Former utility director Faried fired again... for

• ”Management style” in dealing with his employees. Long [Bartow city manager]declined to be more specific, beyond saying that he had held two lengthy meetings with Faried to discuss the way he dealt with employees.

• The degree to which Faried was complying with a requirement that he live in Polk County. Faried had an apartment in Winter Haven, but his wife continued to live in their home in Alva, near Fort Myers.

http://www.polkcountydemocrat.com/articles/2009/06/27/news/local/doc4a4561e880b16324754294.txt

In 2006, LWM was right about utility director George Adair who consistently misinformed the commission about our electric system and ran up millions in waste. LWM also exposed Adair’s friend and fake engineer, Robert Srednicki and his 26 kv voltage upgrade which would have bankrupted the city. And LWM was right about utility director Samy Faried who also consistently misinformed the commission and mistreated good employees. But thanks in part to LWM, Samy didn’t even make it one year working for the city of Bartow despite taking a $60,000 a year reduction in salary from what he was getting at Lake Worth. Samy was fired from Lake Worth in May of 2008 for exactly the same reasons Bartow fired him last week after working for only 9 months. It took Lake Worth about a year to recognize that Samy had to go.

Blogster wrong... again

“This gives you a clue what would happen when a contractor attempts to rehabilitate the building. What it comes down to is what will we have when we're finished renovating this building at a much greater cost, due to the greater amount of unknowns, than we would have for spending less money building a new building that met all the current construction standards and would be more aesthetically appealing? If money were no object, which it most definitely is, I would say renovate - and probably in the same design that is there now. I just don't think that is a realistic option - especially in the eye of the public looking down at a ballot request for a General Obligation bond to fund the improvements.”

This is just more stupidness on a level that defies imagination. How dumb does it get when you’re shown the tests, facts and figures and yet you persist in claiming something totally false and misleading to the public? It’s like Hitler saying the bigger “the big lie” the more likely people will believe it. Mr Blackman knows what he is saying is twisting the truth.

Local blogster supports corruption

From an EDITORIAL: Keep the city above water
PB Post article.

"One of the lessons we need to learn from our water debacle is the need to work cooperatively with other municipalities and the County. Once your reputation is tarnished by going back on agreements or by mismanaging your established relationships and responsibilities, it's difficult to build that back. And, once those relationships start going south is when you usually need to rely on them more and more. So the city's strategic position gets worse and worse; we end up begging for scraps or forgiveness, hat in hand."
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This miserable whining is not about reality... it's all about politics and a desperate attempt to avoid accountability for leading the city into a rotten 40 year water deal with the county. The county (water department) was preying on Lake Worth with the full cooperation of a corrupt staff and commission majority led by mayor Clemens and former commissioner Vespo. The idea was to screw taxpayers out of a 15 million dollar investment and absorb Lake Worth water into the county regional system… and all for the county’s benefit. And I agree, Lake Worth now has a "reputation" for “…sticking up for itself” instead of letting the Goliath of corruption run all over Lake Worth taxpayers as did the previous commission majority and this blogster who is their friend.

Commissioners and city manager Stanton...

Here’s what we know about the water issue

1. For years prior to the sacking of the RO project in 2007, the county water department (in particular Brian Shields) had been closely watching and staying well informed on the progress of Lake Worth’s RO project. As the record shows, Mr Shields was even copied on routine details such as permitting.

2. Every single contract version offered to Lake Worth by the county water department from September 2007 to the present …contained a statement to the effect that the county was interested in buying out our half finished RO system.

3. In fact, the county was so eager to gain control of our RO water system, that one contract version submitted to the city offered $100,000 dollars for the right of first refusal on our RO system. And they had raised the cost of piping for Lake Worth by a hundred thousand to cover that offer.

4. At no time did the county, LW city staff, or Mock Roos ever make it known that the city would spend $14,000,000 just in piping costs, tanks, and booster stations to get county water.

5. At no time did the county, LW city staff, or Mock Roos ever make it known that much cheaper ways of getting 2mgd from the county was available that could save the city at least 10 million dollars on piping and infrastructure costs.

