Immediately upon the release of investigative findings implicating (now former) Charlottesville Communications Director, Ric Barrick, in a public bid-rigging and cover-up scandal, Barrick resigned his $95,000 per year position. Following Barrick’s public self-termination, Jones punished Barrick with…a new job—one that pays the full-time equivalent salary of $55,000 per year, and one which appears to have no definite termination date.

In the course of the police investigation into “Barrick-gate,” the former Communications director freely admitted to permanently deleting emails and other public electronic documents in order to conceal his misdeeds—this in clear violation of the Virginia Public Records Act.

While Jones did not respond publicly to Barrick’s attempted cover-up through the destruction of evidence, the incident caught the attention of the Library of Virginia, which oversees public records administration.

John Metz, Director, Archives Records and Collection Services at the Library of Virginia, in a March 29, 2012 letter to Jones admonishes the Charlottesville City Manager that Barrick may have violated Virginia civil and/or criminal codes:

Effective management of public records is a matter of the utmost concern to the Library of Virginia. Improper management of public records may lead to civil penalties under the Freedom of Information Act, Code of Virginia § 2.23714, or criminal penalties under Code of Virginia § 18.2-472 and Code of Virginia § 42.1-88.

In most rational municipalities—those under competent management—an attempted cover-up of a fraud against taxpayers would have been met with an immediate dismissal and subsequent prosecution, where warranted. In Charlottesville, such transgression is rewarded with cushy employment and continued public presence. While City Manager Jones apparently has not taken substantive steps to punish Barrick for his serious abuses of the public trust, his flagrant misappropriation of taxpayer funds, and his multiple violations of state code, the Library of Virginia has stepped in to fill the management void in Charlottesville City Hall—and not a moment too soon.

Read  or download the Library of Virginia’s letter to Maurice Jones:

March 29, 2012

Dear Mr. Jones,

It has been brought to my attention that the Procurement & Risk Management Services in the City of Charlottesville may not be properly following the General Schedules established by the Library of Virginia. The specific concern raised is that email pertaining to contact [sic] negotiations has been improperly managed and destroyed.

According to the Virginia Public Records Act, Code of Virginia § 42.1-76 et seq., each agency, here defined as, “all boards, commissions, departments, divisions, institutions, authorities, or parts thereof, of the Commonwealth or its political subdivisions and include[ing] the offices of constitutional officers,” must designate a records officer to serve as a liaison to the Library of Virginia for the purposes of implementing and overseeing a records management program, and coordinating legal disposition, including destruction, of public records.

Furthermore, under the provisions of Code of Virginia § 42.1-86.1, no public records may be destroyed without the completion of a Certificate of Records Destruction (RM-3 Form) and the approval of a designated records officer. All records destruction must be reported to the Library of Virginia through the submittal of the RM-3 form.

Effective management of public records is a matter of the utmost concern to the Library of Virginia. Improper management of public records may lead to civil penalties under the Freedom of Information Act, Code of Virginia § 2.23714, or criminal penalties under Code of Virginia § 18.2-472 and Code of Virginia § 42.1-88.

Please contact the Records Analysis Section at (804) 692-3600 to arrange for a Records Analyst at the Library of Virginia to assist you in complying with the commonwealth’s records management policies and procedures.

Sincerely,

 

John Metz

Director, Archives, Records and Collection Services

Cc:             Craig Brown, City Attorney
Dr. Sandra G. Treadway, Librarian of Virginia and Virginia State Archivist

With both an engineering and medical background, my views are science and validated-results based.  They are more oriented with F. A. Hayek and “The Fatal Conceit,” than with American Planning Association dogma.

None of my comments are intended to disparage the conscientious efforts of those who have been fulfilling their duties in conducting the various studies being presented to you tonight.  My focus is on the factual results rather than on motives or good intentions.  Such a focus might give a false impression of my not being considerate or caring, just the opposite is the truth.

According to the official “oneCommunities” website, the “Livability Project” (your agenda item #1), is funded by a U.S. HUD $999,000 grant.  The October 14, 2010 letter from HUD to Mr. Stephen Williams in announcing the grant award made reference to the title of his application, “Sustainable Communities Regional Grant Planning Program.” Subsequently, an unexplained metamorphosis took place which transformed the project title into a “livability” project, and the term “sustainability” was scarcely to be found thereafter.  What is the definition of “livability” for this project?  If it exits, I cannot find it.

From that same website, I have copied one item from the 1998 Sustainability Accords (implementation of which is an objective of the grant):

3. To maintain a population composition that does not reduce the sustainability of the Region.
To be measured by the distribution of population according to age, race/ethnicity, income/personal wealth, education, and employment status.

In looking around the room at the people making up these commissions, I see at least one visible measurement feature not yet achieved from this 1998 guiding goal.

Mr. Williams in his opening remarks tonight claimed that the City, County, and University are considered as one entity by the public.  The public does not seem to agree, as documented by his own TJPDC livability group survey on jobs and housing preferences.  As reported in the February 15, 2012 Charlottesville-Tomorrow: “most of the 508 respondents said that they would prefer to live in the rural areas of Albemarle County if there were no barriers in choice of housing. Sixty-one percent said they commuted from outside the Charlottesville Albemarle area because they found housing elsewhere more affordable or a better value.”

The article continues: “…commuters continue to have a preference for larger houses on large lots in nearby counties…if expense were not a barrier, many of these commuters would prefer to live in Albemarle’s rural areas.”

This same  article noted that Mr. Wayne Cilimberg found that “it is too easy to live in the rural area and drive to work.” Albemarle County staff found this a “thorn in our flesh.”

From the citizen taxpayer’s point of view, it appears that “livability” is whatever the planners want it to be, even if it means forcing the round pegs of private citizen choice  into the square-hole  utopian notions of planners.  Instead of working to accommodate the expressed wishes of the public, the planners complain that the public does not know what is best for them.

The historical record of planning gives little reason to be optimistic about any attempts to define, measure, and regulate this undefined “livability.” Your own comments here tonight illustrate that fact. There were calls to have more committee meetings to get your stories straight before the next joint planning meeting.  The livability surveys are inherently flawed because any survey is limited to the chosen indicators.  What is the correct number of indicators?  Are all indicators of equal value? Who decides? Why feature questions on bike paths and not questions related to better or more paved roads? How do you quantify the worth of an indicator? What indicators are unknown, yet vital?

Would a different group pick and weigh different indicators? Whose biases get to shape the wording of the questions?  Who does not know that the phrasing of a question largely determines the answer? Who decides how large a sample group must be? Who decides the composition of that sample?

In the end, the result is largely pre-determined by the original crafters of the survey process, and the choices they offered the public.

You commissioners were quick to notice and question the issue of survey sample size and composition.  For all the effort to engage the public to vote their opinions on the packaged survey questions, the livability team could point to only 350 or so individuals, scattered over the several survey topics, who had signed in to partake in the surveys.  They had failed to cross reference the names and could not answer your question: “Are these the same people voting each time or not?  Is it the same core group of activists voting each time?   At some of the public voting displays only 20 or 30 people showed up. The County/City population is around 120,000.  This cannot be considered a valid representation of public opinion.  The HUD grant demands that the livability project go through this public participation process, but to say that at the end that “the public wants this or that” based on the results so far is not valid or meaningful.

None of the Livability surveys included linking “cost” to the desirability of a measure.  If the survey had included: “How much more in taxes would you pay for measure “x,” then the results might be meaningful.   So long as the wish list is “free” why not have more of everything deemed desirable. You will get a diversity of choices limited only by the number of people responding.  Livability for some might include a free flat panel TV, why not?

None of the Livability surveys included “private property rights” as a limiting factor or “indicator” in the choices offered. An expert on governmental planning, Randal O’Toole, has noted that “planners believe that private property rights are flexible and can be changed at whim.” He quotes from the APA book “The Land We Share,” that private property is an “institution that communities reshape over time to promote evolving goals,” and comments that “if guided by planners, the government decides that your property has historic, environmental, or scenic value, they can take from you the right to use your land without any composition.” Do you agree with this?

