Now, as Paul Harvey always states "The Rest of the Story". After receiving the Notice of Hearing from the Municipal Code Enforcement Board, I submitted my Formal complaint which I will attach to this posting. I sent the formal complaint to the City Manager as well as the Community Advocate. It was sent to the City in three different ways, I sent it by email, by facsimile, and by registered return receipt US Mail. All three methods were received. The following is the email that I sent to the City Manager’s office to the Executive Assistant to Mr. Ryan:
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 11:53 AM
To: Daniels, Kathy; Thomas, Jim
Subject:- Request for Assistance and Letter of Complaint
- Dynamic IP detected
Importance: High
Ms. Daniels,
Attached is a letter of complaint that I am requesting assistance with from the Office of the City Manager as well as informing the Community Advocate. I am also sending this letter by certified mail with a return receipt requested and by facsimile as well. A copy is also being sent to the Community Advocate. If I could receive some assistance with regards to this matter I would be very grateful.
Respectfully,
David A. Vindich
The very next day, I was contacted by the Community Advocate, Mr. Thomas, by email. He was
a CC on the original email as well as the facsimile that was sent. He stated that he would look into my concerns and get back to me. I immediately responded with the following email:
On 11/8/2011 5:25 PM, Thomas, Jim wrote:
Hi David, I was checking to see you have heard from Mike Bauer as of today, during a brief discussion I was informed that he was going to contact you. I did not speak with him directly but I did speak with our code enforcement/City Attorney. From what I understand there is no pending code case now. In addition, the notice had crossed in the mail within a day of the last inspection that indicated there was no current violations.
This is better explained by Mr. Bauer but I did not want you to think we were not following up on your concerns. Again, it was brief discussion I had with the City Attorney as he was preparing for tonight's council meeting. Just the same he took the time to tell me that there was no longer a pending case and indicated that the letter had crossed in the mail as Mr. Bauer made a follow up visit.
For informational purposes we did have a meeting that lasted over half a day on Friday. Courtney was involved as well as the city manager and all other department heads. Likewise we another such meeting on Monday morning as I attended both. In addition, besides Social Services, Planning and Zoning, and Code Enforcement Courtney oversees (Manages) Economic Development which is currently in transition as a vacant position. Currently that area quite busy with potential projects which is a positive for the city. Both her and the City Manager have been working in that capacity as well as tending to their normal responsibilities for the past two weeks.
We regularly have Planning and Zoning meetings (Courtney's Department), code meetings (Courtney's Department) and Council meetings such as tonight. Council meetings can involve many departments but almost always involves Planning and Zoning. On a today like today some of the salaried personnel may come in as early 8:00 am and be here as late or later than 12 midnight. What I am explaining is the department heads can easily work well over 40-50 or even 60 hours. Therefore there are times during the work week that a manager may not be as accessible or may flex some time due to the work load.
Let me know if you do not hear from Mr. Bauer and what else I can do to assist you, I just wanted to make sure I made contact prior to going upstairs to the meeting. My phone number is listed below if you would rather contact me by phone rather than email. Sorry for your inconvenience.
Jim Thomas
Community Relations
My response to Mr. Thomas’ email is below:
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 11:40 AM
To: Thomas, Jim
Cc: Daniels, Kathy
Subject: jim.thomas@Titusville.com - Re: jim.thomas@titusville.com - Request for Assistance and Letter of Complaint
Importance: High
Mr. Thomas,
First, I want to thank you for responding. However, I now have more concerns dealing with your response. I will address each issue but I want you to know a little bit about myself as well. I am a retired Marine Corps Officer that has spent 26 years supporting this great country of ours. I have lived by a code of ethics which seems to be lacking in our public officials these days and I have a huge problem with this and come **** or high water, I see things through to the end; I am not always right but I stand up for what I believe in and have integrity.
