Freedom of Information? Not in Vienna

What is the Town Clerk using to copy the tapes with? A shredder? I thought that they had just bought up to date equipment?! Although up to date for these clowns is 1960!

Hey maybe we can get the scoop from the reporters there like Brian......oh never mind. Wow Vienna really is on an island alone. We need help unveiling this kind of corruption.

"I see nothing"....(use heavy German accent)

I can't wait to read Mr. Schoeberlein's (that would be Adam) blather on this one. Perhaps a remedial civics lesson on what we get for our tax dollars. Or more sentences that begin "Anyway...", or "See, jerk, I worked with a lot of those guys-well, not in Water and Sewer, but in General Maintenance." I can't wait to see what the self-impressed grammar expert has to say. Maybe something along the line of "And when I had my accident while delivery a pizza on Nutley, it wasn't a County cop that responded". And this putz is a lawyer? Perhaps he meant 'while delivering', or 'while making a pizza delivery'. Lawyers deliver pizza? Not in my @#*^ing neighborhood, they don't. Adam, you'll notice I actually signed my name. And, unlike you who's "lived in Vienna for quite a while", my number's in the phone book. I've got the "jewels" (jewels?). Threaten to come to my place of employment, idiot. And just so we know, screw your father, too. I didn't vote for him, or his "award-worthy" budgets. Putz.

Some background here...the Town takes the verbatim audio tape of their Council meetings, then the Town Clerk sits down with headphones and decides how to interpret the actual words into "minutes". Over the years we have come to learn that the approved minutes often diverge from the actual words used by Council members in ways to make Council members look "better", hence the request for the tape and hence the desire to hear what Cole actually said regarding the election and not some edited interpretation. Well, clearly all we have is the edited version from the Town Clerk and the Town could care less whether anyone ever hears what was actually said. Is this against State law? Yes. What are the options? Lawsuits against the Town over their violation of State FOIA laws. Whose idea is that? The State of Virginia is recommending lawsuits against the Town over FOIA matters.

What does all of this mean? The people who control and run Vienna government like to play games and they know their is no oversight, so their reaction is: "who cares, sue us".

NOTE: Can these goofs buys a digital recorder from CompUSA for a few hundred bucks and dump the exact audio to their website after each meeting? Of course they can, but if they do that then the Town Clerk can't supply the *magic* editing that Vienna has used for decades. And yes, the Clerk only does the process as Maud orders. In the end all of this editing allows Council members to act like morons, it allows their Board members to act like bullies and overall it let's them modify what actually happened. A great example? When Bukont lost his marbles, instead of "minutes" that match the video we have on this site the Town was able to say something to the effect of "Mr. Bukont was having a discussion..." when he was really losing his marbles. Great system eh?

I can't wait to read Mr. Schoeberlein's (that would be Adam) blather on this one. Perhaps a remedial civics lesson on what we get for our tax dollars. Or more sentences that begin "Anyway...", or "See, jerk, I worked with a lot of those guys-well, not in Water and Sewer, but in General Maintenance." I can't wait to see what the self-impressed grammar expert has to say. Maybe something along the line of "And when I had my accident while delivery a pizza on Nutley, it wasn't a County cop that responded". And this putz is a lawyer? Perhaps he meant 'while delivering', or 'while making a pizza delivery'. Lawyers deliver pizza? Not in my @#*^ing neighborhood, they don't. Adam, you'll notice I actually signed my name. And, unlike you who's "lived in Vienna for quite a while", my number's in the phone book. I've got the "jewels" (jewels?). Threaten to come to my place of employment, idiot. And just so we know, screw your father, too. I didn't vote for him, or his "award-worthy" budgets. Putz.

My goodness.

P.S. Mark: I'm a little bothered that you're so upset and confrontational ... and that you were clearly trying to find out where I live. What is it that you planned on doing with that information, had you found it? Or when you find it?

Not that it matters to you, I'm sure, but I the post that upset you so much was my response to someone who was advocating the firing of a bunch of guys who work their butts off for us. As for the "threaten to go down to where you work," I think you're blowing it a bit out of proportion. This guy ("vienna resident") wanted someone to go down and take pictures of guys who had been busting themselves on a job for about 17 hours, in the hopes that it would embarass them. So I suggested that maybe I could come down to where he works, take pictures of him, and demand that he be fired. Seems only fair, right? Not exactly a "threat;" more like making a point.

Second, yes, I use "anyway" too much when I type/speak in a familiar way.

Third, yes, I'm a lawyer.

Fourth, I delivered pizza when I was 19. I wasn't a lawyer yet. Far from it. I got into an accident. It happened.

Fifth, yeah, I guess I mispelled a word or two in my post. I probably meant what you suggested.

Sixth, the town manager isn't elected.

Last, let me ask again: why were you trying to find out where I live?

I came back on here and started using my name and tried to be "nicer" (rather than suggesting that someone who didn't see a banner had their head you-know-where), and I thought maybe I'd learn something from you guys, and you might learn something from me. I've said elsewhere, in fact, that I can empathize with what people are feeling about the historic district. But I've also tried to learn a bit more about the legalities and finer points involving the situation as well ... so that I can be more informed on the issue and make my mind up one way or the other. Clearly, I failed, at least with respect to you, Mark. My bad, oh well.