On the topic of transportation, Mr. O’Toole notes that “more than four out of five Americans say they prefer a house in the suburbs to higher-density housing near jobs, shops, and transit. (This true here as noted already in the TJPDC Livability study.) But planners believe a greater share of Americans should live in high-density housing, partly because planners erroneously think people living in higher densities will drive less.”  He notes that “Germany can’t tear them (high-density housing) down fast enough to keep up with people leaving for single-family homes.”

The presentations this evening spent much time on affordable housing.  What is the definition of “affordable housing”?  What determined the arbitrary percent level goal for 2050? How much is the right amount and for whom? I heard no mention of making housing affordable. In City/County discussions of new jobs, such jobs are always carefully qualified as being “environmentally friendly, high-tech, high-paying, clean.”  This proviso filters out the real jobs that the real unemployed might be qualified to do in more basic manufacturing.  The large numbers of unemployed for whom housing is unaffordable do not have the educational skills for such utopian industries.  This cherry picking of acceptable industry/jobs puts the disadvantaged in a perpetual dependency role rather than into a job.

One example of advocacy guiding public policy was illustrated by the comments regarding accommodations by the City to bicycling groups.  The spokesperson for the City noted the need for basic infrastructure upgrades.  How odd then that C-T reports that “The city’s budget director, Leslie Beauregard, said $100,000 of the capital budget was moved from undergrounding utilities into bicycle infrastructure development.”

Much “livability” talk also concerns the achieving of the right mix of housing stock and individuals.  The April 17, 2012 article by Thomas Sowell discussed this very topic.  He notes, “…in order to mix and match classes and races to fit the government’s preconceptions…is the idea that there is something wrong if a community does not have an even or random distribution of various kinds of people. This arbitrary assumption is that the absence of evenness or randomness — whether in employment, housing or many other situations — shows a “problem” that has to be “corrected.”

No evidence is considered necessary for this assumption to prevail at any level of government, including the US Supreme Court. No one has to show the existence, much less the prevalence, of an even or random distribution of different segments of the population — in any country, anywhere. Nothing is more common than for people to sort themselves out when it comes to residential housing, whether by class, race or other factors.”

In reference to politicians and bureaucrats, Sowell concludes with, “People convinced of their own superior wisdom and virtue have no time to spare for what other people really want.”

The article by Wendell Cox in the WSJ April 9, 2012 “California Declares War on Suburbia” confirms the experiences in other states regarding planning edicts.  He notes that “The campaign against suburbia is the result of laws passed in 2006 (the Global Warming Solutions Act) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and in 2008 (the Sustainable Communities and Climate Protection Act) on urban planning. The latter law, as the Los Angeles Times aptly characterized it, was intended to “control suburban sprawl, build homes closer to downtown and reduce commuter driving, thus decreasing climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions.” In short, to discourage automobile use.”

Further, “Dartmouth economist William Fischel found that California’s housing had been nearly as affordable as the rest of the nation until the more restrictive regulations, such as development moratoria, urban growth boundaries, and overly expensive impact fees came into effect starting in the 1970s. Other economic studies, such as by Stephen Malpezzi at the University of Wisconsin, also have documented the strong relationship between more intense land-use regulations and exorbitant house prices.”

There was discussion during the meeting concerning housing prices and their statistical distribution in the City/County and land use/density.  Are you  bemoaning County regulations requiring 21 acre minimums for land divisions, with the restriction of only one home on one acre of that 21 acres? Do you not realize that the more restrictive land use laws become, the more expensive the land and homes become?  The number of people who chose to move and live outside the City or County because of increased housing costs is testimony to this.  Such planning choices make City and County living appear to be more of an elitist achievement.

At the recent London conference “Planet Under Pressure,” Yale University professor Karen Seto was quoted in MSMBC, “We certainly don’t want them (humans) strolling about the entire countryside.  We want them to save land for nature by living closely (together).”

Commissioners, it appears that there is a schism between the elite notions of the university planners and the wants and actions of the public. You  have the unenviable job of reconciling your good intentions with history and human diversity.

Corbusier tried in the 1930s with his “Radiant Cities” project; Jane Jacobs did a bit better; Chicago tried with the best planning talent in the 1950s and 1960s only to have these edifices later demolished.

In conclusion, I return to F. A. Hayek’s “Fatal Conceit.”  Ralph Reiland’s 2009 definition of that term conveys the message,  “that one man or one group, one cabinet of commanding officials or one central committee, or one team of planners from Harvard and Yale, can gather and understand enough information in order to reshape the world around them according to their wishes, reshape human nature…”

(Note: These remarks were delivered to a joint session of the Albemarle County and Charlottesville City Planning Commissions on April 18, 2012.)

In his comments, entitled, “Our Titanic Government,” Schilling references the arrogance and ignorance surrounding America’s impending financial doom. Kristin Szakos, Dennis Rooker, David Toscano, Dave Norris, and Tom Perriello are noted as prominent examples of government officials who through their actions, votes, and words endanger liberty.

Watch “Our Titanic Government”:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SflHlflRNao

Following an exposé chronicling Charlottesville City’s profligate misspending, Albemarle County is the target of the “red pen 2” report—suggestions that if followed would save County taxpayers more than $14M this year alone. While not exhaustive, these first-round recommendations ultimately could result in a real estate tax rate reduction of .09, dropping the proposed rate per $100 of assessed value from .762 to .672.

While Albemarle County has responded to “the new economic reality” with significantly more verity than has Charlottesville City, there is much work to be done on the county budget and the appurtenant—and largely staff-driven— budgeting process. Unfortunately, as is the case in Charlottesville, elected officials are reluctant to suggest or even support commonsense proposals to reign-in expenditures. The concept of limited government is lost amongst grandiose, big-government visions and the accompanying community accolades often received by elected benefactors of taxpayer funds. Palatial public buildings, overly compensated government employees (salary and benefits), and handouts to politically favored “charities” show great opportunity for spending reform in Albemarle County.

The savings set forth and the resulting rate-drop could net the average Albemarle County homeowner $251 per year in reduced real estate taxation and at the same time deposit an additional $14M into the local economy. In reality, such changes are practically inconceivable given the lack of courage, foresight, and leadership shown in previous spending decisions ordained by Albemarle County’s elected and appointed officials.

(H/T to Steven Latimer for providing the red pen, and to Carole Thorpe for covering Albemarle County’s $36 paper budget fee.)

Review the Righteous Red Pen 2 Budget Analysis and Proposed Savings for Albemarle County:

This year, Charlottesville City Hall is “swimming in cash”—as it has been for the last decade and beyond, running up cumulative surpluses in the tens-of-millions of dollars and then allocating those funds to “pet” projects, outside of the standard budget process. But in their frenzy to spend every available collected cent, Charlottesville City Council has shown the hapless taxpayer no substantive relief.

In order to jump-start the proscribed “where to cut” discussion, The Schilling Show has proposed more than $13M in red-pen savings: these for consideration by the fiscally clueless City Council Democrats who in 2013 joyfully will fritter $146,183,446 of OPM (other people’s money).

While the list is by no means exhaustive, it is predicated on Constitutional principles of limited government, long forgotten (if ever known) by Charlottesville’s Democrat ruling class.

The city’s projected 2013 real estate tax collection is $50M. With each penny of the real estate tax dollar representing about $525,000 ($50M/95) these identified savings embody a potential real estate tax rate reduction of approximately 25 cents ($13M/$525k)—which would drop the current taxation rate of .95 per hundred to .70 per hundred. The resulting 26% ($13M) reduction in tax confiscations—while painful to profligate Democrat insiders and their political beneficiaries—likely would be a boon to the local economy and a blessing to economically struggling families in Charlottesville.