You stated below that Mr. Bauer will contact me but at this point he has not. I spoke with him personally on 2 Nov and I believe that if he said he would contact me then he will when he has a chance. You stated that you spoke with the Code Enforcement/City Attorney and he stated that their was no pending case against me and that the summons to appear before the Municipal Code Enforcement Board crossed in the mail. Forgive me if I do not understand your procedures; are you stating that I am now going to get another letter prior to the 14th of November stating that the violations have been corrected and that I no longer need to appear? Pardon me if I am just a little skeptical because at this point the City has not been exactly truthful and certain individuals take it upon themselves to change the laws. I do not want to "NOT SHOW" for my hearing as "DIRECTED" and then find out that I am in more supposed trouble. If there is no procedure in place to notify the "Defendant" that the complaints are no longer valid then I think the Board needs to rectify that and create the proper procedures to dismiss a case once the subpoena has been issued.
You state that many of the salaried individuals work in excess of 40 hours and sometimes take "Flex Time" to compensate as a reason why Ms. Barker was unavailable on the Friday. First, what was the date of the Friday you were referring to? You see, if we are talking the same date, then something is amiss here. You state that Ms. Barker was in a meeting with you on Friday and again on Monday but did not list any dates. However, I was told that on the Friday that I refer to in my complaint, I was told by Mr. Randy Woodruff, Ms. Barker's Code Enforcement Manager, that Ms. Barker had left for the day to take care of a family issue. To many conflicting stories makes me a little skeptical about what I am being told.
I understand that you are telling me that there is no longer a Code Violation; which is good news and I am pleased especially since the accusations were false. However, my complaint has not been addressed and as far as I am aware there has been no action taken to correct the situation. The situation that I am referring to is the fact that Ms. Barker took it upon herself to change the regulations of the City and violated my rights by taking an anonymous complaint and then harassing me over an invalid code violation and threatening further City Legal Action. According to Mr. Bauer, Ms. Barker sent him specifically to my address on 2 November to inspect. This in no way constitutes random inspections but specifically targets an individual. I believe that the City of Titusville is over run with Code Violations and could keep the Code Enforcement Department and the Municipal Code Enforcement Board busy for years to come without specifically targeting anyone.
You state that Ms. Barker is actually performing the duties of Economic Development which is currently vacant. You would think with the unemployment rate as high as it is that the City would hire a qualified individual to perform the duties of Economic Development for the City, which in my line of work is Business Development. I am currently unemployed, hire me to perform those duties. I do not want to get sarcastic but I believe that you can understand my frustration and I would like to know what is going to be done to 1) Satisfy my complaint with Ms. Barker and 2) Identify the person and/or persons that allegedly made the complaint against me as it is my right to face my accuser as my name has been Slandered by this individual. As I stated in my letter to the City Manager that I provided you with a copy of, my next step is the US Marshal's Office to request help and after that the State Government. However, I hope that it does not have to go that route and that we can resolve the two issues at the lowest level possible.
I want to thank you again for your response and I do accept your apology for the inconvenience, however, it is now more than an inconvenience. I appreciate the offer to call but I do not know your schedule and would hate to interrupt; what would be a good time to talk as I would like to discuss this situation further, perhaps a face to face meeting would be beneficial and I am amenable to a meeting with you concerning this issue. Please let me know what is best for you and your schedule.
Respectfully,
David A. VindichMr. Thomas replied back to most of my concerns within the above email as you can see from his response posted below:
From: Thomas, Jim
Sent: Wednesday, November 09, 2011 1:34 PM
To:
Subject: FW: jim.thomas@Titusville.com - Re: jim.thomas@titusville.com - Request for Assistance and Letterof Complaint - Dynamic IP detected - Email has different SMTP TO: and MIME TO: fields in the email addresses
Importance: High
The Friday I was referring to was Friday November 4, the meeting began at 8:30 and ended around noon. The Monday meeting November 6. The information was not meant as a minute by minute accounting but was provided to you since I was also present and it was the only information I could offer you at the time that I knew to be correct and factual. I do not know what may or may have occurred the rest of the day.
As far as code enforcement, there is job announcement on the street for a interim director. The Economic Development position was just vacated and the direction is a state of flux while the city council decides how they want to proceed with the position. The City of Titusville, Florida - Employment Opportunities
“I do not want to "NOT SHOW" for my hearing as "DIRECTED" and then find out that I am in more supposed trouble”
I understand your concern completely and will get the answer for you quickly.
