Showing posts with label Public records. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Public records. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

FEINSTEINS WIN U.S.P.S. SALES. Conflict of Interest In Capital Hill Costing Us All?

Dianne Feinstein, member of the United States ...
Dianne Feinstein, member of the United States Senate. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The US has entered into a contract with a real estate firm to sell 56 buildings that currently house U.S. Post Offices.

The government has decided it no longer needs these buildings, most of which are located on prime land in towns and cities across the country.

The sale of these properties will fetch about $19 billion!

A regular real estate commission will be paid to the company that was given the exclusive listing for handling the sales. That company is CRI and it belongs to a man named Richard Blum.

Richard Blum is the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein!

(Most voters and many of the government people who approved the deal have not made the connection between the two because they have different last names).

Senator Feinstein and her husband stand to make a fortune, estimated at between $950 million and $1.1 billion!! from these transactions.

His company is the sole real estate agent on the sale!

CRI will be making a minimum of 2% and as much as 6% commission on each and every sale. All of the properties that are being sold are all fully paid for. They were purchased with U.S. taxpayers dollars.

The U.S.P.S. is allowed free and clear, tax exempt use. The only cost to keep them open is the cost to actually keep the doors open and the heat and lights on. The United States Postal Service doesn't even have to pay county property taxes on these subject properties. QUESTION? Would you put your house in foreclosure just because you couldn't afford to pay the electric bill?

Well, the folks in Washington have given the Post Office the OK to do it! Worse yet, most of the net proceeds of the sales will go back to the U.S.P.S, an organization that is so poorly managed that they have lost $117 billion dollars in the past 10 years!

No one in the mainstream media is even raising an eyebrow over the conflict of interest and on the possibility of corruption on the sale of billions of dollars worth of public assets.

How does a U.S. Senator from San Francisco manage to get away with organizing and lobbying such a sweet deal? Has our government become so elitist that they have no fear of oversight?

It's no mere coincidence that these two public service crooks have different last names; a feeble attempt at avoiding transparency in these type of transactions.



(Destroying America as fast as possibly can be done.  Enemies of "We The People"!)

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust Assets Located

Digging through public records we have the information regarding the real estate listed on the 2011 tax forms of the Main Street Gloucester Preservation Trust also known as the Gloucester Main Street Preservation Trust.  The following is what we have dug up from public records.

  This is the majority of the property we believe to be under the Trust.  So what we see is that the Trust receives payments from Gloucester County under a lease agreement for space used by the public library.  Your tax dollars funding a part of the secret shadow government infiltrating Gloucester county government.  Gloucester County pays out about 20 thousand dollars a month for leased space in both locations in the county as found on the county's own yearly budget information.  The Main Street location being much larger of the two, we are sure that the majority of the lease payments under the 20 thousand goes to the GMSPT, a non profit, Trust,  fraternity according to their own records.


The library shopping center on Main Street
                                                                                           
Map#          Last Name        First Name     RPC    Land Value   Improvements   Value
32A2(9)-1A GREGORY YVONNE          33565  $500.00            $0.00         $104,500.00
32A2(9)-2A GREGORY YVONNE          41228 $1,023,200    $255,100       $1,278,300
32A2(9)-2A THE MAIN ST. TRUST        41227      00             $1,201,500    $1,201,500
32A2(9)-3A GREGORY YVONNE          41229 $10,600          $0.00             $10,600

Map              Last Name        First Name     RPC    Land Value   Improvements   Value
32A2(9)-2A GREGORY YVONNE            41228 $1,023,200    $255,100       $1,278,300
32A2(9)-2A THE MAIN ST. TRUST          41227     00             $1,201,500    $1,201,500
32A2(9)-3A GREGORY YVONNE            41229  $10,600          $0.00             $10,600
32A2(1)BK A-3A THE MAIN ST. TRUST 42949  $58,500          $0.00              $58,500
32A2(1)BK A-3G THE MAIN ST TRUST 13876   $760,600      $2,459,000      $3,219,600
32A2(1)BK A-3J THE MAIN ST TRUST   42950    $22,000         $0.00            $22,000
32A2(12)-1 THE MAIN STREET TRUST  35133   $1,800            $0.00              $1,800
 -Map 32A2(9)-2A is the parking lot area of the library, health dept., etc.
-Map 32A2(1)BK A-3A is a corner lot located in proximity to the grass area between Main Street and the library
-Map 32A2(1)BK A-3G is the property the buildings sits on. The property is much larger than the building.
-Map 32A2(1)BK A-3J is a property behind the meeting place building
-Map 32A2(12)-1 is a very narrow property between Map 32A2(1)BK A-3A and Main Street.