(H/T to Steven Latimer for providing the red pen!)

Review the Righteous Red Pen Budget Analysis and Proposed Savings (feel free to add your own):

Schilling’s yearlong investigation resulted in Special Prosecutor, Diana Wheeler, being named to research procurement and procedural anomalies inside City Hall.

Barrick cited job “stress” as the primary reason for his departure from the $95,000 per year position, which he has held for nearly six years. Barrick will leave his post at the end of March.

Read The Schilling Show’s report on Barrick’s City Hall improprieties.

The relationship between city officials and its taxpayers is predicated on trust. The public has the right to expect that government employees are properly trained and competently are discharging their duties. The public has the right to expect that government employees are pursuing the best course of action in regard to spending taxpayer monies. At the very least, the public has the right to expect that law and procedures—enacted to protect the taxpayer from fraud—are being followed veraciously concerning any outlay of public funds by a government entity.

A series of emails obtained by the Schilling Show in the course of a one-year investigation, unfortunately has revealed a disturbing breach of the public trust from inside Charlottesville City Hall. In the process of procuring goods and services for the citizens of Charlottesville, city spokesman and Charlottesville’s Director of Communications, Ric Barrick has violated public records provisions of state code, plainly worded contractual policies, and state procurement guidelines by:

1. Secretly negotiating with a personally favored higher bidding vendor after the official bidding period was closed; and,
2. Working to manipulate that vendor’s bid downward so that it would appear less expensive than the actual lowest bid—at a cost of thousands of dollars to taxpayers; and,
3. Willfully destroying evidence that possibly would implicate him in the above actions.

Getting the Goods

While much of what Charlottesville city government spends is for personnel and accompanying benefits, a significant portion of its yearly expenditures is accounted for in the purchase of goods and services—a process generally governed by the Virginia Public Procurement Act, of which § 2.2-4300 C states:

To the end that public bodies in the Commonwealth obtain high quality goods and services at reasonable cost, that all procurement procedures be conducted in a fair and impartial manner with avoidance of any impropriety or appearance of impropriety, that all qualified vendors have access to public business and that no offeror be arbitrarily or capriciously excluded, it is the intent of the General Assembly that competition be sought to the maximum feasible degree, that procurement procedures involve openness and administrative efficiency,  that individual public bodies enjoy broad flexibility in fashioning details of such competition,  that the rules governing contract awards be made clear in advance of the competition, that specifications reflect the procurement needs of the purchasing body rather than being drawn to favor a particular vendor, and that the purchaser and vendor freely exchange information concerning what is sought to be procured and what is offered. [emphasis added]

In early 2010 the Charlottesville City Communications Department indicated a desire, through email correspondence, to purchase an automated “channel in a box” solution that would create a turnkey local news, weather, and information solution for Charlottesville’s public access TV10.

Weather Metrics, a Kansas-based weather technology business, sought to provide this service; consequently, Eric Levy, the company’s Broadcast Products Manager submitted a proposal to the city on January 13, 2010. Levy’s offer was to provide the requested “channel in a box” solution at a cost of $26,000 for a 36-month contract.

Ric Barrick and the Request for Quotations (RFQ)

After months of procrastinating and occasional back and forth emails with Levy, on November 12, 2010 spokesman Barrick apologetically notified Mr. Levy that Weather Metrics would have to submit a Request for Quotation (RFQ) if Levy’s company wanted to compete for the contract.

From: Barrick, Ric [mailto:BARRICK@charlottesville.org]
Sent: Friday, November 12, 2010 2:30 PM
To: Eric Levy
Subject: Charlottesville Bid

Eric

Sorry that this took so long and that we are a government entity that has to go through this. Hope that you all can take the time to fill out our RFP????????. [sic, should be RFQ]

Ric

On November 15, 2010, following internal discussion with Charlottesville’s Procurement & Risk Management Services Manager Jennifer Luchard, Barrick issued the proposed RFQ on behalf of the city of Charlottesville. Five possible vendors were asked to provide:

“a turn-key solution to our government access channel’s broadcast interface to provide news and weather information either provided over the internet or entered manually through a web-based product.”[sic]

According to the RFQ, the city’s acceptance of proposals was time limited:

Request for Quotations Will Be Received Until 11/22/10 at 5:00 PM local prevailing time For Furnishing The Goods/Services Described Herein.

Item H of the city’s RFQ promised to award the contract to the lowest bidder:

AWARD OF CONTRACT: Awards shall be based on determination of the lowest responsive and responsible bidder. No contract may be awarded to a bidder who is determined by the Purchasing Agent to be non-responsible

Out of five approached vendors, only two responded to the City’s request, Weather Metrics (Ric Barrick’s self-professed preferred vendor) and Weather Central.

The initial submitted bids offered the following terms of service:

*lowest bidder

[Note: The original Weather Metrics bid electronically submitted to Barrick on November 18, 2010 was named: City of Charlottesville 24 x 7 pricing Barrick 11-18-10.pdf)

Dissatisfied with the ultimate result of the RFQ (i.e. Weather Central’s lower bid), and well after the bidding closing date of 11/22/2010, Barrick emailed Jennifer Luchard on December 8, 2010 to inquire if there was any wiggle-room in the awarding process:

From: Barrick, Ric
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 3:56 PM
To: Luchard, Jennifer
Subject: RFPs

Jennifer

Does the process we went through for the 24/7 weather system RFP require us to take the lowest bid?  I’m trying to bargain us down with the vendor that we want but we are still a few thousand apart.  Not sure what, if any, flexibility that we have.  I’m only inclined to buy from one vendor because the product is so superior and customizable.  Thanks for your help with this.

Ric

Ric Barrick
Director of Communications?City of Charlottesville
"The Best Place to Live in America"

434-970-3129 main
434-989-9373 cell
434-970-3890 facsimile

Informed of Barrick’s express desire to engage in RFQ post-closing-date collusion with an as-of-yet unawarded vendor, Luchard responded promptly that the contract needed to go to the lowest bidder but also that she and Barrick should further “discuss” the situation by phone:

From: Luchard, Jennifer
Sent: Wednesday, December 08, 2010 4:45 PM
To: Barrick, Ric
Subject: RE: RFPs

I believe that was a RFQ (Request for Quotation).  We discussed going the RFP route so we could consider factors other than price and negotiate, but I believe you felt like the requirements and qualifications could be described well enough to go with the low bid instead.  Did you use the draft I sent you on Nov. 10th?  If so, the award clause says award is to the lowest responsive/responsible bidder.  I'm around most of the day tomorrow.  Sounds like we need to discuss.  I'm @ ext. 3869.

Thanks,

Jennifer

The Negotiation

Despite Luchard’s clear written admonition that Barrick needed to select the lowest bidding vendor (Weather Central), despite Weather Metric’s obviously significantly higher bid, and despite the fact that the RFQ had closed weeks prior, Ric Barrick began an apparent circumvention of clearly stated, contractual procurement procedures in order to steer the contract award to his preferred vendor, Weather Metrics, cost considerations be damned.

On December 9, 2010—16 days after the RFQ closing date—Barrick sent an email to Weather Metrics’ Eric Levy, attempting to further negotiate the terms of Mr. Levy’s November 18 RFQ bid. (When contacted by the Schilling Show, a management source for Weather Central confirmed that his company was not given a similar opportunity to participate in post-RFQ closing re-bidding.)

