Action Summit
The notice below is posted on the city website. Sounds good until you remember Mayor James previous committees that went no-where and I don’t have much faith in his “Mayors Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Equality” All of a sudden YOUR VISION and your input on the priorities that matter most to you is what the city is seeking. Then it hit me. James is starting his campaign for re-election for a second Mayoral run. So tell the people what they want to hear.
“Action Summit”
Post Date:11/13/2020 11:48 AM
WEST PALM BEACH, FLA (November 13, 2020) — Join us on Saturday, December 5, 2020 from 10:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. for the first-ever West Palm Beach Racial and Ethnic Equality Action Summit! This highly interactive virtual public event will serve as an opportunity for residents and stakeholders to weigh in on the priorities that matter most to them and to influence the work of the Mayor’s Task Force on Racial and Ethnic Equality. This is a chance for us to hear YOUR VISION for a more equitable City of West Palm Beach. Your input will play an important role in influencing local decisionmakers and recommendations from the Mayors Task Force for Racial and Ethnic Equality.” Read the invitation here: https://bit.ly/3ptUfeK
This is how James cares about your input and vision from his early day’s as a City Commissioner, and two commissioners who attempted to have the timing of the meetings and public comment scheduled to a more convenient time for residents to be included.
Keith James has demonstrated a record on the West Palm Beach City Commission of being opposed to greater citizen input/ participation at City Commission meetings. Below are excerpts:
“The city commission leaves the public comment part to the end of its meetings, sometimes more than three hours after they start. Only a few residents usually remain, and they are normally there to criticize the mayor and commissioners.
Commissioners Shanon Materio and Kimberly Mitchell want to allow the public to speak early and return public comment to a more convenient time for residents, like it was before former Mayor Lois Frankel advocated for the late-meeting comments.
Most of Palm Beach County’s larger municipalities allow public comment at the start of their meetings.
Mayor Jeri Muoio doesn’t favor the move but said she’d put it on the commission’s agenda if requested. Commissioner Keith James agreed with Muoio that public comment is best at the end. “Those who have matters on the agenda which are scheduled probably deserve to go first simply because there has been an effort to get that item on the agenda,” James said. The city commission favored business owners and senior citizens over working-class residents Monday, electing not to move meetings to the evening and keeping public comment at the end of their agendas.
Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell wanted the starting time of meetings to be moved from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m. so people with regular work hours could attend. The commission voted in 2008 for a 5 p.m. start time, but then-Mayor Lois Frankel vetoed the measure.
Mitchell also said at Monday’s commission work session that she wanted public comment scheduled at the beginning of meetings so residents wouldn’t have to wait hours to speak. However, Commissioner Keith James said the commission needs to address its business agenda before hearing from the public. (Palm Beach Post, January 28, 2013)
“I would like to get the legislative business done so those who are there for legislative business are assured their opportunity to address us,” James said. (Palm Beach Post, May 10, 2011)
Mayor Muoio attempted to move public comment to the end of the meetings and received pushback and she listened, I’m sure much to James distress, and left public comment at the beginning of meetings.
Now that James is king he does what he wants and listens to no-one.
From 2011 thru 2020 the last people James wants to hear from are residents, and if he could find a way to end it–he would.
Let’s end on a positive note. The Fraternal Order Of Police and Firefighters the two organizations that are there for us are now asking for our help.
You’ve read this far so please take the time to view the link below and if possible let’s help them help the Marcos Children.
Join WPB First Responders in Support of a Fundraiser. The Marcos children tragically lost their mother this year and are orphaned. Help us support them and their foster family as they are forced to adapt to their new life.
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WPB Police Not Needed with PSC on the Job!
City Commission meeting to be held 11/16/2020 item #14 below.
My comments in Italics.
14. Resolution No. 323-20 approving a Services Contract for Security Services with Professional Security Consultants at an annual fee of $1,809,017.30, which is fully budgeted in the FY 2020-21 budget.
Probably funds from the Fire Fee, and be aware the firefighters are begging negotiating a decent pay raise, and James is standing firm with his offer, take it or leave it, after raising the fire fee from $50.00 to $100.00, raising millions more from taxpayers.
