Email Oddities

Yesterday, I sent out an email discussing what NBV Reality is about. Within a few minutes, the same email was sent out from a Hotmail address adiosalfonso@hotmail.com edited with the last few paragraphs (including my name and link to this blog) removed.

I didn't send the second email, the one from Hotmail. Adiosalfonso@hotmail.com is not my email address. It seems to belong to the website WWW.ADIOSALFONSO.COM.

I don't mind my stuff being circulated, really by any means, but it should be attributed. This is all very strange.

Here's my original email. The from line reads "North Bay Village Reality Base" with an email address of "nbvrbc@gmail.com" and you can see that it is longer and contains contact information:

North Bay Village is facing the same crises that towns and cities nationwide are facing – falling revenue and increased demand for services. The issues are complex and controversial. How North Bay Village deals with these problems will affect our community for years to come.

The North Bay Village Reality Base is an ad hoc group of citizens concerned about the future of our city. We are diverse and represent a broad spectrum of opinions with a few unifying points of view.

But one view consistently held is that civility has died in North Bay Village politics. You see it in the paper, hear it on the streets and worst of all see it in the commission. Rudeness and shouting have replaced discussion and we believe this is self destructive. It's time for the stakeholders, the citizens, to show up and have our voices heard, calmly and clearly, over the cacophony of the police union, the complaints of people who don't live here, and the shouting of those who simply don't like the result of the 2008 election.

Tomorrow night, there is a critical commission meeting at 7:30 at Treasure Island Elementary. Come to it and urge your neighbors too as well.

One item planned to be discussed is the firing of the City Manager. (Item 12 A on the attached agenda). The story is short. The City Commission is prohibited by our charter (our local constitution) to interfere in the personnel decisions of the police department. Two commissioners disregarded this and gave specific instructions to the CM, which he would not agree to follow. Now they want to fire him.

You may not like the mayor, your commissioners or the city manager, but he's done nothing illegal. In fact, North Bay Village is one of the few cities in Miami-Dade still moving forward in our economic development and our CM has reduced our bond indebtedness by close to $11 million, taxes we don't have to pay. Please, get interested and show up. Remember elections are this November for Mayor and that's the time to decide on the administration.

On April 27, there is a special Community Forum to cover the issues of the revenue shortfall and discuss the needed cutbacks. It's at the Lexi at 6:30 PM on April 27. Come and learn and speak and influence. If our city goes broke, all our investments suffer.

As I mentioned, North Bay Village Reality is ad hoc, not a formal organization, just a group of citizens who want the discussions civil and the issues clear. I have a blog at http://www.nbvreality.com/ Feel free to peruse it – it's highly opinionated and is designed to lay out positions based on facts, not rumors.

But most of all, start getting involved. If we don't get the people who live here and care about the city in the mix, we're all in trouble. Cities can and do decline. The need is urgent.

If you can't go, write your commissioners – their email addresses are in the TO line and you just have hit reply all. Tell them to stop fighting and get back to work.


Kevin Vericker

Then a few minutes later, this email:

From: Adios Alfonso [mailto:adiosalfonso@hotmail.com]
Sent: Monday, April 12, 2010 6:50 PM
Subject: ADIOS MATTHEW SCHWARTZ AND OSCAR ALFONSO‏



North Bay Village is facing the same crises that towns and cities nationwide are facing – falling revenue and increased demand for services. The issues are complex and controversial. How North Bay Village deals with these problems will affect our community for years to come.

The North Bay Village Reality Base is an ad hoc group of citizens concerned about the future of our city. We are diverse and represent a broad spectrum of opinions with a few unifying points of view.

But one view consistently held is that civility has died in North Bay Village politics. You see it in the paper, hear it on the streets and worst of all see it in the commission. Rudeness and shouting have replaced discussion and we believe this is self destructive. It's time for the stakeholders, the citizens, to show up and have our voices heard, calmly and clearly, over the cacophony of the police union, the complaints of people who don't live here, and the shouting of those who simply don't like the result of the 2008 election.

Tomorrow night, there is a critical commission meeting at 7:30 at Treasure Island Elementary. Come to it and urge your neighbors too as well.

One item planned to be discussed is the firing of the City Manager. (Item 12 A on the attached agenda). The story is short. The City Commission is prohibited by our charter (our local constitution) to interfere in the personnel decisions of the police department. Two commissioners disregarded this and gave specific instructions to the CM, which he would not agree to follow. Now they want to fire him.