In his correspondence to Levy, Barrick proffered that Weather Metrics slash the term of their initial $26,000 bid—from 36 months to 18 months—so that it would superficially appear less expensive than Weather Central’s $18,490 quotation (which was for 36 months). Conveniently, Barrick included a copy of low-bidder Weather Central’s RFQ bid as well as a suggestion that Weather Metrics reduce their price to $17,000, which would then allow Barrick to designate their bid as the “lowest” received. Not content to merely manipulate Weather Metric’s initial bidding price— thereby resulting in a substantially higher long-term taxpayer cost—Barrick seemingly goes on to promise vendor Weather Metrics the city’s continued “generosity” if they help to perpetuate the “low-bid” fiction:

From: Barrick, Ric [mailto:BARRICK@charlottesville.org]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 2:28 PM
To: Eric Levy?Subject: FW: RFPs

Eric

So here’s the deal.  We need to go with the lowest cost bid for the entirety of the project.  We much prefer Wx Metrics but there is currently a large difference.  The lowest bid is 18,490 but that is largely because they are only charging a $250 Data subscription fee for 30 months.  I know that you all can’t reduce the $500 monthly fee but I am wondering if you all would be willing to have the terms be only 18 months which would reduce the cost of the RFQ to $17,000.  I know that is a big difference but perhaps we could find a way to convince you all that we would continue with Wx Metrics beyond that.  Attached is the lowest bid for your reference as it is public information.  Thanks in advance for your help.

Ric

Ric Barrick
Director of Communications?City of Charlottesville
“The Best Place to Live in America”

434-970-3129 main
434-989-9373 cell
434-970-3890 facsimile

Unsurprisingly, Barrick’s email was met with an enthusiastic reply from Weather Metrics’ Eric Levy:

From: Eric Levy [mailto:elevy@weathermetrics.com]
Sent: Thursday, December 09, 2010 07:12 PM
To: Barrick, Ric
Subject: RE: RFPs

Ric,

Thanks for your email!  I discussed with our management team and we can make it work for you for 18 months…  I am confident that you will be so happy that after 18 months you will want to continue using the system.  I also think you will get a ton more value with our system out of showing local City of Charlottesville information on the channel (ie community programming, crawl, events calendar, etc.)  It’s going to be awesome!

I will give you a call in the morning to figure out how we should proceed.  You can reach me at 913.378.1209 if I don’t reach you first.

We are looking very forward to helping you with this.  Thank you for the opportunity to work with you and the City of Charlottesville!?Eric

Eric Levy Director of Broadcast Products
Weather Metrics
Direct:   913.378.1209
Cell:       913.271.1626
Office:   913.438.7666
11100 W. 91st Street / Overland Park, KS / 66214
http://www.weathermetrics.com/

The Manipulation

Subsequent to his December 9 response to Ric Barrick, Eric Levy submitted another bid to Barrick, this time, the file was named: City of Charlottesville 24 x 7 pricing Barrick 11-18-10a.pdf [note: this file name is identical to that of the Weather Metrics bid submitted on November 18 except that “a” is appended to the end of the original file name]

Levy’s revised “a” RFQ came in at exactly $17,000—the number Barrick “suggested” to Levy in his December 9 email, as a bid-winning total. Troublingly, Levy’s revised RFQ (City of Charlottesville 24 x 7 pricing Barrick 11-18-10a.pdf) was not date corrected, as the document is marked November 18, 2010 although it apparently was submitted on or about December 10, 2010. In other words, Weather Metrics’ new bid was backdated 21 days prior to its actual submission date to Ric Barrick. Levy’s revised bid now appeared to fall neatly within the original RFP closing date of November 22, 2010.

The final bid resulting from Barrick and Levy’s post-closing-date collusion reflected a lower total price from Weather Metrics than from Weather Central; however, it also is patently obvious that the revised bid actually represented far less value to the city taxpayer due to the 18-month discrepancy in service terms, and because of Weather Metrics’ higher monthly fees:

*bid received 21 days after the RFQ closing date and backdated to 11/18/10

Item I of the city’s RFQ clearly states that modifications of bids are not acceptable after the closing date, which was November 22, 2010 in this instance:

BID ACCEPTANCE PERIOD: Each bid submitted must be and remain valid for a period of at least thirty (30) days from bid opening. Erroneous quotations may be reclaimed or superseded any time prior to closing time; Modification of or corrections to quotations are not acceptable after the closing time specified. Any new quotation must be marked as in Section A with the additional notation “Supersedes all previous submissions.” No bidder may withdraw his quotation from consideration after closing time due to a mistake, except as permitted by Virginia Code § 2.2-4330. [emphasis added]

Virginia Code § 2.2-4318 seems to confirm that the lowest bid shall be accepted without further negotiation; and that post-deadline negotiation is possible exclusively with the lowest bidder, and then, only under certain restrictive conditions:

§ 2.2-4318. Negotiation with lowest responsible bidder.

Unless canceled or rejected, a responsive bid from the lowest responsible bidder shall be accepted as submitted, except that if the bid from the lowest responsible bidder exceeds available funds, the public body may negotiate with the apparent low bidder to obtain a contract price within available funds. However, the negotiation may be undertaken only under conditions and procedures described in writing and approved by the public body prior to issuance of the Invitation to Bid and summarized therein. [emphasis added]

Further, Barrick’s post-deadline negotiations with Weather Metrics’ representative Eric Levy appear to have been a violation of the city’s own terms and conditions as set forth in Section J of the RFQ:

CLARIFICATION OF TERMS: The City will assume no responsibility for oral instructions, suggestion or interpretation. Any question regarding the bid documents and/or specifications shall be directed to the Purchasing Division and any material change will be submitted to all bidders through issuance of an addendum. Any questions related to this RFQ MUST be submitted to Rick [sic] Barrick no fewer than five (5) work days prior to the quotation due date specified. [emphasis original] Questions should be in writing and electronic transmission is preferred. Questions submitted beyond the time specified above may be left unanswered if sufficient time does not allow a response to all prospective bidders without causing an unacceptable delay in the process. Any contact with any City representative, other than that outlined within this solicitation, concerning this RFQ is prohibited. Such unauthorized contact may disqualify your firm from this procurement. [emphasis added]

On December 10, 2010 Barrick benignly submitted to Luchard, Weather Metrics’ revised, backdated bid along with Weather Central’s original bid, declaring Weather Metrics’ submission as the lowest, and thus the contract awardee:

From: “Barrick, Ric” <BARRICK@charlottesville.org>
Date: December 10, 2010 01:37:41 PM EST
To: “Luchard, Jennifer” <luchard@charlottesville.org>

Subject: Our Bids

Attached are the only two bids that we got in for the project after an outreach to five.  The lowest bid from WX metrics and I would like to go with them.  Is there anything else I need to do on my side?  Thanks.

Ric

The Cover-Up

While government-insider manipulation of the public procurement process is disturbing enough in its own right, government cover-up of official law-bending arguably is worse. Much of the damning documentation obtained for this investigation was received during a December 2010 non-specific Virginia Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to view a week of Ric Barrick’s email. This FOIA was submitted shortly after Barrick punitively removed The Schilling Show and its host Rob Schilling from his official Charlottesville City email distribution lists, under which Barrick disseminates media releases and other city news.

Many months of rumination over and analysis of the original documents obtained from Barrick led to a second FOIA. This time, the request was issued in order to obtain supporting documents relating specifically to the Weather Metrics contract with Charlottesville City. The Schilling Show’s December 31, 2011 FOIA sought:

An electronic copy of all Weather Metrics RFQs received by the city and any correspondence or document sent to or received from Weather Metrics and/or Eric Levy (of Weather Metrics), by any city employee or elected official. Effective dates of this request are from January 1, 2010 through and including January 31, 2011.

On January 9, 2012 and on behalf of Charlottesville City, Ric Barrick responded to The Schilling Show’s December 31, 2011 FOIA with electronic documentation of correspondence between Eric Levy and several city employees.

Missing from Barrick’s FOIA response were several incriminating communications (unbeknownst to Barrick these missives already were in possession of The Schilling Show) referencing Barrick and Levy’s apparent conspiracy to manipulate the RFQ process. Notably:

1. Barrick’s December 8, 2010 email to Jennifer Luchard in which Barrick asks Luchard if he is bound to accept the lowest RFQ bid was not included in Barrick’s FOIA response.
2. Barrick’s December 9, 2010 email to Weather Metrics’ Eric Levy in which Barrick suggests that Levy lower the number of months in his RFQ in order to appear as the lowest bidder was not included in Barrick’s FOIA response.
3. Levy’s December 9, 2011 email response to Barrick in which Levy agrees to adjust the RFQ terms as Barrick had suggested was not included in Barrick’s FOIA response.