The above numbers would seem to agree with yesterday's posting information and tax returns information.  The link on yesterday's post shows 2012 figures but no tax returns.  The above figures are right in line with 2012's information.

  So the income for the trust, from what we can gather, comes in the form of lease payments from the ownership of the property known as the Gloucester Main Street Shopping Center.  This is the same property that they depreciated over 1.7 million dollars on for 2011 as seen in their tax form filing.  How they did that we have no idea.  How they get away with not following what other business owners must now follow thanks to the GMSPT involvement with the county is also highly questionable.  How is it that they have not been forced to tear up their parking lot to put in flower beds?  

  Also, according to the 2011 tax form from the Main Street Gloucester Preservation Trust, they did not pay out any grant money to any businesses.  So where did the money come from that the local paper keeps reporting that the GMSPT has awarded?  State or Federal funds that the GMSPT brokered on behalf of those local businesses and take credit for?  We don't know and there is no way to tell.  The 2011 tax form left it blank where the GMSPT or the MSGPT is supposed to show grants held and then paid out.

  Does anyone find this suspicious?  And we want these people promoting Gloucester why?  Are they pocketing fees for brokering services and farming those jobs to themselves through their own businesses not shown to be in connection with them?  Legal fees to Ingles law firm maybe?  Again, we do not know.  We can only ask the questions based on what we see.  According to the GMSPT website, they seem to be brokering commercial real estate.  We have no problem with them brokering real estate unless of course they are collecting extra fees and sending business to certain buddies of the GMSPT and they are the only ones who can handle the business.  Even then it may be okay as long as they are not purposely playing interested parties and milking extra fees from them.  But again, there is where questions come into play.  Are certain people using the GMSPT as a front for other activities?  As a non profit Trust fraternity that has no other source of income other than real estate lease payments, it looks very strange at best.

  And why does a Gloucester County Board of Supervisor need to sit on the Board of this organization?  Again, based on what we see, there is no real reason for that.  And we must continue to ask, why is this Trust Fraternity so interested in making plans that affect taxpayers and businesses within the county?  They are not a charitable corporation like others in other areas are.  So again, this makes no sense.  You have to ask a lot of questions based on the public information of this and it's sister organizations, The Gloucester Main Street Association, supported in part by the GMSPT, and the Cook Foundation.  The folks who brought us the Beehives that polluted the county landscape then the landfills.

  Anyone know how that Beehive deal worked?  We found out.  Here was the deal as it was explained to us.  You had to buy the Beehive and decorate it yourself  at your expense.  You then had to give it back to the Cook Foundation once it was decorated.  If you wanted it back, you had to pay for it again.  No joke.  They pulled that off and had those Beehives everywhere for a year.  But hey, it was for charity.  Who's benefit is the question however.  You can still buy the Beehive posters at the county Welcome Center located in the historic Courthouse Circle, if you are so inclined though.  A reminder of those fun times and the landfill deposits.  


This is an inverted image of one of those Beehives mentioned above.  They were about 4 feet tall if memory serves correctly.  There were hundreds of them around the county and now there are hundreds of them in the local landfill still waiting to decay.  How green was that move?   
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Gloucester, VA School Officials Respond To Use Of Private Email Accounts

We have several responses from Gloucester County, Virginia School  officials about using private email accounts along with their county supplied email accounts.  We also have the input from Twitching Ted, (I'm not an attorney) Wilmot, Gloucester County attorney, (Court Jester, Yeah we can do that even if the law says no).

