."

While I am tempted to respond to you as Dan Akroyd once did to Jane Curtin in the early days of Saturday Night Live, I will instead ask of both you and the city manager if random employee drug testing is still ongoing and if it is, [might] I suggest that doing a urine test on you might be sensible?

I made no such statement. I expect and demand a retraction from you.

In the future, if you wish to quote me, try doing it from a conversation where you were actually present. If you cannot, feel free to call me up and ask if I said something.

In any conversations that I have had about this matter, I have quoted the city manager where talked about a $5.7 million shortfall and discussed either raising taxes or cutting services. Black made reference to the annual fire budget ($5 million or so) and the police budget ($7 million or so).

Black himself has mentioned layoffs. Here is a quote from an e-mail that he wrote to me:

"Frankly, I am more concerned that we will face approximately $5 million dollars in cuts should the Governor's tax plan go into effect and I am not happy with the prospect to have had to begin to identify positions for
lay-off/elimination once the tax reform plan is adopted at the state level. For the sake of comparison, that level of funding equates to laying off the entire Fire Department. We will need to consider many drastic and rather draconian solutions from an employee perspective with the tax reform proposed in Tallahassee and because it also relies on a regressive tax that will disproportionately impact low and middle income wage earners, they will get hit twice as hard."

Please note that he at no time states where he is considering making those layoffs. Black made almost identical statements at the city council meeting on Tuesday, so there is little chance I could have misunderstood his content or intent.

If you are going to quote me, either quote me correctly or kindly -- how do I put this gently and succinctly and yet portray my actual feelings...

I have it.

In the future, please be so kind as to either quote me correctly or, if you cannot come to grips with responsible speech, kindly keep your pie hole shut.
-- e-mail from John Patten to Stacy McKenzie, 03/01/07

 

Uhhhhh, Marty, about those gift cards
The next e-mail went off to Black and city council, with the subject line "And now for you:"

From your e-mail:

"The same John Patten who thought the city appreciation cards should be stopped."

No, I think appreciation is great. I think using the appreciation to give payback to a political crony is wrong. I'm all in favor of Christmas bonuses to employees, I'm just wondering why a political donor got the biggest bonus out of the bunch.

"Mr. Patten is spreading a rumor."

Wrong again. I started and spread no such rumor and I do not care for such outright misrepresentation.

Since that council meeting, I have had numerous conversations with a lot of people about your comments. I stated what you stated, that council either has to look at increasing taxes or cutting back on services. You tossed out the number (if I recall) of possible layoffs of 35 to 50 people if the numbers don't play out right. You never stated what department and only a lunatic would suggest laying off 50 people from utilities. Such a lunatic as Stacy McKenzie, whose addled brain pulled her quote out of some hallucinatory fog.

In the same manner that you would request a retraction from me, I am asking that you retract the comment that I am spreading a rumor to *ALLUSR.

Moreover, why didn't you just pick up the phone and ask me what the hell is going on?
-- e-mail from John Patten to Marty Black, 03/01/07

Speaking of having an agenda...
It doesn't help that there has been no mention of this ultra-important end-of-civilization-as-we-know-it budget crunch in any of the newspapers to date {note: the Gondo finally published a story on Black's financial warnings, simultaneous to this story being published on Venice Florida! dot com]. Here it is, what, three days after Black made the announcement in an open council meeting. He made the statements at the tail end of that council meeting. After the press had left.

I was still there, but Paul Quinlan of the Herald-Trib and Rollie Reynolds of the Gondo had both left in order to turn in their stories to make their respective deadlines for the next morning's papers. So you can't really blame the newspapers for not reporting any of this -- the announcement was timed, deliberately or not, so that they wouldn't know about it.

If you watch the rebroadcast of the council meeting this Saturday on local cable, Black's statements will be almost at the tail end of the meeting -- interesting and curious timing for the most important piece of information that was revealed in that meeting.

Since I was the only person from the media to hear it, this clearly means I have my own agenda -- an accusation that hasn't been levied against me since the days of George Hunt where "having an agenda" became the catch phrase for any and all ne'er do wells that would lay siege to the city, pillaging and raping and demanding fiscal accountability.

Maybe Black has his own agenda.

Ya think?

John Patten is the editor and publisher of Venice Florida! dot com and had previously worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.