BUT WHY WERE YOU TRYING TO FIND OUT WHERE I LIVE? Answer that question.

Adam:
Frankly, where you live is of no interest to me, although I'll admit I'm curious as to where in the Town homes generate a tax bill of "between $1,500 and $2,000." I only paid about $1,100 in Town tax for 2006, and I thought I lived in a pretty nice neighborhood. And I'm confrontational? Go back and read your response to "vienna resident", dated 6-6 reference the Town Green. Name calling, remarks about bad grammar (followed by your own use of the same), imploring people to move. Perhaps a modification in tone is called for, counselor. I'm surprised that no one else took you to task after that rant. Incidentally, I'm fully aware that the Town Manager is appointed, not elected. I've only lived in the ToV for 46 years.

The main issue is the TOV is wrong here.

They broke the law allowing Rhoda to remain in the polling place. They knew it was wrong, and the Mayor even boasted about it. Jane even prided herself in the fact that this was the way Vienna Politics was going to be played.

What gives?

Something was said on that tape that the TOV does not want revealed, so they did want comes naturally for a corrupt government. FOIA all you want, the tape is gone! Are you going to dust the tape for prints? Go ahead, chase these geese, and you'll get nowhere. WE ARE UNTOUCHABLE!!!!!!!!!!!

Yeah, I know I "went off" a bit in that response. But it was called for, in my opinion, because of the substance of "vienna resident"'s posting. I pointed out his/her grammatical mistakes to try to highlight the irony of his/her having called others out as "inept," and as being "andy, floyd, gomer," etc. I implored him/her to move because he/she said he/she was thinking about doing so -- and I found that post (and others by the same pseudonym) to be angry and highly offensive. So like I said, someone like that leaving generally would tend to raise the "total happiness" in the community. And so on. As for why "no one else took [me] to task after that rant," I dunno, but maybe people were able to understand where I was coming from -- it was wholly unfair to attack the W&S guys like that. I called him/her a "jerk" because he/she IS a jerk -- or at least appears to be based on the content of his/her posting to which I was responding.

I agree -- a modification in tone IS appropriate, and not just by me. Re-read your response to me. Re-read a lot of stuff on this site. There's a lot of acrimony and unfounded personal attacks here. Some/many of the issues raised are very valid, but sometimes the way they are raised and then argued about winds up discounting their validity because of all the meanness. And I agree -- my responses to what I take to be unfair personal attacks or insufficiently founded conclusions haven't always been the most emotionally neutral or founded themselves.

As for the town manager, I pointed that out because you said something about not having voted for him.

Let's see, what else: oh, I live in a house that appears to be a perennial favorite of the county assessment people, and it goes up by metes and bounds every damn year. I think it's actually assessed higher than zillow.com says it's worth (for whatever zillow is worth, that is). I live in southeast in a fairly new home, which accounts for the (what I take to be) ridiculous assessment(s).

The reason I am concerned about you trying to find out where I live is that when I saw that you had been sleuthing in the phonebook for my whereabouts, I googled your name. One of the hits is a webpage called "packing.org" or something like that, and it's a gun-nut site dedicated to concealed firearms laws. It's owned/run by a guy named Mark Solomon. With all the crazy internet loons running around, and me having a wife and small child, I'm sure you understand my initial/continuing concern.

oh, and I'd love to continue chatting with you, but this has gotten far afield of FOIA requests to the town. To the extent you want to continue the back-and-forth, let's do it via email:

adamonhistoricvienna@yahoo.com

Nice Chewbacca Adam. Mark wanted your comments on the inability to give town residents information from a public meeting and then we got off on some other tangent. Clearly the issue and the problem is that this TC does not want the citizens to be aware of what they are doing. They have been allowed to get away with this for entirely too long which is why they and detractors of HV hate it so much. That is the point!

Here is Adam before he became Mr. Nice Guy.

frustrated:

My thoughts are that I do think that the town should take steps to "digitize" its processes, to the extent that they are not already. That includes tape recordings as well as .pdf conversion of hard-copy documents. To the extent that it is affordable, I don't see why it shouldn't happen. However, I'm not prepared to say that there was some nefarious element at play in the apparent loss of a tape. Stuff gets lost or damaged in the ordinary course of business all the time. That said, a .wav or .mp3 or other type of sound file backed up on a storage drive seems like a better way to do it, and perhaps safer (from a loss/damage perspective).

Adam

p.s. What is the Chewbacca/wookie stuff? I've seen it quite a few times here ...

Opps, seriously. Haven't we beaten that horse enough?

I admit that the "head up the [...]" comment was overly confrontational. As was the "no one gives a rat's [...]" comment. But my points would have been the same had I used different language. The banner was right there, in your face. And it IS true that very few (although not "no one") care much about council meetings or meetings of the Windover Heights board (outside those directly affected by the board). Sad as that might be, it's just true -- look at voter turnout in town, for crying out loud.