  From, "georgeburak@cox.net"

I do use an account that I have at my home so I do not have to check multiple accounts and possibly miss someone’s concern. The email account is always subject to FOIA and I am aware of that and will always abide by the rule. Also it is advertised and an account and address that I can be reached and there is nothing being hidden.
Thank you


Randy Burak"

Wait, he uses a personal email account so he does not miss someone's concern?  He has a county supplied email account but does not want to have to check multiple accounts?  Is he telling us that he just ignore's the county supplied email account?  If you try and contact him using that account it will never get answered because he can't be bothered with it?  Or is he telling us a bed time fantasy story hoping we do not question it?  And remember, there is nothing being hidden because he told you so.  Okay there George.  Didn't Bill Clinton tell us he did not have sex with that woman?  What did we learn later?  He had sex with that woman?  


Thank you for your e-mail.

There is nothing in the advisory opinion above that requires a particular type of e-mail account be used in order to comply withFOIA. The opinion defines e-mail as  a medium for correspondence -- essentially, e-mail is the "envelope" for the communication.

E-mails concerning public business are subject to FOIA requests as public records regardless of whether the account is one supplied by a governmental entity or not. This has always been the case and continues to be so. 

The fact that a communication is sent via e-mail is not alone conclusive of whether that e-mail must be accessible to the public under FOIA or retained pursuant to the PRA; one must look at the text and substance of the communication to determine whether it is indeed a public record. … an e-mail relating to public business would be accessible just like any other public record,

Personal e-mails are not subject to FOIA because by their nature they have nothing to do with public business.   OUR NOTE (  Did she really just talk from both sides?  Then why use them in the manner you are?)

The opinion above does state that Public officials and employees should not commingle personal and official e-mails.Private e-mails do not need to be retained; e-mails relating to the transaction of public business do. From an e-mail management perspective, it is probably not a good idea to mix personal and official business in the same e-mail. 

However, this means that in a single e-mail message you should not combine personal information with public business. It is silent as to types of e-mail accounts. 
I do not believe that the use of a gmail account or any other type of account is a violation of FOIA or any other law.

Thank you for your concern.

Sincerely, 

Kim Hensley
SB Representative, Ware District"

Before we comment let's look at what Twitch sent.

"I assume that the Gloucester County School Board functions within the letter of FOIA. To my knowledge, that is the case. I’m not quite sure what you mean by the “spirit” of the law/FOIA, though I’ve heard that phrase before. I do not know the answer to your question whether “the private email accounts used by school officials and employees [were] included in the search parameters for relevant response information,”, as I do not have the records, did not create them, and did not provide records to you. You may want to check with school officials. Also, just an FYI, I do not favor correspondence via email, perhaps in part for the very concern you mention. So if you would like to correspond with me in the future, you are welcome to do so via U.S. mail. Or, if necessary or appropriate, I would be willing to meet with you in my office. Thank you.

Ted Wilmot "  (If you meet with him, bring a voice recorder).

Now let's see if we can idiot proof exactly what we are talking about so that even those that sit in the Ivory Towers may understand the issues.

If you are assigned a county email account, all county business as it relates to your job should be used and one should not have a second email address being used to also conduct government business.  If you do not wish to have a county supplied email address, you need to opt out and then ask that your own private email address be used and it should be attached to the county server so that should the county Administrator need access to it for any reason, the Administrator would have legal access.  

  The use of both a county email address and a private email address has the appearance of corruption.  If the appearance is there, then you can usually rest assured that the corruption is equally there.  

  To cover this matter in more detail, Keith Hodges uses a gmail email account to conduct state business in place of a state assigned email address.  This is acceptable as he is not hiding anything by using multiple email addresses.  He is straight up front with the use of a private email address in place of a state assigned email address.  There is no appearance of corruption.  

  Using both a county assigned email address and private and in some cases multiple private email addresses in conducting county business is seen as hiding something and we are willing to bet that some of these officials who are using multiple email addresses along with a county assigned email address are up to no good.  This is why you do not do this.  

  The majority of the email addresses that are supposed to be private but have been found being used to conduct government business are the one's we keep publishing as they have county assigned email addresses.  So it is clear that information is probably being hidden from the public as well as other county officials who might have legal reasons to access those accounts.

