MIAMI MIRROR TRUE REFLECTIONS

THE HAPPIEST WOMAN IN THE WORLD

The Problem Does Not Exist
24 March 2014
By David Arthur Walters
MIAMI MIRROR
Sylvia Crespo-Tabak, Human Resources Administrator for the City of Miami Beach, who has
always been courteous and helpful in responding to my requests for public personnel records
providing that I follow up when she does not answer, said that she would be the happiest
woman in the world when the citys information reached the point I had recommended for the
near future, a completely paperless system with the consolidation of all HR records except
exempted records in a publicly accessible database.
That is, I wrote, the sort of system I enjoyed a decade ago in the private sector.
I had asked her to provide any records she had that either the citys former fire marshal, Sonia
Machen, or its former fire chief, Eric Yuhr, had been certified by the State of Florida as a
Firesafety Inspector. I assumed the record would be immediately accessible because state
certification is prerequisite to the authority of local fire chiefs to enforce the states Fire Safety
Code. If a local fire chief is not a certified Firesafety Inspector, he must hire or contract with
one.
Ms. Crespo-Tabak referred my request to staff for research. Two weeks later, lacking a
response from staff, I managed to obtain a photocopy of Sonia Machens certificate from the
private sector, and I sent it along to her so she would have the crucial record on file.
I recall an incident sometime ago, I reminisced about the notorious David Weston Affair in my
email to her, where Clerk Parcher discovered to his dismay that two HR files were being kept
on a fire department employee, one that was held back from a public records request. Is there
a policy to keep part of employee files confidential?

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She replied that she found it difficult to address matters from the past, but could speak to the
present. Pre-employment medical and criminal screening records were confidential, she said.
An employees official personnel file is the one maintained in Human Resources. Departments
also keep personnel files where supervisory notes are maintained and where department
copies of relevant paperwork are stored. There may be information in the departmental files
that do not make it to the official personnel file.
I was gratified that she would be the happiest woman in the world if her record system could
be brought up to par with that found in the private sector many years ago. I responded to her
ecstatically, outlining persistent issues with the citys information technology and consequent
communications deficits over the years. I copied officials of the departments that would be
most interested in the subject: City Manager, City Attorney, Police, and Special Master. My
email was headed, IT & Communications Deficiencies.
Madame, I understand. Time and time again I heard of informational deficiencies from
departments over the years, and I wondered why the IT Department and the Propaganda
Department have not been reformed so that the city may provide services I was able to provide
to a public corporation with an off the shelf modifiable program. Everyone seems to have cause
to blame the computer instead the operators in front of the monitors. Code claims it cannot
make a simple query and report on demand. To add fields and explain dispositions on online
forms is apparently impossible. MBPD has little incentive to regularly cough up crime stats truly
meaningful to the community because it is damned whatever it does, and would be tempted to
manipulate data collection in its favor. Special Master clerks are keeping records on bearskins
and storing them in a cave, while Special Master hearings are not broadcast and posted online,
and tentative agendas not announced via email, that despite an initiative we discussed years
ago in a legal oversight hearing, where our Judge Judy was accused of too passionately applying
the law to facts instead of applying facts to laws. The deficiencies result in warranted and
unwarranted suspicions and accusations of incompetence, ineptitude, dereliction, and
corruption. A better result would be had by improving informational services than suppressing
criticism for political ends. The world including technology has moved way ahead of our local
governmental practices, and I will be as happy as you to see our city catch up to the best
benchmark. Sincerely Yours, David Arthur Walters
She took immediate affront to my fervent attempt to arouse official interest in this important
public business. The 261-word email I had typed out with one finger on my touch pad was too
long for her although quite brief for me because much of my life is lived on a continuous page,
and, when I am writing instead of reading, my articles run 10,000 words on the average. People
doing the publics business do not have time to think for long, so I had kept my email short.