Other than that, look at the other comments -- "the qualified candidates won;" "there aren't many undecideds in Vienna;" "keep your kids away from 123;" "I [personally] don't go to council meetings, because I don't care enough [to waste an evening on it];" etc. So what? I'm still missing what is so bad about those comments.

Okay, your turn to take a swing at the horse.

Adam et al, The issue here is that the Town Council and Town Clerk Carol Orndorff -- who was also the Town Elections Monitor who allowed Rhoda to stay at the polls -- are colluding to prevent the public from knowing exactly what was said at the Town Council meeting about the elections.

One participants style is interesting. I don't know if it stems from religion, law or psychiatry but it follows a pattern of confession. Reminds me of the conceited guy who after going to a psychiatrist says he is now the nicest guy you could ever meet.

I believe they are "digitized" and once was told that they have "state of the art" machines for listening and transcribing. It is affordable to have these meetings televised.

Yet one of the pitfalls for this TC would be the loss of power in pitting one group of people against the other. We really do not live in some back water place. (I didn't mean to insult any back water place because I think they are more advanced than Vienna VA). I sure am willing to go so far to say it is nefarious

The reason I am concerned about you trying to find out where I live is that when I saw that you had been sleuthing in the phonebook for my whereabouts, I googled your name. One of the hits is a webpage called "packing.org" or something like that, and it's a gun-nut site dedicated to concealed firearms laws. It's owned/run by a guy named Mark Solomon. With all the crazy internet loons running around, and me having a wife and small child, I'm sure you understand my initial/continuing concern.

Posted by: Adam M Schoeberlein | June 20, 2007 08:35 AM

More [now deleted public picture site], Adam? Why would you collect and publish [now deleted public picture site] if you are so concerned about [now deleted public picture site]?

Wow, that was really sick and over the top. Just wow. Well, I don't want any part of this place anymore. Enjoy your blogging.

I just ask that you please not post pictures of my child, his name, or my house anymore. Thank you very much.

Too late, novadam... r6dink... etc. Your pics have been nabbed. You have shown yourself to be an immature punk, a [...], a [...], and a fancier of crude [...]... and [...]. You also appear to be overly obsessed with material [...], to the point of "having" a [...] & [...] who "earn" your attention on weekends. You don't talk to your [...] much but you respect [...] a hell of a lot. You're 35 and you spend an inordinate amount of time confessing and explaining yourself to strangers as though you know you are not on track... I'd say it's time for you to turn yourself around... get offline, stay offline, visit your [...] often, and [...] your [...]. Need a focus? Wake up, honor your [...], honor your [...]. And get rid of the [...] fridge in the garage... the trip into the kitchen will do you all some good.

NOTE: This post was edited due to libel accusations and threats of litigation.

TG, I think you are way out of bounds on this one. While I don’t agree with all your points of view I can certainly appreciate them, much like my feeling about HV. I think your personal bashing of Adam in this case was uncalled for. If this site is to emerge as anything but a novelty it has to be open to all points of view. Continued name-calling, and belittling of others just won't attract a diverse audience and does nothing to enhance its cause. Perhaps that is what some people here want. Personally I wouldn't want a bunch of 'yes men’ simply regurgitating the party line. It makes life a bit boring.

Back on subject, I think the Town should keep a clean audio record of all meetings. It shouldn’t matter that they have minutes already typed. We should still have a clean audio (and video) of all meetings. From other postings it sounds like they have the ability just not the desire, which is troubling.

Frank, point taken. But I feel that it is important to be intolerant of certain bigotry. I did everybody concerned a service despite any ruffled feelings.

Post above was edited due to lawsuit threats. It appeared the point of Town Green was to show that AS's talk of privacy in a debate with Mark Solomon was questionable as AS had put his life in full view of the world on assorted public forums. It is also assumed that Town Green was questioning the high and mighty attitude of AS on this site given his other public statements floating around the web. Perhaps, TG will clear up his/her motivations for his/her original post above.

For the record, I [don't] run, nor am I connected with, ANY websites. Adam's feeble attempt to link me to a "gun-nut site" was, I assume, simply another effort to divert attention from his apparently well-known rants. Please be careful where you tread, counselor. You may not be the only lawyer posting on this site. Thank you in advance. All ToV meetings should be in the public domain, either through the use of audio or video recordings. Some interesting shenanigans have been exposed already; that may, in fact, be exactly why the participants don't want residents to have easy access to the proceedings.

More [confusion of purpose], Adam? Why would you collect and publish [these] if you are so concerned about [your privacy]?

[links to Adam's public photo site]

>>Perhaps, TG will clear up his/her motivations for his/her original post above.

I questioned (and answered) insincerity that undermines honest discovery and constructive dialogue on this public forum. Adam can go sue himself in front of a mirror and post more pictures. Take responsibility for your own actions, Adam. Instead of threatening litigation, you should be thanking us for prompting you to stop publishing a picture tour of your house, possessions, and family... not to mention all of that other sordid material.