Also missing was a key document—one that fell squarely in the parameters of the December 31 FOIA: City of Charlottesville 24 x 7 pricing Barrick 11-18-10.pdf

This was the original Weather Metrics RFQ response in the amount of $26,000, significantly higher than the actual lowest bid of $18,490, as submitted by Weather Central.

The existence of this specific document was suspected by inference in reviewing Barrick, Levy and Luchard’s correspondences. But it was shown as an attachment (although it was not attached or included in the January 9 FOIA response) to one of the emails Barrick did provide in response to the December 31, 2011 FOIA:

From: Eric Levy [mailto:elevy@weathermetrics.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 18, 2010 3:14 PM
To: Barrick, Ric
Subject: RE: Charlottesville Bid
Attachments: City of Charlottesville 24×7 Pricing Barrick 11-18-10.pdf

Ric,

Per your request, you will find the proposed solution in response to your RFP. The solution includes our 24×7 Channel.Net system, which would enhance your local information channel with additional news and weather information. It will help you automate the process on your local channel and we will help you maintain the channel reducing your work-load.

We are looking forward to helping you with this project! Please give me a call with any questions at 913.378.1209.

Thanks!

Eric

Noting that the document was referenced but not included in Barrick’s FOIA response, a specific request was issued for Weather Metrics original November 18 RFQ response, also known as: City of Charlottesville 24×7 Pricing Barrick 11-18-10.pdf

After several email go-rounds with the City Attorney’s office, including their provision of the wrong document and a claim that the document “could not be located,” it finally was relinquished on January 25, 2012. It’s $26,000 bottom line provided confirming evidence that clearly stated, legal RFQ process requirements had been violated by Ric Barrick—to the advantage of Eric Levy and Weather Metrics and to the detriment of Charlottesville taxpayers who now must pay higher costs for the purchased services.

Attempts to clarify the legal parameters of the RFQ process with city procurement’s Jennifer Luchard—who was at least peripherally aware of Barrick’s attempted manipulations—were met with stony obfuscation. When asked if it was legal to negotiate any terms of the vendor’s submitted RFQ after the RFQ “response date” had passed, Luchard responded with nearly incomprehensible and thoroughly self-defensive legalese:

From: “Luchard, Jennifer” <luchard@charlottesville.org>
Date: January 31, 2012 01:22:08 PM EST
To: ‘Rob Schilling’

Subject: RE: 1/28/2012 follow up question Re: Weather Metrics / Weather Central Contracts

Rob,

A responsive bid from the lowest responsive and responsible bidder is usually accepted as submitted, without negotiation unless the bid exceeds available funding.  If the City includes a negotiation clause in the solicitation, the City may negotiate with the apparent low bidder to obtain a contract price within available funds.  This negotiation clause was not included in this Request for Quotation.

Terms and conditions of the contract form may be negotiated.  The City requires bidders to include with their bids all written agreements, contracts, service agreements, account applications, forms and other documents, of any nature, that the contractor would require the City to sign in connection with any contract resulting from the procurement transaction, or the performance thereof by the contractor.  The City prefers to use its own contract form, and the standard contract form for most purchases less than $100,000 is a purchase order.  For this particular purchase, the contractor required signature on his contract form.

Best Regards,

Jennifer Luchard

Conclusion

Upon final examination of information discovered in the December 2010 and January 2011 FOIA inquires, The Schilling Show requested a meeting with City Manager, Maurice Jones, and City Attorney, Craig Brown, in order to discuss anomalies uncovered during The Schilling Show’s investigation. At the February 21, 2012 meeting both Jones and Brown expressed concern over the presented evidence.

Concurrently a separate meeting was requested with the Charlottesville Commonwealth’s Attorney’s office. Upon discussion with that department, the case was referred to a Special Prosecutor, Orange County Commonwealth’s Attorney, Diana H. Wheeler—under order of Judge Edward L. Hogshire—and a formal investigation commenced.

On March 16, 2012, after interviews with Ric Barrick, Eric Levy, Jennifer Luchard, Maurice Jones and Craig Brown, Ms. Wheeler concluded her investigation with a letter to Judge Hogshire. In her correspondence, the Special Prosecutor stated that she was declining to prosecute Barrick at this time, noting insufficient evidence to prove criminal intent in Barrick’s actions. However, Wheeler went on to cite specific, unresolved concerns regarding Barrick’s and Luchard’s conduct including: “questionable actions,” “less than satisfactory answers to certain questions asked,” and “some apparent violations of rules and policies.”

In consideration of the ascertainable facts, Wheeler’s letter focused specifically on Barrick’s apparent incompetence and inability to comprehend his assigned procurement duties:

I find that there is credible evidence, when viewed as a whole, to lead one to believe that Mr. Barrick:

1. did not adequately understand the difference between and RFP and an RFQ,
2. did not adequately understand the rules and procedures for an RFQ,
3. did not read the entire RFQ he had posted, and
4. did not realize that the bid period was over when he accepted a modified bid from the original bidder.

How both Barrick and Luchard could possibly have been unaware that the bidding period was over defies logic. Luchard knew that Barrick was negotiating with the vendor because he informed her of such. As an overseer of procurement contracts, she should have known that post-bid negotiation as described by Barrick was forbidden, regardless of the bidding period status. But also, Luchard and Barrick discussed that only two bids (out of five prospective bidders) had been received and Barrick submitted those two bids exclusively, to Luchard. According to their internal correspondence and subsequent actions, Luchard and Barrick apparently agreed that as of December 10, 2010 the bidding period was closed and that no more bids could be received. That decision could only have been reached by awareness of the RFQ closing date (November 18, 2010), a situation contrary to the assumptions of Special Prosecutor Wheeler’s findings.

Disturbingly, Wheeler’s letter also notes that Ric Barrick intentionally and willfully deleted from his computer the missing FOIA’d emails referenced above, for fear that the information contained within may cast him in an unfavorable light:

…In the months following, as Mr. Schilling was seeking additional information on the Weather Metrics contract, probably during or after July 2011, Mr. Barrick found emails that made him realize that since he had allowed Weather Metrics to come down from their original bid, he should have given Weather Central the same opportunity, but he did not. He thought that this did not “look good” because he was not fair to Weather Central. He deleted some emails at that point.

According to the Special Prosecutor, Barrick was unable to prove when the emails were deleted, whether in July of 2011, upon receipt of The Schilling Show’s December 31, 2011 FOIA, or at some other time.

In a post-decision meeting with The Schilling Show and investigators, Ms. Wheeler stated that she was unaware of any statute that would require Barrick and the city to maintain email records regarding city business, and thus Barrick’s deletion and attempted cover-up of his dealings was not pursued legally.

However, the Virginia Public Records Act does have legal requirements for records retention among state agencies and localities, as follows:

010185: Purchasing Records – Bid and Bid Proposal Records
This series is used to document the bidding process for items/equipment that are being purchased by the locality. The series consists of the request for bids, bid specifications, and related items.
Retention: Retain 3 year(s) after end of state fiscal year [emphasis added]
Disposition: Non-confidential Destruction

A high-ranking Charlottesville police investigator assigned to the case said he was unaware of any prohibition under city policy regarding the deletion of city email records and did not believe that any backup of deleted email records was maintained by the city. Additionally, he stated his understanding that any email residing on individual city employee computers, once deleted, was gone from the server, as well, with no record of it ever having existed.