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She definitely did not like the fact that I had copied other public officials with my email
although she knows I am a passionate reporter and my lovers complaint was public record as a
matter of law.
I find it personally upsetting, she confessed in her 190-word Reply to All, to hear anyone
refer to the City administration with which I so closely identify referred to as having a
Propaganda Department and to read all the other assertions set forth in your email. I have been
very responsive to your inquiries and provided all the information youve requested and done
so gladly. Please do not misinterpret my comment, The day we get to that point, I will be the
happiest woman in the world! as a criticism of the organization. I was trying to keep the
conversation between us light and pleasant; it was a simple comment with no great meaning or
agenda behind it. The last thing I want is to turn this into a back and forth exchange of long
emails. Its not productive. But, please, when you communicate with me, lets go back to how
things were: simple inquiries to which I responded to in a timely basis with a pleasant exchange
of niceties. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to get emails criticizing MY organization and
seeing a large number of people copied. BTW: this email does not require a response. Thanks.
Of course I responded, and tempestuously, although I was not required to do so, but with only
130 words.
Thank you for speaking your mind as I did, which is commendable. I see you are on board with
the traditional practice to denounce valid constructive criticism, and opinions deemed
offensive, for instance, to your Communications Department, which is a propaganda organ, not
that propaganda in itself lies, but frankly speaking it has deficiencies that are maintained by a
similar attitude. Time and time again I have made positive suggestions in a nice tone but to no
avail, and I have always thanked you for your service. That you decide to be personally
offended and endear yourself with an adminstration and political regime that has allowed
inefficiencies to persist is standard protocol. I do not blame you for institutional blindness, and I
thank you for your self portrait. Yours Sincerely
I did have second thoughts, so was moved to add 86 words of apology in a follow up email.
Follow up: Madame, Thank you for being the unwilling recipient for the venting of my
frustrations, which I wrongly thought you shared. My email happened to be impassioned by a
faulty tomato sauce dispenser that squirted sauce all over my best dress shirt on my way to a
meeting with a confidential informant. I certain wish you the felicity you said you would have
on perfection of the information system. Thank you for your excellent service in that past, and
for the newsworthy information. David Arthur Walters

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Fortunately, I was able to save the shirt by soaking it in detergent for a week, but that is beside
the point, that I managed to extract information out of Human Resources, although it might not
be newsworthy to those who already know that only positive criticism of the new regime is
appreciated, and that any negative criticism will get you fired or banned for life.
Sometimes I long for the good old bad days of the previous regime, with email circulating
furiously between back-biting city officials and activists. Sometimes I miss former City Attorney
Jose Smiths derogatory email, with copies to public officials and editors and anyone else who
happens to be included along the way. He loved to apply the word delusional to anyone
critical of the city he felt he personified. He copied everyone concerned in his instruction to the
city clerk to cull all my public record requests and any information he had about my
applications for permits and the like in order to retaliate with a lawsuit against me for criticizing
him.
All that was supposed to change when the Opposition shoed in Jimmy Nice Guy Morales, a
political insider, into the city manager position, and Philip King Levine purchased a majority
for the commission.
Mayor Levine, whose campaign started off by threatening to sue critics for defamation, is
improving his propaganda technique now that he is in office. If he would grimace less, smile
more, bring dissidents into the fold, co-opting their criticism, he might make a good
ambassador when his friend Hillary Clinton wins the presidency.
City Manager Morales is not as nice as he seems, and his word is not very good, none of which
is surprising for a lawyer and politician. He gave his word not to brush the allegations of
whistleblower David Weston, a fire inspector fired by the previous regime on a trumped up city
ethics charge that the county ethics commission had already cleared him of, under the rug. And
that is just what he did, and his rug was none other than Sylvia Crespo-Tabaks HR department,
who summarily dismissed his concerns.
Weston was particularly critical of the behavior of Fire Marshal Sonia Machen and hence her
boss Fire Chief Eric Yuhr. All Weston wanted was the collection of fees due to the city and
county, whistleblower legislation that would allow whistleblowers to file claims with the county
ethics commission instead of bringing expensive suits in circuit court, and coverage of the city
by the countys inspector general.
I urged him to sue the city for defamation and have his file cleansed of the libel against him. He
desisted, although his wife is an attorney and they are affluent, saying litigation would be a
waste of time and money better spent with continued efforts to clean up the mess and prevent