  The reason there is no law against government officials being able to use private email addresses comes into play like stated above in Keith Hodge's example.  You can opt out of the government assigned email address system, but still need it open and accessible when those above you deem legal need to access such.  Do not mingle both personal email with business email.  If you do, then your personal email should become public record the same as business email by default because you choose to intermingle the two.  Either use your county assigned email address or opt out.  Do not use multiple email addresses.  Is that simple enough?




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Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Government Officials And Employees Use of Personal Emails Updated

To Whom It May Concern:
 
The Virginia Freedom of Information Act, the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council, (A state agency with the expertise to help resolve disputes over Freedom of Information issues) the Virginia Public Records Act (PRA) and the Code of Virginia do not allow, support or condone the use of private email accounts to conduct government business.  The following is the Virginia Freedom of Information Advisory Council’s opinion on email communications.  This opinion is basically the Commonwealth’s adopted legal opinion on the use, access and retention of email communications as pertains to government use. 
 
 E-MAIL:
USE, ACCESS & RETENTION
The use of e-mail in the business place has become routine and is a preferred mode of communication. For state and local government officials and employees, the application of the Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) relating to access to records and the Virginia Public Records Act (the PRA) relating to the retention of records comes into play.
 
Government officials and employees frequently ask two key questions about the use of e-mail --"Can the public and media access my e-mail under FOIA?" and "Do I have to save my e-mail?"
 
This document will attempt to answer these questions and provide guidance about the use and management of e-mail by state and local government.
 
The nature of e-mail
E-mail generally refers to any communication that requires an electronic device for storage and/or transmission.1 E-mail is a medium for correspondence -- essentially, e-mail is the "envelope" for the communication. For purposes of FOIA & the PRA, e-mail provides a medium for communication, much like a telephone or the U.S. Mail provides a means of communication. The fact that a communication is sent via e-mail is not alone conclusive of whether that e-mail must be accessible to the public under FOIA or retained pursuant to the PRA; one must look at the text and substance of the communication to determine whether it is indeed a public record.
 
The Virginia Freedom of Information Act
FOIA addresses access to public records. Section 2.2-3701 of the Code of Virginia defines public records for purposes of FOIA to include "all writings and recordings that consist of letters, words or numbers, or their equivalent, set down by handwriting, typewriting, printing, photostatting, photography, magnetic impulse, optical or magneto-optical form, mechanical or electronic recording or other form of data compilation, however stored, regardless of physical form or characteristics, prepared or owned by, or in the possession of a public body or its officers, employees or agents in the transaction of public business."
 
Clearly an e-mail would fall under this broad definition of a public record, because it applies to all writings and recordings…set down by…mechanical or electronic recording…however stored, regardless of physical form or characteristics. As noted above, e-mail is just the medium, or the envelope, used to convey the communication. Just as a letter sent via U.S. Mail from one public official to another concerning public business would be a public record under FOIA, so would that same communication sent via e-mail.
 
FOIA requires that unless subject to a statutory exemption, all public records must be open to inspection and copying. Therefore, an e-mail relating to public business would be accessible just like any other public record, and may be withheld from public disclosure only if a particular exemption applies to the content of the e-mail.
 
The Virginia Public Records Act
While FOIA governs access to records held by state and local government, the PRA governs how long a government entity must retain certain records. The PRA defines "public record" for purposes of records retention, and like FOIA, the definition is fairly broad and would include e-mail as a public record. Section 42.1-77 defines a public record to include recorded information that documents a transaction or activity by or with any public officer, agency or employee of the state government or its political subdivisions. Regardless of physical form or characteristic, the recorded information is a public record if it is produced, collected, received or retained in pursuance of law or in connection with the transaction of public business.
 
The PRA sets forth different retention schedules for different types of records. Several factors shape how long a record needs to be held. Many records are only kept for so long as business requires them to be kept, although if a record has historical significance or is created by an agency head or director, it may need to be kept longer. For example, certain records are required to be maintained permanently, such as records from standing committees of the General Assembly, annual reports of state agencies, and correspondence of agency directors. Other records need only be kept so long as they are administratively necessary, such as reminders of events like blood drives or fund raisers, courtesy copies of correspondence, or messages received from a listserv. Along the continuum, other records may be required to be retained for 30 days to ten years, depending on their content. After the retention time has expired for a particular document, then that record may be destroyed pursuant to the guidelines set forth by the Library of Virginia.2

2 PRA is administered by the Library of Virginia. For more details on retention schedules for particular types of records or for a particular agency, or for information regarding the proper disposal of records, please contact the Library of Virginia. Records retention information and contact information is also available on the Library's website at http://www.lva.lib.va.us/whatwedo/records/index.htm.
 
