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Today the Connecticut State Police released the redacted investigative reports about the Newtown (Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting Reports) homicide investigations. Here is a link to the documents released today.
To get answers to specific questions, readers are urged to search the reports and draw your own conclusions rather than place any reliance on the news media summaries of those reports.
In our OpenCdA post titled Highly Recommended on October 14, 2013, we referred to a book entitled Detecting Bull, Second Edition, by Dr. John McManus. It was published in 2012 and was intended to be a classroom textbook for senior high school and college students to help them “…think critically and systematically about news and purportedly factual information in any medium from face-to-face to Facebook to Fox, from the Huffington Post to the Washington Post.”
At the same time Dr. McManus was writing “Detecting Bull”, he was also writing a more consumer-friendly version entitled Don’t Be Fooled! A Citizen’s Guide to News and Information in the Digital Age.
“Don’t Be Fooled!” contains all the concepts and basic information found in “Detecting Bull” and is now available through our local Community Library Network.
Studying either “Detecting Bull” or “Don’t Be Fooled!” will help you better understand the deficiencies in the local and regional skewsmedia’s reporting of our local news.
In 2002 authors Joanna Cagan and Neil De Mause wrote a modest paperback book titled Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit. The same authors revised and republished the book in 2008 with the title Field of Schemes: How the Great Stadium Swindle Turns Public Money into Private Profit, Revised and Expanded Edition.
A related book titled They Play, You Pay: Why Taxpayers Build Ballparks, Stadiums, and Arenas for Billionaire Owners and Millionaire Players was written and published in 2012 by author James T. Bennett.
Both books discuss the premise that, “… despite evidence that publicly funded ballparks, stadiums, and arenas do not generate net economic growth, governments keep on taxing sales, restaurant patrons, renters of automobiles, and hotel visitors in order to build ever more elaborate cathedrals of professional sport.”
Okay, but what does that have to do with Coeur d’Alene, Idaho? Small towns don’t get caught of in these fields of schemes, do they? Well, apparently they can.
Here is an online newspaper story by Bloomberg News in suburban Chicago’s Daily Herald. The article is headlined FBI probe shows risks of local stadium boom. The article offers a good analysis of how usually well-intended, small-town politicians and wanna-be financial moguls who cheer lead for these projects get hooked with the apparently false promise of big money returns.
The most on-point quote in the Bloomberg story came from Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., who studies stadium financing. Zimbalist was quoted as saying:
“If taxpayers are supporting a stadium because they believe it’ll help their city socially and culturally, then fine. If they’re doing it because they’ve been sold a bill of goods that it’ll be a boost to the economy, then no, it’s not a good expenditure of funds.”
OpenCdA vividly recalls the proposed “Field of Dreams” planned for Cherry Hill Park here in Coeur d’Alene. Fortunately, that failed to get much past the “of Dreams” stage.
We also hope that the cheerleaders for the North Idaho College Event Center being considered at Riverstone pay close attention to the Bloomberg News story and learn from it.
On Thursday night, December 19th, the Kootenai County Republican Central Committee (KCRCC) will meet to prepare a list of three nominees for interim County Clerk to serve out the unexpired term of former County Clerk Cliff Hayes. The list will be submitted to the Kootenai County Board of Commissioners who will meet Friday at 3:30 p.m. and from that list select an interim County Clerk.
OpenCdA has some thoughts on continuity of operations in the Kootenai County Clerk’s Office. The nomination and selection is not about picking the next Kootenai County Clerk. That will be done at the election in November 2014. It is entirely and exclusively about continuity of operations in Kootenai County government. The job has got to get done.
The duties and responsibilities of the County Clerk are described in Chapter 3 – County Clerk/Auditor/Recorder of the County Elected Officials’ Handbook published by the Idaho Association of Counties. Those wishing to be considered as nominees as well as KCRCC members and Commissioners owe it to the County’s residents to thoroughly understand them.
Prospective nominees must understand that whichever one is appointed by the Commissioners, he or she will be expected to walk into the Clerk’s office on Monday morning, December 23rd, and continue the operations essential to the Clerk’s role in County government. There is no learning curve. The job has got to get done.
In a December 12 press release, André Birotte Jr., the US Attorney for the Central District of California, announced that former Bell, California, Chief Administrative Officer Robert A. Rizzo has agreed to plead guilty to two felony charges: conspiracy and filing a false federal income tax return with the Internal Revenue Service. In the plea agreement, Rizzo admitted that he created a corporation to fraudulently claim losses on his income tax return, which served to illegally reduce his tax liability on the significant income he was receiving from the City of Bell.
According to the press release, Rizzo and co-conspirators (including his tax preparer Robert J. Melcher) formed an S Corporation to claim bogus losses in relation to a purported rental property in Auburn, Washington. He also used an S-Corp account to pay for more than $80,000 in personal expenses in 2009 and $120,000 in construction work on his residence in Huntington Beach in 2010, then falsely claim that these expenses were related to rental property.