The deletion of sensitive emails, the financial defrauding of Charlottesville taxpayers, and the collusion to manipulate the bidding process to the detriment of other bidders is highly problematic procedurally, legally, and ethically. And many questions remain:

• If Ric Barrick, a $95,000 per-year government employee, does not understand public procurement laws and admits to “not read(ing) the entire RFQ he had posted,” who has authorized him and why is he authorized to purchase goods and services on behalf of the city?
• If Jennifer Luchard is unable to adequately administer procurement purchases taking place under her supervision, is she competent to maintain her current position?
• If the City of Charlottesville allows critically important emails to be deleted and does not maintain backups of such correspondence, are they in compliance with Virginia law and is the pubic interest being served?
• Will Barrick personally reimburse taxpayers for the additional costs they will incur as a result of his improper actions?
• Will Barrick and Luchard’s misfeasance and procedural violations be tolerated, or will substantive personnel and procedural changes be implemented inside Charlottesville City Hall?
• And in the light of the gross incompetence and willful manipulation now exposed at the highest levels of Charlottesville City Government, is current city elected and appointed management capable of adequately and proficiently overseeing the execution of city business and guaranteeing ethical conduct from its employees?

Even with multiple legal bulwarks in place:

• the Virginia Public Procurement Act’s checks and balances on process abuse
• the protective language included in the city’s RFQ regarding procedural improprieties and post-closing-date communications and negotiations
• the Virginia Public Records Act’s prohibition against destroying documents critical to the public interest
• fallback information-access safeguards offered by the Virginia Freedom of Information Act

the established citizen-taxpayer protection systems failed catastrophically in this instance. While the legal system presently has chosen not to pursue a case against the transgressors, the court of public opinion may be a more powerful and effective adjudicator. The reputation of Charlottesville city government and the ability to restore public trust in Charlottesville City Hall hangs in the balance.

Timeline of Events

January 13, 2010: Eric Levy of Weather Metrics submits proposal to Joe Rice (Ric Barrick co-worker) offering 36 months of service for $500/month licensing and capital cost of $8000, total cost is $26,000.

November 12, 2010: Ric Barrick alerts Weather Metrics (Eric Levy, preferred vendor) that he will have to fill out RFP (actually an RFQ) in order to compete for the business.

November 15, 2010: RFQ issued by Charlottesville City

November 18, 2010: Eric Levy submits response to RFQ, total price is $26,000 for 36 months. (document: City of Charlottesville 24 x 7 pricing Barrick 11-18-10.pdf)

November 19, 2010: Non-preferred vendor, Weather Central responds to RFQ, total price is $18,490 for 36 months

November 22, 2010: RFQ “response date” ends

December 8, 2010: Barrick alerts Jennifer Luchard (Charlottesville City Procurement & Risk Manager) that he is trying to “bargain down” the “vendor we want” but “still a few thousand apart.” Asks if we have “any flexibility.”

December 8, 2010: Luchard responds to Barrick that since it was an RFQ, “the award clause says award is to the lowest responsive/responsible bidder.” Says, “we need to discuss.”

December 9, 2010: Barrick writes to Levy, disclosing the lower bid of the other vendor and why the price is lower (lower monthly fee $250 vs. $500). Suggests that Levy lower his term to 18 months in order to reduce the total cost to $17,000, with a promise that the city would continue to use Levy beyond the 18 month agreement. Barrick attaches a copy of the competing bid, claiming that it is “public information.”

December 9, 2010: Levy responds affirmatively to Barrick that his management team can “make it work for 18 months.” Requests a phone conversation the following morning to “figure out how we should proceed.”

December 10, 2010: Levy submits an alternate bid (document: City of Charlottesville 24 x 7 pricing Barrick 11-18-10a.pdf) that shows a term of 18 months and a total price of $17,000 as suggested by Barrick on December 9. Submitted new document backdated to November 18, 2010 which fits within RFQ closing date of 11/22/2010.

December 10, 2010: Barrick submits revised Weather Metrics bid ($17,000) and original Weather Central bid ($18,490) to Luchard citing the receipt of only two bids. Claims that Weather Metrics bid is the lowest even though that company’s service terms are for only 18 months as compared to Weather Central’s 36 month terms.

December 22, 2010: Charlottesville issues $17,000 purchase order to Weather Metrics.

February 15, 2011: Eric Levy emails finalized copy of signed contract to Michelle Glass, Charlottesville City.

January 9, 2012: Barrick omits several key documents from December 31, 2011 FOIA response (official email documents he deleted at an undetermined time in order to hide evidence he believed “did not look good”).

Charlottesville Democrats in 2004 attempted to oust golf from the park through a series of meetings, plans, and maneuverings led by then-mayor Maurice Cox, as head of the McIntire Park Master Plan Committee. Although Cox’s design scheme—which included opulent cafés, majestic gardens and expensive water features—was not approved, his concept of commandeering control of the park for professional and political profit lives on in the hearts and minds of the Charlottesville Democrat establishment.

The politics of today’s plan has its genesis in early discussions between McIntire Botanical Garden President, Helen Flamini, and former Charlottesville Mayor (and current City Councilor), Dave Norris, from which Norris emerged to publicly support Flamini’s concept of a golf-less botanical empire in McIntire.

Flamini’s political quid pro quo for Norris’ backing of her $50 million “green dream” at Mcintire, was her direct public support for the mayor’s reelection efforts in a contested Democrat primary. In an April 29, 2009 letter to the Daily Progress, Flamini gushed over Norris’s “exemplary leadership” and his progressive accomplishments. She also shamelessly noted his support for her botanical garden concept:

Working with Charlottesville Parks and Recreation, he has improved city parks, and he has supported the concept and vision to create a botanical garden at McIntire Park, which will enhance residents’ enjoyment and appreciation of nature, promote environmental educational programs, support economic development, increase tourism and guarantee that future generations have an outstanding park system for all to enjoy.

Dedicated leaders like Dave Norris deserve continued support.

While then-Mayor Norris continued to praise the Botanical Garden at every suitable opportunity, Flamini persisted in her conspicuous ennoblement of the mayor. In an October 25, 2009 letter to the Daily Progress, Flamini implored the Charlottesville electorate to return Norris to office:

City Council elections will be here on Nov. 3. There are many issues confronting the citizens of Charlottesville in the days ahead, and it will take dedicated and informed leaders to meet those challenges.

With so many important issues facing the City Council candidates, this would be the wrong time to elect a candidate whose entire focus is on a single polarizing matter.  What is needed is a candidate who is focused on all the important issues affecting the city: affordable housing, transportation, education, recreation, environmental sustainability, revitalization of public housing, fiscal responsibility and McIntire Park.

Dave Norris has worked toward addressing those issues as well as continuing to promote and support the goals from City Council’s Vision Statement-2025 that will continue to make Charlottesville a great place to live for all its citizens.

Innovative, thoughtful ideas to improve community representation are but one example of the leadership role exemplified by Dave Norris. City voters should re-elect Dave Norris and elect Kristin Szakos to City Council, as they work to ensure continued progress in making Charlottesville the great city it already is.

Herself, a resident of Albemarle County (and not of Charlottesville City), Helen Flamini’s audacious public support for Dave Norris must have been perplexing to the casual onlooker—unless viewed through botanical lenses. Two public endorsements of Norris’s candidacy, which she could not personally advance by ballot, were well rewarded by Norris’s continuing advocacy of Flamini’s “pet” garden project.

But, as the Central Party Democrats’ political steamrolling of McIntire Golf did not begin with Dave Norris, nor does it end with him.