RESOLUTION NO. 323-20: A RESOLUTION OF THE CITY COMMISSION OF THE CITY OF WEST PALM BEACH, FLORIDA, APPROVING THE SERVICES CONTRACT FOR SECURITY SERVICES WITH PROFESSIONAL SECURITY CONSULTANTS AND AUTHORIZING EXECUTION OF THE AGREEMENT; PROVIDING AN EFFECTIVE DATE AND FOR OTHER PURPOSES.
This contract will cost taxpayers a million + dollars more than the previous contract and this contract calls for
“The City Commission applied the City’s Living Wage requirements to the procurement. Accordingly, the contract provides that no security officer providing services under the Contract will be paid less than $15 per hour”
Is that where the taxpayer Million + dollars are going-to give pay raises to PSC security guards, better know as “Ambassadors” Shouldn’t PSC Securities be responsible for giving pay raises to their employees who by the way have their Corporate Headquarters in Los Angeles, CA. Giddens Security is based in Jacksonville Fl. Why is the money being spent out of state?
Fiscal Note:
Annual cost of $1,809,017.30 is fully-budgeted in fiscal year 2020-21. Cost over 3-year term will be $5,427,051.90.
After the 3 year contract ends do you believe PSC wont have the contract extended another 2 years for a total of $9,045,086.50?
Read the City’s agenda for 11/16/2020 meeting below.
https://www.wpb.org/Home/ShowDocument?id=2693
“The other applicants under the new request for proposals include Giddens Security Corp., which previously guarded City Hall, the library and Northwood. The city solicited competitive proposals from firms early in 2019 but James canceled that solicitation within two weeks of taking office in April, instead recommending the city commission hire PSC.”
City Commissioner’s listened to the Harvard graduate Mayor, voted approval and walked the city into a lawsuit.
“Evaluation committee picks five finalists from 15 bidders for multimillion-dollar West Palm Beach security contract.
Professional Security Concepts ties for second.
WEST PALM BEACH — The security guard company whose close ties to city hall led to the cancellation of a no-bid contract tied Wednesday for second place among 15 firms vying for the city’s multimillion-dollar security business. In fourth came Alliance Universal Security Services/Universal Protection Services with 540; and Security Alliance LLC with 532. Amid calls for investigation, James, on the advice of his new administrator, Faye Johnson, announced he would rescind the PSC contract and order a new request for proposals. PSC has continued to handle the city’s guard work in the meantime.
PSC still on the job month to month.
Meanwhile, Perez drew fire after a departing city employee in October accused him of having texted her a photo of a penis. He denied wrongdoing.
Professional Security Consultants, doing business as Professional Security Concepts, tied for second place with industry giant G4S Secure Solutions (USA) Inc., with 583 points.
Giddens Security, the company forced out last fall when the city handed the no-bid contract to PSC was ranked first by the evaluation committee of officials from seven West Palm Beach departments. Giddens scored 594 out of 710 points.”
Read the entire PB Post story below:
I have a question: Who’s palm is being greased?
In November, Related Cos., owner of the Rosemary Square retail venue, dropped PSC as its security guard contractor.
FYI
WPB Watch readers have questioned what happened to the petition to recall Mayor Keith James. Here’s the story.
An attorney volunteered to write the petition so we would not have legal problems with the wording.
We needed volunteers to gather signatures of registered voters. People stepped forward to volunteer with 2 residents willing to set up shop outside their grocery store to gather signatures.
Others were willing to go door to door and where ever people gathered.
What happened was the Corona Virus, and the country basically shut down. So what happened–James got lucky—again.
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WPB Honors Henry Flagler, Really ?
The residents of West Palm Beach have elected a Mayor and City Commission who can’t be bothered to investigate any new projects it votes to accept because it is easier to spend a few minutes and listen to staff’s recommendation. Below are excerpts from a story in the PB Post, and it tells of a new project and honors Henry Flagler.
The project manager is WGI, (Wantman Group) the project is $32 million dollars, it was decided at the CRA meeting where Commissioner Lambert voted approval of the project. When the project goes before the City Commission Lambert will vote again for approval.
The Wantman Group has received another lucrative contract from the city. This is the same company who employs Jeffrey Brophy, senior vice president of WGI and Mr. Brophy owns a home in Andros Isles and rented his home to then City Commissioner Keith James who voted approval on every contract that contained a WGI contract. James said he paid “fair market value” for the rent, but never showed proof.