As the last sentence in the press release states, the federal investigation is not over. According to reporter Jeff Gottlieb’s article in the Los Angeles Times, Rizzo’s charging documents refer to “A.S.” and her company, Sheffield Management Corp. That is almost certainly a reference to Angela Spaccia, whose married name was “Sheffield” when she was in Coeur d’Alene and Kootenai County, Idaho, working for the YWCA and serving for two years as Kootenai County’s Finance Director. OpenCdA hopes the federal investigation will reveal who the tax preparer, accountant, or attorney was who helped Angela set up Sheffield Management Corp.
Our previous OpenCdA posts about the corruption in Bell, California, have contained links explaining how Bell City Administrator Robert Rizzo, Assistant City Administrator Angela Spaccia (Sheffield), former Mayor Oscar Hernandez and onetime City Council members Teresa Jacobo, George Mirabal, George Cole and Victor Bello were convicted of misappropriating public funds. They were the direct recipients of the misappropriated public money.
As noted in the various California State Controller’s Office audits, some recipients of questionable City contracts were likely the indirect recipients.
That raises two fairly big questions: Where did all the revenue come from that allowed the crooks to enrich themselves? How could Bell’s Mayor and City Council have stood by while the City’s treasury was being looted? (more…)
OpenCdA encourages readers to carefully and thoughtfully consider Wednesday’s editorial in the Los Angeles Times. The editorial was headlined The lesson of Bell: A watchful citizenry is still essential (I’ve highlighted important lessons to be learned in this reprint).
While OpenCdA completely agrees with the need for a watchful citizenry, that simply isn’t enough. Had it not been for the diligent news coverage by the Los Angeles Times, the magnitude and scope of the crimes might never have been known. Press curiosity encourages honesty and openness. Diligent, persistent, and penetrating press reporting discourages corruption.
We in Coeur d’Alene have often heard some of our own city councilmen, most often outgoing Councilman Deanna Goodlander, tell us that they don’t need to pay attention to the details and neither do we. “Trust the City Staff.”
In Bell, the trusted City Staff was City Administrator Robert Rizzo and Assistant City Administrator Angela Spaccia. Another former member of the trusted Bell City Staff, the City Clerk, testified that she falsified public records when directed. And five of the six City Councilmen who trusted them so blindly have now been convicted of some crimes and may face retrial on other charges as well.
For us in Coeur d’Alene, The Lesson of Bell ought to be to unquestioningly trust no one at City Hall. We private citizens need to pay attention. Paying attention won’t be easy because our local and regional news media appear to be intentionally not paying attention. But we have to try.
A former Kootenai County Finance Director has been convicted by a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury on 11 of 13 counts relating to public corruption .
On Monday, December 9, 2013, Angela Spaccia was convicted on charges including misappropriation of public funds, conflict of interest, and secretion [sic] of the official record. Spaccia committed the offenses while employed from July 2003 until October 2010 as the assistant to the Chief Administrative Officer of Bell, California.
During Spaccia’s trial it was learned that she had served from 1994 until June 1998 as the Associate Director of the YWCA in Coeur d’Alene. From June 15, 1998, until June 16, 2000, she served as the Finance Director for Kootenai County, Idaho, in the Auditor’s Office under then Kootenai County Clerk Dan English. At the time she was known by her married name, Angela Sheffield. In 2000 she divorced her husband, Thomas Allen Sheffield, and returned to southern California with her son. (more…)
Steve Anthony is the Recreation Services Director for the City of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and he is also the City’s liaison to the City’s Arts Commission. Jennifer (Riggs) Drake is the Chairman of the Arts Commission Selection Committee which chose a sculpture titled Allium Spring Chorus by Somerville, Massachusetts, artist David Tonnesen for the McEuen Park Third Street entrance.
The final approval for the $110,000 purchase was made by the Coeur d’Alene City Council at its December 3, 2013, meeting on a tie-breaking vote by outgoing Mayor Sandi Bloem. While the local skewspaper, the Coeur d’Alene Press, reported some of Anthony and Drake’s comments to Council , its article omitted others which some people believed were arrogant and disparaged local artists. Here are audio recordings of the disquieting comments:
Anthony’s comment (Duration: 12 seconds)
Drake’s comment (preceded by Councilman Kennedy’s predicate question) (Duration: 61 seconds)
Readers may want to view the online video of the December 3rd Council meeting to get the entire context of their remarks. The discussion of the piece of art began at 24:57 and ended at 49:38 on the video time stamp.
ADDENDUM on 12-09-2013 at 4:10 PM: Apparently Boise is proud of its local artists.
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