In providing guidance for adhering to the PRA, the Library of Virginia notes that e-mail should be treated the same as paper correspondence. Again, e-mail is only the medium, or the envelope, by which the correspondence is sent; the retention schedule for a particular e-mail will depend on its content and should be preserved the same as its paper equivalent. Both incoming and outgoing e-mail should be retained, along with any attachments sent via e-mail.
 
Tips for using and managing e-mail
All e-mails related to public business are subject to the provisions of FOIA and the PRA, and should be managed in the same manner as all other public records.
 
There is a tendency with e-mail to hit the delete button as soon as you are finished with a particular message. However, consideration must be given to whether that particular e-mail must be retained for purposes of the PRA -- you can't automatically delete your e-mail, just as you can't automatically throw away paper correspondence and records.
 
FOIA governs access to records. The PRA dictates how long you are required to keep certain records. If a government entity keeps an e-mail (or any other record) for longer than its retention schedule requires, that e-mail will still be subject to FOIA if requested. Conversely, if a government entity properly disposes of a record pursuant to a retention schedule, and a subsequent FOIA request is made for that record, FOIA does not require the government entity to recreate the record.
 
E-mail is often used as a substitute for a telephone call, and is quite informal. However, e-mail creates a record of that communication that must be retained pursuant to the PRA and will be available upon request to the public under FOIA. Consider the consequence of choice to use e-mail instead of the telephone -- it may not be in your best interest to be as informal on e-mail as you are on the telephone.
 
The Library of Virginia discourages the practice of maintaining permanent records solely in electronic format, without a paper or microfilm backup.3 For records that do not need to be maintained permanently, these e-mails can be printed out and stored in a traditional, paper file (and the electronic copy can be deleted) or electronic folders can be created on the computer to organize e-mails based on functions, subjects or activities. The Library of Virginia suggests that these folders are assigned to your home directory on the computer, and not on the network. By way of example, at the FOIA Council we print a copy of all of the FOIA questions that we receive via e-mail, along with our corresponding response, and file the paper copy in a chronological file. After we have printed a copy to retain for our records, we delete the e-mail off of the computer.
 
Public officials and employees should not commingle personal and official e-mails. Private e-mails do not need to be retained; e-mails relating to the transaction of public business do. From an e-mail management perspective, it is probably not a good idea to mix personal and official business in the same e-mail. Official e-mails that need to be retained should be maintained with other public records that relate to the same content.
________________________________________________________________________
 
As is clearly evident; the Commonwealth of Virginia does have established guidance pertaining to the use of private email to conduct government business by elected officials and government employees. 
 
A look at email addresses for Gloucester County Supervisors on the Gloucester County website will reveal each Supervisor having there own county government email address.  A look at the Gloucester County Public Schools website will reveal six of the seven Gloucester County School Board members list private email addresses.  FOIA obtained Gloucester County Public Schools email conversations contain email conversations that either originated from, were sent to, forwarded to or carbon copied to private email addresses belonging to Gloucester County School Board members and school administration personnel.
 
The following are private email addresses of officials and employees within the Gloucester Public School System that have been identified thus far as using non-Gloucester County government email accounts to conduct government business or to send government business to.

Betty Jane Duncan…BJDuncan12@cox.net
Ben Kiser…Kiserben@gmail.com  AND
Ben Kiser… hkiser1@cox.net
Diane Gamache…dgamache2@cox.net
Charles Records…crecords@zandler-dev.com
Ann Burruss…Aburruss2@cox.net
Carla Hook…hookc@cox.net
Kevin Smith…kevinsmith914@gmail.com   AND  
Kevin Smith…rev.kev2@verizon.net
Kimberly Hensley… kimberlyehensley@gmail.com
Randy Burack…georgeburak@cox.net 
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