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it from happening again. Actually, his approach is more like that of an honest and dedicated
bureaucrat than a troublemaking activist.
When I related to Mr. Weston how Ms. Crespo-Tabak was offended by email, he said the city
needed a bigger suggestion box. I relayed that excellent suggestion on to Mr. Morales, that a
single online facility be created for reception of all suggestions, which the city clerk would refer
to the proper officials and duly follow up on. Since constructive suggestions are based on
complaints, and complaints are the cause of civilizations progress from tyranny to liberty, why
not treat suggestions as complaints?
Mr. Morales did not deign to reply to my constructive suggestion.
Mr. Weston recounted the issue he had with personnel recordkeeping, an issue that the
current regime finds difficult to address because it is in the past.
I requested to see my HR file. When I came in and looked at it I found numerous missing
documents, principally my awards. However, also missing was the annual filing of outside
employment that I copied the Miami Beach Fire Department with. As a result of this I wrote to
the city Clerk, Rob Parcher. I was told that a second personnel file existed and that would be
sent over from the fire department for me to view. I wrote another letter that there were still
documents missing.
Fire marshal Machen had made some accusations about my not filing outside employment
reports. But I had continued to make annual reports as required by County ethic codes to the
city clerk. These reports were made with the city clerk and I had my own copies with a receipt
from the city clerk.
Later in time I was checking the website at the clerks office where outside employment
records were stored as PDF. To my surprise I found that all of my annual reports were no longer
on the website. I reported the matter to the Miami Beach Police Department and Florida
Department of Law Enforcement. As evidence I gave them copies of my clerk-stamped records.
According to them Fire Department officials had falsely accused me of never filing. My
documentation proved otherwise.
As for your reporting on the disposition of my complaints by the city administrations, my data
laid out comprehensively to Manager Morales and the various HR Directors clearly showed a
pattern of racketeering directed towards me and the citizens of Miami Beach. Law
enforcement agencies when reviewing my records found me entirely credible. I was told by law
enforcement that Miami Beach Fire Department officials accused me of tampering with permit
fees and lowering charges. What Miami Beach officials did not know at the time of their false

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reports was that I had both gone to the police and I had comprehensive records demonstrating
otherwise.
Only guilty parties try to construct an alternate-theory-of-the-crime. Therefore based upon the
way I was and am currently treated I continue suspect wrongdoing. The recent events of $19
million of parking concurrency missing and millions of dollars of WASA connection fees not paid
only strengthen my belief that something is still rotten.
Now, then, lets see, in the many years that have passed since my departure, how many
damming articles have been written about me? How many about the city of Miami Beach? The
difference should answer questions anyone may have as to the truth of my complaints.
All this is past history, too much really to sweep under the rug because the bulges create a
hazard that might be tripped on. Human Resources may need one of those huge vacuum
cleaners used to suck debris from openings in the sewers.
Propagandists have several proven techniques at their disposal: minimize the problem, call for
more evidence, shift the blame, cherry-pick data, attack alternatives, hire friendly auditors, or
just deny the problem.
Ms. Crespo-Tabak was just being light and pleasant when she said she would be the happiest
woman in the world upon the improvement of her information system. What she meant to do
is deny that the problem exists since she took over.
Perhaps the silence of the public officials included in the communication proves that there is no
such problem. After all, if there were no one to perceive a tree fall down in the forest, then
trees as such would not exist.
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Related:
CITY OF MIAMI BEACH BLAMES BAD MANAGEMENT ON COMPUTER
https://www.scribd.com/doc/244608402/Blame-the-Computer

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