Festa Rewrites Reality--Or Tries

Foreword:  The post titled "Zoning Commission" has been completed now, if you had read that before December 3.

My goal of completeness and  straight sequence for this post proved to be very daunting, probably for readers as much as for your faithful blogger.  However, the record of the whole meeting may by now be on the township's website.  If it is, I have no guesses about its quality.  However, since the attacks on me and the blog claim that the blog is inaccurate (a charitable word for those claims), maybe you should look for yourself.  By the time I sit through a meeting, taking notes, work on the blog, and then check against a recording for some things, I have had enough.


The November 20 trustees meeting followed the November 11 first meeting of the Building Assessment Committee.  Your faithful blogger ended up being secretary pro tem for that meeting and will report on that in the blog--perhaps to some extent in this post.  And now, away we go.

Old Business
John Festa:   I wanted to talk about the assessment meeting at the school.  The contractors seemed to be pretty excited and had the opportunity to walk through the building and make some notes and asked questions.  I think their main goal was to get in their hands what we are trying to focus on.  If we want to put Township offices in there, then they would have to do certain things for access and code items.

We went through the whole building.  It turned out pretty well.  I had an issue the way it was presented and thought about it and thought differently.  [This is the first part of the elaborate CYA that trustee Festa crafted during this meeting.]  I thought Todd Peetz said it would be contractors only.  [Dead flat 180 degrees opposite of what Todd had always presented.  Todd's approach always seemed to be that this was a highly democratic, participative community activity.  The contractors were added in a memo from Jason, and then the idea slid into contractors only.  At the October 22 meeting in the Civic Center which was intended as a kickoff meeting to give everyone a chance to hear the same thing, a number of residents wanted to be on the Building Assessment Committee.  One person said that so many were interested because the building was still under threat (Larry Leitzow:  "We gotta tear this building down") and without the building, all of the other committees were irrelevant.  Another person at that meeting said that the word on the street was that two of the trustees wanted to get rid of it.]   

John Festa, continuing:  There were quite a few people there from the community who attended.  It is pretty good that it be open and transparent.  But the whole group was not there.  [This is another cover story that will take a while to get to, but we will get there.]  They may have felt left out.

I think all of the communication should be open and free flowing.  [Blogger's emphasis.  Now watch carefully what comes next.]

One of the contractors was complaining about one of the volunteer members  following people with a camera and the person refused to stop.  I am not going to mention any names, but I am going to make it clear that I am not going to tolerate that.  [Public Comment will give the rest of the story on this little jewel.]

Continuing:  Jerry Carlton showed up and provided a copy of what he spent on his building.  I wanted you [Marie, probably] to get a copy of that.  His building was $1,185,000.  That only included the interior.  He did not walk through the [school] building but offered his information.
[What Jerry spent on his building is completely irrelevant in talking about ours, for any number of reasons.  There has been a concerted effort to scare the township residents away from the school building by raising issues about a "money pit" and bewailing taxpayer expense, and just wait until that one gets demolished.  What Jerry spent is part of the scare tactics.] 

Continuing:  The next committee meeting is going to be on December 2 and I hope that everyone gets a chance to be there.  I don't want to lose control of the process.

[Eh?  The process was delegated to Todd Peetz as a way of taking the bias out of the township, as Jason put it.  Todd understands process and facilitation. A process has to be kept working, because people can get off track with dazzling speed.  So a process has to be managed.  Lay you odds that what John Festa really doesn't want to lose control of is the outcome:  to carry out his sponsor Larry's intentions regarding the building.  He and one contractor are doing back flips to that end.]

Jason:  It is a good idea to keep our finger on the pulse.
[Blogger:  And how do you expect to do that, Jason, having been absent from both the 11/11 and 12/2 meetings?  Management by hearsay is a poor substitute for knowledge.]
Continuing:  Folks on the committee are volunteering their time to provide professional input and there can be too many cooks in the kitchen.  If too many people are there it seems as if they [the contractors] are being micromanaged.

[OK.  That last sentence is a terrific example of something that is usually hard to define about the way this bunch operates.  You've heard the cliche that the best defense is a good offense?  Well, a variation is that the best defense is to accuse someone else of what you are doing yourself. There are many examples of that swirling through these meetings and discussions, because we are approaching the end game about the school building.  If this examination is being conducted with the intention of developing a good, reasonable plan for us to get into and use the building, nothing will have to be spun.  If this was just another ploy on the way to doing something to rob the people of the  township of something irreplaceable,  Jason will stand exposed by his own acts and no amount of spin will cover it up.  Why shift to Jason?  He campaigned the first time on promising to work to get us into the old school building.  He's the wheel horse on this disunified team. And he knows it.]