6. At no time did the county, LW city staff, or Mock Roos reveal that they hadn’t considered critical cost factors such as the potential loss of a 14 million dollar taxpayer investment which most certainly would have ended up in county hands for pennies on the dollar.

Where the 1.5 million budget shortfall went

Let’s say you applied two years ago for a permit to build a 1.5 million dollar taxpayer project; but for the past two years, DEP (Florida Department of Environmental Protection) refused to grant approval. Would you begin construction of the project anyway without the necessary environmental permit?

It’s pretty safe to say there's no way responsible men with a tenth of their brain cells intact could have just somehow (and coincidentally) overlooked something so obvious as THE critical permit… especially since... as the documentation shows, they had been tracking the application for the permit for two years before they decided to build anyway.

Punish the innocent and reward the guilty - city management's mixed message

Power grab costs taxpayers ...part II

Part II of this series begins with the question of how corruption punishes the innocent and rewards the guilty. A failure in due diligence at the top trickles down to the front line employees creating a culture of fear and distrust in management as well as promoting the continuation of dysfunctional government.

In March of 2008 in an article called “Dumber by the Day,” LWM highlighted the glaring problems with the human relations department in the city. The sordid corruption of fair and equitable treatment of employees results in events such as the forced resignation of Mr Reyes by utility director Mattey which was based solely on unproven accusations and the subjective interpretation of facts by Ms Mattey.

Power grab at taxpayer's expense...

The price of maintaining integrity – from the archives

It’s no exaggeration that the recent gag order placed on director of engineering, Mr Reyes as a requirement for getting his job back… literally prevents him from going home and talking about work with his own wife! So how does the system operate when the city manager openly frowns on gag orders while addressing employee groups… yet consents to imposing the most severe gag order yet seen on Mr Reyes? That will be the subject of a three part series of which this is part one.

This is what happens to those who tell the truth

keep in mind, directly below is only the utility director's version of the story... under the terms of the gag order Mr Reyes can't even speak to his own wife about it much less defend himself against the accusations, that is why LWM is calling for a public hearing so the public can learn how things are done at our utility and why it continues to waste so much taxpayer money

This is absolutely as rotten as it gets and shows what happens when a good employee tries to save the city money. The "agreed upon specifics?" How can any employee not agree with the utility director's view of specifics? If they don't, they may get fired.

Uncorrected security breach at LWU threatens Florida bulk power system

Dave Mulvay (power plant manager) and Rebecca Mattey (LW utilities director)

Is the security on critical infrastructure computers up to national standards at Lake Worth Power? Is the Florida public protected?

Ever since 911, federal regulators have been busy trying to secure the nation’s power grid against cyber attack… the unauthorized access to sensitive computer control data that affects the power grid throughout the nation. It has become a serious public safety issue for homeland security.

Last July, NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corp) put into effect eight new security requirements to further tighten security for computer based control of power systems (often called Cyber Assets). These new security regulations are designed to protect the people and the bulk power system from sabotage and other acts that could adversely affect citizens.

So a reasonable person would assume that if the Lake Worth utility Master SCADA (System Control And Data Acquisition) computer encountered a security breach …that an immediate all out investigation would be conducted to determine how an unknown assailant gained access to the most critical data that Lake Worth possesses... data that could have catastrophic consequences for the Florida power grid according to industry experts.

Utility director Mattey misleads commission

It is now known that utility director Rebecca Mattey didn't even bother to call WPB water before making false claims and statements about WPB water to LW commissioners. These statements and claims were directed at forcing the city back into the most expensive water option... the county water deal. But now LWM has learned that Mattey's written justification for eliminating WPB water as a supplemental water option was completely false and misleading.

This time the blame belongs squarely on the utility director Rebecca Mattey... but also on Walter Smyser, the director of the water department... for misleading the commission into believing that WPB water could not be used to satisfy an emergency water requirement that suddenly popped up (according to Ms Mattey). LWM will be reporting on just how this came about and who was responsible for not notifying the commission sooner.

On last weeks agenda Ms Mattey falsly claimed that there wouldn't be enough time to build a booster pump station which would be required because the pressures between LW and WPB systems weren't compatible.