“ I would like to discuss this situation further, perhaps a face to face meeting would be beneficial”
I agree with you one hundred percent, I think that is always best, I am not a big fan of emails.
· Let me see what I can find out about the current status of anonymous complaints and I will re-contact you and see when we can meet.
26 years is a long career, most military personnel that make 20 seem to leave then or shortly thereafter. I only did four, said I would never regret getting out even though I liked the military. It took while but eventually I regretting not make a career of it.
I will get back to you quickly.
Jim Thomas
Mr. Thomas then sent a few more emails which I responded to each and everyone. Well, I can sit here and post copies of all the emails, but you can see at this point that I have an email dialogue going with Mr. Thomas. I grew very tired of emails and requested a meeting face to face. We had the meeting on Friday, 18 November 2011 which of course was after the Hearing. I continued to request an official notice of cancellation of my requirement to appear before the Municipal Code Enforcement Board but only got an email from Mr. Thomas stating that I did not have to attend and a hand written notice on the back of Mr. Bauer’s business card taped to my front door of my home stating that I did not have to appear. This again proved my point that the city does not have proper procedures in place to notify individuals that they do not have to appear once they have been summoned. In my opinion, this is unprofessional and demonstrates a Board that does not know what they are really doing. The bottom line was that I provided the proper documentation that I was in compliance with the Codes that I was being charged with violating, that I was told to appear before the Municipal Board and I was financially threatened by the city. However, the anonymous Plaintiff escapes again and my Constitutional Rights are violated along with my Civil Rights. Not trusting an inept City Board, My wife attended the hearing to ensure that I did not have to appear. Our case number was called last and it was dismissed and I was deemed to be in compliance; End of Story; or is it?
My meeting with Mr. Thomas was very casual and professional. I informed him of the entire history of the Code Violations concerning my property. I told him how my neighbor lady who worked for the city abused her position and had my vehicle towed because she did not like the way it looked (another story), how I was turned in by a fictitious character that appeared the evening before as a character in the Movie of the week on TV….a Mrs. Kredalcamp, because the City will not take anonymous complaints, and the Coup de Taut of complaints, how I was turned in by my neighbor and when he was confronted about it denied he turned me in and went to City Hall to Code Enforcement and had the complaint dropped and stipulated Identity Theft. Mr. Thomas stated he had no idea and I told him it is all in the records and that this is now verging on Harassment. I informed him that I was not going to let the situation drop and that Ms. Barker had abused her trust and misused her position and that I was going to pursue disciplinary action and an apology by the City. The funny thing about all of this is the fact that I received an anonymous telephone message telling me that I need to send my complaint directly to the Mayor himself otherwise nothing would be done. The person that left the message did not identify themselves nor did they identify the office that they work for. When I told Mr. Thomas this, he was visible shaken by this fact. I wish I new how to take a cell phone message and turn it into an audio file and post it here….if someone knows please tell me.
I read in the forum that and I quote
“Have y'all considered that we've only heard one side of this story?” You must realize that the one side of the story is also backed up with documentation out the waaazoo and that I am not afraid to post it for all to form their own opinions. However, as some have said in the forum and I really believe it and that is One must stand up for what he not only believes in but for what is right. Again, I will tell you that if I am wrong, I will be the first to admit it but I will not take this or anything else lying down! I informed Mr. Thomas that I would send my letter of complaint to the Mayor of Titusville directly before going to the US Marshall's office and the State Attorney’s Office. I will try to resolve this issue once and for all at the lowest level possible.
Again, I ask the moderator to not cancel this thread because of one individual. I am trying real hard to behave as promised. I believe that all the members that are paying attention to this thread may learn how to deal with Code Enforcement problems should they occur in their neck of the woods. I am an advocate of using the system against those that have devised the system to the best of my abilities but I also vent my frustration and anger at the apparent ineptness of those that think they are empowered over others. I wonder how the ACLU would weigh in on this situation; I have my own opinions on that one and this is not the place to mention them. Oh, one more thing, please do GOOGLE me by all means as I am very proud of what I have accomplished in my short 51 years!
Stay tuned to the same Bat Channel and hope we don’t get canceled; the next step is the mayor’s letter.
Dave08
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