Jason, continuing:  I have said to Todd Peetz that the residents not cause problems.  I think the way things are going so far things seem to be OK.  [To repeat:  He hasn't been there.  How can he say this?]

John Festa:  I am not talking about just the assessment committee.  I think all should be open and people should have the right to attend.  [Blogger:  We will come back to this as a separate post or a separate whole section, rather than an insertion.  It's too freighted to do otherwise.]

That does not mean they should have input, but if they want to observe they should be able to.  I think Todd Peetz should give us an e-mail about this.  [Blogger:  Actually, by tonight's meeting, the Building Assessment Committee already had chosen an extremely competent chair and co-chair, and Todd is able to let them handle how the committee works.]

Vic:  Not all of the contractors were at that meeting and a couple of others were not able to make it.  Cal Brant attended just to hear what was said.  I think it was a good meeting and we are headed in the right direction.  [Note:  Cal had stopped at the school to see Ellie Monroe, who was there for the last evening potluck of the season, and realized that maybe it would be informative to sit in on the BAC meeting.]
   
                           *    *     *       *     *    *     *     *     *     *
Blogger:  This was a stopping point.  This post now continues through public comment, one part of which was lengthy but significant.

Public Comment

Marie Stehli:  I am speaking for Shirley Shuster, who asked me after the Chamber of Commerce meeting who is in charge of the roads; she is pleased with how the roads are being handled.

John Festa:  What happened to the animal hospital [just east of Mantua Corners]?
Vic:  They moved it in next to the Dollar Store.

Mark Hall had no comment this evening, and Steve Zielinski wished everyone a happy Thanksgiving.

Blogger:  The exchange that follows was recounted in the previous post, but rather than chasing a reader back there, here it is again, with the rest of the story.

Dave Pollard, S.R. 82:  First, what was the final disposition and resolution of the issue with the way the chairs were left piled up at the Civic Center after the clambake?

Jason:  That was brought up at the last meeting.  Did you not get enough information about that?

Dave:    When I was helping put chairs away after the October 22 meeting, the chairs were just piled.  The Ruritans have been holding that clambake for 20 years and they never left it like that.
Talking with John Festa after the meeting with Todd Peetz, I said, "There is no excuse for this."
He said, "I agree, Dave."
Dave:  I said, "Whoever did leave these [like this] should lose their deposit."
He said, "I couldn't agree more."
Dave:  I wondered what happened after that.  He said that Ruritan members went over and straightened up when they were putting the flags up.  If the building had been rented between times, it was a mess.
  
John Festa:  I can answer that.  The two Ruritans were doing volunteer work to put the flagpoles up.  I brought up the fact that the chairs were left in poor shape.  They went in and took care of it and straightened out the mess with no complaint. I had no problem with that.

Jason:  As far as their deposit, we left that in Sue Skrovan's hands about what to do about the deposit.
Jason then asked Sue about the situation.

Sue:  I am not really on the agenda, so I am not always sure whether I can speak.  I gave the check to Marie.  I am going to submit my additional hours for cleaning and that will probably come out to about half of the deposit.  I could hold the whole deposit but rarely do.  There was more than just the chairs.  I let everyone know who rented in the meantime to be careful about the chairs.

John Festa:  I never mentioned their deposit.

[Blogger:  This is one of those times that sounds fairly reasonable until you get the rest of the story.  A good piece of the issue here is whether policies are applied as consistently as possible or whether some people get special treatment.  The work on the flagpoles was some time after the clambake.  The policy is that once the keys have been turned in after a rental, that's it--the renters do not go back into the building. 
Obviously, John Festa ignored the policy in order to do a favor.

The other piece of this is Jason's turning this over to Sue.  He is so practiced at this kind of evasion of accountability that it sounds matter of fact.]

Next, Dave referred to the November 11 meeting of the Building Assessment Committee.

Dave:  Also, regarding the committee meetings at the school building--those really are Todd's and the contractors' and whoever is in charge of each committee.