It gets better for WGI after City Commissioner Christine Lambert was sworn in and 4 months later WGI hired her husband Monty as a Senior Business Development Manager.
Lambert stated previously the WPB ethics officer made the decision she had no conflict of interest in voting for WGI projects. I say WPB has no ethics since April 4,2019.
Do you believe the Lambert’s wont benefit from her vote? Read the excerpts and the entire story below.
“An old spur that was part of Henry Flagler’s railroad a century ago will become West Palm Beach’s latest park, a linear spot to rise near the northern edge of downtown.
The city commissioners, acting as the Community Redevelopment Agency board, last week approved a $500,000 contribution to create the park behind Flagler Station, an eight-story apartment building designed for downtown workers, at Banyan Boulevard and North Tamarind Avenue.
The 34-foot-wide, landscaped, lighted park will run behind the building, between Tamarind and Sapodilla avenues. Plans call for installing a “ghost train,” an outdoor artwork recalling the trains that once rode the rail, which will remain in place.
“Everybody deserves great open spaces close to where they live. That’s always the goal of our projects,” Christopher Roog, executive director of the redevelopment agency, said Friday.
The 94 affordable apartments and park, expected to cost a total of $32 million, are scheduled for completion in early to mid-2022.
Edwin Muller, project manager for WGI, said Flagler Station is designed as a gateway for downtown and for the historic neighborhood to its north.
The developer is HTG Banyan LLC, a Coconut Grove-based affordable housing builder, whose project manager is WGI Inc., a West Palm Beach design and consulting firm.”
If you take the time to read the Post story please notice the additional story “West Palm presses for $21 million sea-level grant to help redo Currie Park.” Where is the $30 million dollar Park Bond voters gave the city in 2020? Certainly didn’t go to Police and Firefighter contract for pay raises.
Tolerance for violence is readily accepted in 2020. America is in crisis with cities being torn apart, burning down cities, looting, destroying statues and Americans killing each other over slavery the Confederacy and shooting of unarmed black men.
Lets take a look back to Henry Flagler, who never owned a slave, he leased them, and what he did to bring the railroad to Florida, and let them ask themselves if honoring Flagler is the right thing to do. Read how “Flagler co-opted powerful news outlets to spread distorted versions of events” Get the press on your side and your side is the winner.
“How slave labor built the state of Florida — decades after the Civil War.”
From 1885 to 1913, Standard Oil founder Henry Flagler built an empire in Florida of railroads, hotels, steamship lines, resorts, even cities, from Jacksonville to Key West. He raised Palm Beach and Miami from the sand. And like another real estate tycoon, his name is blazoned across the state’s landscape: Flagler College, Flagler County, Flagler Memorial Bridge, Flagler Beach.
Few know, however, that Flagler built his tourist empire — and modern Florida — by exploiting two brutal labor systems that blanketed the South for 50 years after the Civil War: convict leasing and debt peonage. Created to preserve the white supremacist racial order and to address the South’s labor shortages, these systems targeted African Americans, stealing their labor and entrapping them in state-sanctioned forms of involuntary servitude.
Committed to preserving his and the state’s reputation, Flagler co-opted powerful news outlets to spread distorted versions of events.
When the U.S. Justice Department, African American leaders and northern muckraking journalists exposed Flagler’s labor practices, he colluded with powerful government, newspaper and business interests in Florida to whitewash public knowledge and, by extension, the historical record itself.
Flagler and Florida were not aberrations. Convict lease laws in almost every Southern state essentially criminalized blackness, providing a means for authorities to arrest freed people for pseudo-crimes like vagrancy, lease them to private companies and force their labor.”‘
Read the entire story in the Washington Post below.
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James and the Ethics Task Force
Prior to being elected Mayor, Keith James served as the District 4 City Commissioner from 2011 – 2019
WPB Watch posted a story on October 18, 2020 titled ” Keith James has Another Committee.” and if you read the story you are aware both committee’s went nowhere. So where did it begin, these committee’s that were finished before they began, and committee members time and effort in their attempt to aid the city, wasted. We must return to 2007 and 2010, where James received his start from former Mayor Frankel.