Several high-profile Charlottesville Democrats hold high-profile positions with the McIntire Botanical Garden organization:

• Peter MacIntosh, 2011 Democrat candidate for Charlottesville City Council, is Vice President
• Paul Beyer, 2011 Democrat candidate for Charlottesville City Council, is a Board Member
• Linda Seaman, 2012 co-chair of the Charlottesville Democrat Party, and former Democrat candidate for Charlottesville City Council, is a board member
• Karen Firehock, a former Democrat appointee to the Charlottesville Planning Commission, is on the Advisory Committee

Not content with behind-scenes kneecapping of McIntire golf through strategic political partnerships and placements, Charlottesville Democrat operatives now have begun an overt takeover of the McIntire Park “public” planning process. To wit, Democrat City Councilor Kathy Galvin, a Seaman protégé, commandeered the Monday, January 23 McIntire master planning meeting, imprudently and unexpectedly championing a new concept which would completely exclude golf from McIntire Park, as described in coverage by Charlottesville Tomorrow:

“In the three concepts that you have presented to us, you have a very logical, rational illustration of how you cannot make these two big programs [golf and botanical garden] co-exist,” Galvin said. “What you’ve demonstrated is how the golf course can work, and what happens is you have demonstrated that the botanical garden and some of the other uses really don’t work.”  Galvin encouraged another design effort showing what a park dominated by the botanical garden would look like. [emphasis added]

The plans advertised for consideration up to the point of Galvin’s indecorous self-interjection all had included some golf component in the future use of McIntire Park—and all had been discussed in great detail previously at the meeting.

Galvin’s brazen advancement of an unsolicited plan so late into the process—on behalf of the Charlottesville Democrat establishment—rightfully was decried as inappropriate by fair-minded meeting attendees. Yet, subsequent conversations on McIntire’s future have incorporated Galvin’s golf-less vision—which now appears to be the favored future for McIntire Park among Charlottesville’s all-Democrat City Council.

A feeble administrative attempt by city staff to blunt Galvin’s procedural incursion—through the belated introduction of a “golf-only” plan—does nothing to level the course or to even the score. Sadly, once again, naïve participants of Charlottesville’s self-vaunted public planning process not only have wasted time playing in a rigged game, but they have been clubbed by an unscrupulous opponent: the Charlottesville Democrat Machine.

(Photograph of McIntire flip-board courtesy of Charlottesville Tomorrow.)

Man has always lived under sets of rules. From the Ten Commandments to the legal code, sporting competitions to board games, in physics and in tax forms, there are rules everywhere guiding our lives.

Deciphering the rules creates knowledge. Early man saw that fire burns, fire cooks, and fire lights; they learned that you can depend on those as fact. Fire burns today and it will burn you again tomorrow—the rule never changes. The ability to determine if a rule was reliable led to early man’s survival and so, to us being here today.

I made a living on rules. As a computer programmer or business analyst, in risk management or as a division head, rules make the workplace easier. In IT development a line of code does not think, it does exactly what it is told to do. Computers live in a world with black and white rules.

In the military I wrote Standard Operating Procedures. SOP’s allow a process requiring no choices or decisions to be made by staff. If you only give staff keys that fit in the keyhole only one way, then to open the door they must put the key in the slot that one way, the rule must be followed, and in reality they have no choice at all. If things go wrong the writer of the SOP was at fault not those who carried it out.

Some rules are personal, some institutional; some rules come from an even higher authority. The king can proclaim gravity has been banished but no man is powerful enough to change a rule like gravity. We can temporarily overcome gravity but the rule remains. Gravity is a fact.

Man-made rules are not fact; they can be bent, changed or ignored, like the speed limit on roads. It is easy to be misled into thinking man-made rules are fact, but without man these rules will cease to exist unlike factual rules like gravity. When people no longer think for themselves and treat man-made rules as though they are fact it allows people to bypass their responsibility and blame failure on the writer of the SOP.

Man cannot accept any rules blindly and should never take any rule man by man as anything more than accepted by some or all people but never as fact. If we desire freedom we must validate every rule each time it comes into play. Questioning every rule does not mean that man-made rules are not required for the common good.

Complete and unrestrained personal freedom is the complete absence of man-made rules. It is called anarchy.

The absence of personal freedom entirely is when every aspect of life is governed by man-made rules. It is the totalitarian state.

Freedom does depend on a low threshold of tolerance for man-made rules. The old adage is that with freedom comes responsibility. Responsibility requires work, hard work. Sometimes it may be acceptable to lose freedom and allow someone else to make the rules because they will bear responsibility for the consequences of the rule.

The attraction for many to accept a king, a dictator, or a totalitarian state is the fact it is easier to follow rules and not bear the responsibility passed to the rule makers. We learn from birth we must follow rules set by others. If you do not follow the rules we naturally blame the rule maker. How many times have you heard a child say, ‘but you didn’t tell me I had to….” Then as you grow up you must set your own rules and suffer the consequences if the rules you choose fail you or others around you.

Just as it is with your parents’ rules, it is easy to just follow rules set by the state. The danger is when citizens bypass any litmus test and rules set by the state are blindly accepted.

If a large enough portion of the citizenry is willing to accept any rule, even foolish ones, simply to bypass bearing any responsibility for failure, personal freedom is what disappears in exchange for the absolution from responsibility. If the set of rules becomes comprehensive enough you have reached total absolution. You are in a totalitarian state with no choices and only one responsibility: “do what you are told.”

At my birth, this great nation was the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now just 52 years later no one is free and few are standing up to demand our freedom back. Few want to bear any responsibility for themselves or others but rather they expect the state to take the weight of responsibility away with a rule.

If I can’t bear the responsibility of my children, or my finances, or care for the elderly in my community the government rules that if you cannot or will not bear that responsibility the state will do what ever is required in your stead. You do not need to feel any pain or anguish, no sorrow because you accept the rule.

My father’s father lied in order to return to combat duty as a 41-year-old man in 1943. He lied about his age. The officer at the recruiting desk had his file in front of him and after seeing his true birth year and evaluating my grandfather, the officer somehow “lost” the file into a trashcan. He did not follow the rules either.

Both men knew the rules. Both men understood responsibility. They both weighed the situation, considered the rules and bore the responsibility on their shoulders. It was their choice and neither man made the choice lightly. But they knew the ramifications of making a choice to follow or bypass the rules.

If my grandfather had followed the rule set by the state no one would have held him in ill regard, the state rule said he was too old to go into combat on a naval vessel. His responsibility was self-imposed, even though he was absolved by the state.

From 1943 to today something has shifted. There are few left who are true “public servants.” Many whose paycheck is taken from the taxpayers have learned to manipulate existing rules and sometimes even create rules in order to shirk responsibility to avoid hard choices. Shirking responsibility by twisting rules takes many different forms in government. Do mind that not all government officials neglect their responsibilities, but those who try to fulfill their duties are overruled when shirkers are in the majority. In the Obamacare sessions of Congress many Democrats learned they could shirk their responsibilities and change the rules for gain, allowing them to extort money and exemptions for their districts in exchange for their vote.

Locally, despite being the gatekeepers to a vault with our money in it, for many years the Albemarle County Board of Supervisors has accepted the rule that 60 percent of new revenue goes to the schools. The rule says we do it, so we no longer have to bear responsibility for the money we hand the school system without scrutiny or even asking the question of how it will be spent.

When following the rules is difficult then shirking duties by ignoring those rules is common. In Virginia the rule says adequate coverage is 1.5 police officers for every 1000 in population. For convenience we just ignored that rule for years in Albemarle County. Now addressing the issue will take five years or more to get back on track.

If not bound to rules by the superior state above us then we can simply make up our own rules, even if illogical and clearly only to shirk responsibility. The School Board says it is their rule not to meddle in the details of the school system and only look at the highest-level information. Their rule to only look at the cover and never inside the book allows them to shirk responsibility if the cover is falsely labeled a romance when the true story inside starts as a comedy then ends as a horror novel.

The most dangerous of all responsibility shirking is now the behavior of the Jefferson-Madison Regional Library officials who are actively shirking responsibility by blindly clinging to outdated rules made by past superiors and do not even consider alternate paths. This will cost Albemarle taxpayers millions of dollars now and hundred of thousands ongoing and if unchecked will be even worse. Blindly following the rule only because the rules sustain their paychecks—yet they are pococurante to the citizens—these bureaucrats will someday demand to be rewarded for their unwavering loyalty. That too will be at citizens’ expense.