You may not like the mayor, your commissioners or the city manager, but he's done nothing illegal. In fact, North Bay Village is one of the few cities in Miami-Dade still moving forward in our economic development and our CM has reduced our bond indebtedness by close to $11 million, taxes we don't have to pay. Please, get interested and show up. Remember elections are this November for Mayor and that's the time to decide on the administration.




--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Couple of Things

Tara Solomon, Media Personality and the Queen of South Beach night life, works here in North Bay Village, when she's not out being all glamorous. She is getting married (finally!) and has entered in a contest called Ultimate Weddings and needs votes at the website. Here is the link Crate and Barrel Ultimate Wedding Contest.

New Comment Policy - At the beginning, I strongly discouraged anonymous comments. I don't like them and it's my blog. I have posted some, but deleted most. The comments I have received anonymously broadly fall into three categories:

1.) Personal attacks on me or people perceived to be my friends. I imagine the commenter feels like she got off a good one but I would remind "anonymous on north bay island" that faggot has two "g's", unless it was your intention to call me a woodwind instrument in Italian. Seriously, it's not on. Often, these commenters pose as cops but since they have the same poor spelling consistent with some of our noisier "activists", I don't believe that.

2.) Elaborate conspiracy theories. I got one yesterday that creates a whole narrative about the FOP, the City Manager, the Mayor, the Code process and offers not one fact or shred of proof. If it wasn't anonymous, I would have published it but it is and so it gets deleted.

3.) People who love the blog. Well, I would actually like to publish those but it doesn't seem fair.

So let's review, to get your comment accepted, it must at a minimum have your Google Account, or your name (full name). If your comment is merely malicious or if you are attempting to prove something but provide no backup, it will be deleted anyway.

For special circumstances: if you have something you want to share, and you don't want your name published, the email is NBVRBC@GMAIL.COM. I won't promise that I will publish it but I do promise not to share your name and contact, unless you are reporting a crime etc.

Finally, someone has been cutting and pasting my posts to LEOAFFAIRS.COM. I don't mind my stuff being republished but proper Internet etiquette is to include the link to the original. I won't engage at LEOAFFAIRS as I don't like the way the discussions go, lot of nasty stuff, but I will continue to monitor it and will report copied posts that don't contain the blog address.

Kevin Vericker

Last Night's Meeting

This is going to be a short post for personal reasons. Well, a good one, I'm in Key West for two days.

Short version:

The Commission did not fire the City Manager. This was the right move on their part.

The Commission took the first steps towards creating a Citizen's Advisory Board on Police Matters modeled after the Budget group. This is a good thing in my view. Much more has to be done quickly and probably that will be my next post.

Fane Lozman hit a new low at the meeting when he went after someone who had not even spoken by bringing up a not very scandalous rumor from 30 years ago supposedly confided to Fane by a late commissioner. It was, well, sad in a way.

The FOP threatened the city again. I hate that. Look, if you're going to be the union of choice, quit acting like thugs. Remember and respect your uniform.

There's a lot more to say, and you know I will but for today, I am glad the city is on the right course.

Special note on some comments. I have received a series (three in all today) of new comments. As you know, I am holding back comments for review. These comments express a very different point of view from mine, and I really wish they weren't anonymous, but I am posting them. They are under yesterday's post and I will want to discuss them further. In the meantime, check them out. They are worth reading.

Kevin Vericker

Reminder on Comments

Personal attacks with be deleted. Anonymous comments may be deleted.

You want to know why? I will tell you why. Look at this I got today.

"Funny that the posts about the $100,000 per year Chief’s secretary keep getting deleted but she should be out first. Then get rid of a few Detectives. Really? 7 getting and extra 5%" by Anonymous.

I rejected it.

I want readers to comment but remember:

1.) We are the reality based community so it matters that we have facts, you know things that other people can see too.

The first fact free sentence implies that I have been rejecting posts about someone.

This is not a fact as I have never received any posts or deleted any comments before this.

2.) Then Anonymous says "she should be out first." Snap. Fail. Personal attack. No facts, no reasoning, just a focused insult. Not happening.

3.) Finally, I freakin' love this "Really? 7 getting and extra 5%". Did you fall asleep at the keyboard? Were those alien signals penetrating the tin foil?

So this is the only time I will post about the comments rejected. Remember, to be accepted - no personal attacks, you can be anonymous if you choose to but I do not encourage it. And if you can't create a full sentence, I don't really think I should have to work that hard to figure you out.

Kevin Vericker