ETHICS TASK FORCE
Keith James’ leadership of former Mayor Lois Frankel’s Ethics Task Force was questioned. There were questions raised about whether he was committed to the implementation of Ethics Reforms. Below are excerpts:
The task force, hand-picked by Frankel, recommended establishing an ethics officer, requiring commissioners to disclose ties involving businesses and requiring ethics training by employees. The city didn’t adopt many other suggestions, including setting up the hot line where ethics violations could be reported. Some city officials say the city never went far enough to rid itself of ethics problems. “The whole thing was kind of colluded,” Commissioner Kimberly Mitchell said. “We backed into an ethics program. It was more of a moment where the city was saying, ‘See, we have an ethics committee,’ and never really took the recommendations of an ethics committee.”
Frankel said a hot line, which would have been under the city’s internal auditor’s office, wasn’t necessary because the state has its own for citizens to lodge complaints. “It keeps us independent,” Frankel said. “People shouldn’t have to call us to complain about us.” Attorney Keith James, who chaired the task force, had a more positive outlook than Badesh of the panel’s achievements. “We made some very specific recommendations, they were very well thought out, and it was very well received by the city,” James said.
You know a city is ethically challenged when the treatment of its ethics task force raises ethical questions.
Welcome to West Palm Beach, which has fed two city commissioners to federal prison in the past year but cannot bring itself to adopt some obvious reforms. How about an ethics hot line? How about registering lobbyists? How about elected officials disclosing their business clients?
(Palm Beach Post, July 5, 2010)
Modest, common-sense changes that would help restore public confidence in a scandal-ridden government, but city leaders are balking. If Moses had brought the commandments to West Palm Beach, we’d have only six of them. Why the stalling? The answer from city hall is that doing too much might interfere with the work of a state grand jury — a second one — that is investigating the corruption in the city.
Mayor Lois Frankel first said the city couldn’t take up any ethics proposals “out of respect for the grand jury,” as if some conflict existed. Now, she says the city must act “methodically” and adopt selective reforms. She has declined to bring forward all the recommendations of the 10-member ethics task force she handpicked a year ago. Two members of that task force — Scott Badesh, CEO of the United Way of Palm Beach County, and David Clark, president of Palm Beach Atlantic University — have called for a meeting, ideally with city commissioners, to discuss their proposals. Dr. Clark wrote to the city that the panel needs “to meet and report or just fade away.” But no meeting. And no action on several key recommendations.
West Palm Beach attorney Keith James, the mayor’s choice to chair the task force, recently has adopted the mayor’s position on muzzling the task force. In one of the most curious bits of commentary to wash ashore in the wake of the city’s scandal, Mr. James asserts that the panel has to remain in hibernation. “I have decided that it would not be wise to meet until after the grand jury issues its report,”
Mr. James wrote to the city. “My primary concern is that our discourse will be chilled or worse, that given our frustration and dissatisfaction with some of its past work, something might be said to trigger further investigation by that body.” The comment is intriguing for several reasons. First, the only measurable “frustration and dissatisfaction” in the city with the first grand jury’s report came from Mayor Frankel and state Rep. Mary Brandenburg.
The mayor objected to the jurors’ characterization of West Palm Beach as a “pay-to-play” city that favored developers’ interests over those of common citizens. The report was not kind to the mayor.
Rep. Brandenburg, who in a strange twist of fate happens to be a member of the ethics task force, was critical of the report for suggesting that she tried to pressure a not-for-profit group to contribute to the mayor’s campaign. Rep. Brandenburg has filed legal motions to keep the grand jurors’ references about her secret.
Perhaps the more titillating part of Mr. James’ comment is that talking about ethical reform might somehow “trigger further investigation” by the current grand jury. Keith James, chairman of the city’s ethics task force, said the grand jury misunderstood the West Palm Beach ethics panel’s job. “We are a temporary task force created to give our recommendations and then be disbanded,” he said. He said the task force may recommend the creation of a permanent ethics board.
(Palm Beach Post, September 2, 2007)
(Palm Beach Post, February 3, 2007)
So what s the outcome when people forget the past? We elected him a City Commissioner and Mayor of West Palm Beach so he can form new committee’s that go nowhere.