When the Jefferson-Madison Library Bureaucrats are asked why the proposed Crozet Library is larger than the fire house it is because there is a square footage to population rule. There are no considerations to be weighed as long as they follow the rule. These bureaucrats bear no responsibility if they stick mindlessly to the rule. In truth, the square foot/population rule allows them to protect their fiefdom and have no accountability if things go awry, they can blame the rule.

When asked, “why build in the place where a library is least needed by the population?” The mindless answer: “’because that is the designated growth area.” An honest bureaucrat would say: “The rules in place do not require us to consider the needs of the people or any other factor. We have placed the library on this plot because the rules say we shall do so. If you do not like the rule I may not speak with you about the matter, it is above my pay grade. You must discuss this with the rule makers, for I have no responsibility.”

Any question requires no thought on their part just a robotic response.

What if there are true library needs elsewhere? Sorry, the rule precludes that as a consideration.

This proposed library of yesterday is obsolete before the ground is broken. Why not build for the future instead of for the past? Sorry the rule says in the past we are doing enough volume to build the library. We cannot open our minds to even considering what will happen in the future.

An honest evaluation of needs is not required because the rules were not made so libraries best serve the citizens but to protect the library fiefdoms. A library in ten years will be as valuable as the US Post Office in ten years. Instead of a Crozet Library I could have gotten the Jefferson-Madison Library bureaucrats to buy the old Crozet video store and tell them of the demand for VHS tapes, 20 years ago.

But your library rules are obsolete. Sorry they are not our rules, they come from the state. Therefore, we do not question the rule; you should not question the rule either.

This abdication of responsibility by government officials who mindlessly take more and more from the real working people with no justification except “we are just following the rules” is nothing short of a glimpse into 1930′s Germany.

We must choose right now, at this fork in United States history. Will you follow a path back to freedom or does your path lead to Europe’s past?

You may not accept it. But it is your responsibility.

Andrew Breitbart, a hero of constitutional conservatism passed away March 1, 2012. Rest in peace.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=yf1AqKcj7Yc

Frederick, apparently not satisfied with TJPDC’s million-dollar, taxpayer-funded assault on private property rights (under the guise of regional “planning”), now is dispensing advice on how to squelch the speech of climate change “deniers.”

In a February 4 New York Times article about Tea Party activism and United Nations’ Agenda 21, “counterorganizer” Frederick openly presents her contra-constitutional game plan envisioned to mute citizen “critics” of the globalist green agenda:

Summer Frederick, the project manager for the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission in Charlottesville, Va., which withdrew its dues to Iclei and its support from a national mayors’ agreement on climate change late last year after a campaign by protesters, now conducts seminars on how to deal with Agenda 21 critics. (Among her tips: remove the podium and microphones, which can make it “very easy for a critic to hijack a meeting.”) [emphasis added]

While such a diabolical scheme could be effective if implemented covertly, Frederick’s hubris in brazenly discussing methods of disabling community dialogue at public meetings displays either abject arrogance or abject stupidity—or perhaps both.

As stated on its web site, the TJPDC has a noble purpose:

The mission of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District Commission is to serve our local governments by providing regional vision, collaborative leadership and professional service to develop effective solutions.

Yet the TJPDC’s promised mission of “service” is perverted beyond reclamation when a $52,000 per year government employee (Summer Frederick), supervised by a $110,000 per year government employee (Stephen Williams), flagrantly works to promote an anti-American personal agenda while proposing the undermining of foundational American rights—all in the name of “planning.”

Mr. Williams, maybe it’s time to remove Ms. Frederick’s microphone, podium, and employment contract.

Charlottesville, Virginia, a political stronghold of Marxist-leaning Democrat elected officials, has a serious white-on-black racial discrimination problem.

Charlottesville, Virginia, home to a concentration of socially evolved progressives (e.g. pro “marriage rights” and abortion on-demand), has a serious white-on-black racial discrimination problem.

Charlottesville, Virginia, a politically enlightened community, which voted 80% Democrat in the most recent State and Federal elections, has a serious white-on-black racial discrimination problem.

Charlottesville, Virginia is a community apparently populated with liberal white racists. Or so implies University of Virginia Professor Walt Heinecke’s recent proposal to Charlottesville City Council: Charlottesville Commission on Human Rights, Diversity, and Race Relations

According to Heinecke’s report, Charlottesville, Virginia’s serious white-on-black racial discrimination problem is manifested in racially prejudicial hiring practices in private employment—practices that cannot effectively be addressed by existing State and Federal equal-employment laws.

According to Heinecke’s report, Charlottesville, Virginia’s serious white-on-black racial discrimination problem is manifested in racially prejudicial rental practices in private housing—practices that cannot effectively be addressed by existing State and Federal fair-housing laws.

And, most surprisingly (to some), community conversations suggest that Charlottesville, Virginia’s serious white-on-black racial discrimination problem is manifested in racially prejudicial employment practices inside Charlottesville City Hall—an institution run by Democrats and for Democrats essentially since its inception.

Professor Heinecke envisions the proposed Human Rights Commission as a government-appointed body endowed with investigative, prosecutorial, and judicial powers—a body empowered to impose fines and condemn with public consternation “convicted” transgressors deemed “guilty” by Commission appointees.

While Charlottesville City Hall was the only named violator of existing equal-opportunity statutes during a recent City Council discussion on racism, that avowedly racist institution apparently is exempt from prosecution under Heinecke’s plan:

To engage in anti-discrimination enforcement activities including the investigation and resolution of claims of discrimination in private employment and housing as defined by a new City Ordinance. The Commission would have the power to hold hearings, conduct investigations, issue reports, impose fines and remedies. We recommend that the Commission should be structured to be eligible for designation as a Fair Employment Practices Agency (FEPA) in a contract with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). That means it would receive and process complaints of discrimination in private employment from residents of Charlottesville. [emphasis added]

How could Charlottesville City Hall, arguably the City’s most egregious and prodigious racial offender—an organization that allegedly has institutionalized racist employment practices—be exempt from the Commission’s mandate?

According to Mayor Satyendra Huja, it will not. In January 23 interview on WINA’s The Schilling Show, Huja categorically stated that he would not support Heinecke’s proposal if the Commission exempted government from its purview:

SCHILLING: Why would we exempt the government [from Charlottesville Human Rights Commission oversight] when they are acknowledged as a problem by at least several councilors? Or do you disagree with that?

HUJA: I don’t think, uh, I was unaware that the government was exempt from any consternation…

SCHILLING: Oh, they were. Go read, uh, go read Mr. Heinecke’s proposal. It exempts the government; it is only…

HUJA: I see no reason…

SCHILLING: It is only for private landlords and private businesses

HUJA: I see no reason if you’re going to have commission, uh, the government should be exempt. Uh, no reason for it.

SCHILLING: So you wouldn’t support it under any circumstances if the government was exempt?

HUJA: Well, uh, shouldn’t be exempt.

SCHILLING: So you wouldn’t support it under any circumstances if the government was exempt? In this final proposal, if it came before you, you wouldn’t do that.

HUJA: I, I don’t understand why government is exempt; I don’t see any reason.

SCHILLING: Okay, so you wouldn’t support it.

HUJA: No.

Hear the Huja/Schilling exchange on the proposed exclusion of government from Human Rights Commission purview:

Given Mayor Huja’s additional stated concerns about the $200,000-$300,000 annual cost of the Commission on Human Rights and the lack of data to support its necessity, Heinecke’s current proposal may be DOA before Charlottesville City Council without significant modification.

Regardless of Council’s ultimate action on Heinecke’s remedial proposition, the question remains: Why would Professor Heinecke and his Community Dialogue on Race “working group” champion a proposal that exempts Charlottesville City Hall, purportedly the city’s most notorious racial malefactor?

(Satyendra Huja photo courtesy of Charlottesville Tomorrow.)