I purposely waited six hours after hearing about today's ridiculous Arkansas Supreme Court ruling about the Fort Smith Board of Director's intentional, prolonged and continuing disdain for the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act before starting to write this.
This is my fifth draft. The first four attempts probably would have landed me in court. Or jail. Or worse.
Given the fact that a fifth grade editor of a elementary school newspaper is smart enough to realize you can't do public business in private by email and NOT violate the FOIA laws, I never saw today's decision coming.
In a 5-4 vote, the Arkansas Supreme Court basically said today that incompetent, amoral gaggle of tiddly-wink local politicians and their equally inept and pandering hand-picked "administrator" can conduct business any damn way they choose. Or at least that's how they will frame it since that's the way they approach it anyway.
And our right as taxpayers to know who what, when, where and why be damned.
The bottom line. This doesn't really change anything. It just puts an official stamp of approval on the egregious, nihilistic, arrogant and obtuse behavior of these miscreants and spits in the face of the citizens of Fort Smith.
Because what was, is...the way they did business in those emails that should have (at the least) resulted in a misdemeanor conviction and a fine for four people is simply the way they still continue to do business. Without fear of repercussion, in the dark and without regards to the citizens of this community.
You have a city administrator that doesn't tell the Board of Directors anything he feels they don't need to know because HE is the arbitrator on who needs to know what...up to and including freezing out HIS BOSSES (the BOD and the citizens of Fort Smith)on the details on the consent decree he is brokering with the federal government to not sharing with the BOD what he knew about an accident at the P Street treatment plant that almost killed a city employee, ol' Carl likes to play his cards close to his vest.
Hell...you can even watch porn on company time, insult the citizens of Fort Smith on the official city Facebook page, allow the hiring of a guy looking at a possible felony conviction to be the second in charge at the police department, and oversee a massive exodus from that same department of tenured, valuable employees because...you know...diversity. And be perfectly safe in doing so if you are in the right "circle".
City directors can vote on issues they should recuse themselves from because of conflict of interest, talk their way out of traffic tickets by intimidating rookie cops, use private emails to do public business so it doesn't show up on the city email dump and rig BOD votes in an effort to appease their puppet masters that REALLY pull the strings in this city.
And speaking of the city email dump....that's exactly what it is. A dump. You would think if they city was going to feign transparency by having a place on the city website where citizens can access the "emails" of the BOD, you would make it accessible and update it more often than every four months.
Who put this thing together? My six-year-old granddaughter has better IT skills that whoever is running this mess. Of course, it was never meant to be more than a facade of smoke and mirrors in the first place but you would at least think they would try to make it look convincing.
I don't know how this travesty of "justice" occurred in the Arkansas Supreme Court today. Either the state Supreme Court is inept, corrupt or bought off. Or a combination of all three. Lord knows "bought and paid for" runs rampant in these parts. So I'm really not surprised.
Either enforce the law or just do away with law entirely... the public would be none the worse for wear since today's star chamber decision has basically rendered it moot anyway.
I just about gagged at the city's release concerning this matter today. For Carl Geffken to go on the record and state "the city of Fort Smith now and always champions Arkansas' "Sunshine Law" shows just how out of touch with reality and lacking in common sense he really is...or he just knows no shame.
There are a lot of things that people can go to hell for and lying is also one of them. Bunch of trifling horse thieves.
Yeah. I said it.
I've been nice, I been patient. I have picked my battles and I have bitten my tongue on too many occasions. But the gloves are now off. There are still ways and means to keep this clown circus on the straight and narrow and starting NOW the rules of engagement change.
Given what I did publish on this matter, you can imagine what I DIDN'T publish. And we're coming for you all. And when I say all, I mean all. Every damn one of you.
And while I may be pissed off right now, I'm smarter than a fifth grader.
So...advantage me.