John Festa:  I admit that--I am big enough to change my mind.  [Blogger:  Not his mind.  His story.]

Dave:  That's good, because the chair and co-chair and others made it clear that they wanted the meetings open.  [Blogger:  I was, as you know, at that meeting.  The need for openness and transparency was repeated several times by both the chair--Dan Tillett-- and the co-chair--Eric Hummel.  At that point, John Festa's statements suddenly changed, and that's the story he's maintaining now.]

John Festa:  The trustees were never notified.

{Blogger:  Oh?  John Festa, at the October 22 meeting in the Civic Center, first tried to keep the next meeting out of the school until two professionals who were there insisted that the meeting be held on site.  Then he said he could let everyone in.  Vic attended the November 11 meeting, so he knew about it.]

[There was back and forth between Dave and John Festa about who knew about the meeting and who did not.  I am of the opinion that the time and place were pretty well known, but that the intention was not to have a meeting open to all, regardless of all of the protestations in this meeting.  John Festa's intense reaction at the beginning of the November 11 meeting at the school supports that view.  I am not going to try to do a whole transcript of that, but the first five minutes or so are pretty telling.] 



John Festa:  Let's leave it at that.   Every committee that is in this process has to be open.  It has to be transparent and open.  So if I find out that someone is meeting somewhere that is not open I am going to be upset with that.

John Festa:  I am not going to lose control of this process.  If there is something I don't lilke, I will say something.

Dave commented that the trustees had hired Todd to facilitate the process.

John Festa:  A facilitator takes what the trustees have decided and makes it happen. He makes sure the pieces come together.  He is not a dictator.  He is a facilitator.
 [Blogger:  This is the most outrageous piece of spin I have ever heard--to even suggest that Todd has tried to dictate anything.  Look at John Festa's comments about control and laying down the law and "not on my watch" kind of things, and then decide who is the dictator.  Or would like to be.]

Dave:  About the camera.  I am the man who had the camera.

John Festa:  I never mentioned your name.

Dave:  I am a big enough man to say I am the person who had the camera.  I never poked it in everyone's face.  You and the electrical contractor didn't want to be recorded.  The chair and vice chair both said they had no problem with it.  I did not feel I stuck the camera in anyone's face.  I may do it [videotape] again.

John Festa:  Maybe all of those meetings should be taped. 

[Blogger:  OK, regardless of how this whole post may be to read, trying to get a transcript is enough to glaze the eyes of a marble statue.  As Dave stated, the electrical contractor in the group said he didn't want to be recorded; Dave said he was merely panning across the room; subsequently, John Festa told Dave to turn off the camera.  At that point, as I understand it, Dave told trustee Festa that both the chair and co-chair had no trouble with the camera being used.  So John Festa's great claims about openness are pretty questionable.]   

Blogger summary and note:  After the remarks between Dave and John Festa about the Building Assessment Committee meeting, Dave  commented on what he thought may happen about the video card for the camera that John Festa may get set up in this lifetime.  There was some back and forth about that--that Dave expects that there will be a request for the card, not merely what is on it.  During this conversation, John Festa made another pious remark about giving public records, as he has been trained to do in the meetings for that purpose.  Right.  In a subsequent post, you will see how well he follows that.

Carole Pollard, Allyn Road:  I think quite a bit about that contractors' meeting has been spun.  You did know about it, John Festa.  I was gratified that the chair and co-chair and Todd Peetz were solid in their support of openness.  Todd Peetz has supported that openness all along.

You can not by law prevent someone from recording a meeting, as I understand it.  That is a lawyer's statement in regard to other meetings I have been involved in.  Whatever it is, you can not prevent it.  That is for audio recordings or video recordings.

I think that some of the things that have gone on here tonight were an attempt to re-write history, because what we heard tonight is not what we heard last Tuesday [November 11 at the Building Assessment Committee meeting].

There is another piece.  Nobody else has the ability to facilitate a meeting.  Todd does.  He has done it successfully a number of times.  I think that if this is going to go well, the trustees should not be managing it and controlling it.  Todd is perfectly capable of doing that and it will run perfectly well without anybody else's trying to manipulate things.

 There is a lot of lip service paid to openness and trusting the people until it really comes time to do that and trust the people and then there is anxiety out the gazoo.  The people know what they want and have said that a number of times and now the contractors--the true professionals in that group--are assessing the building very conscientiously, and I think you can trust that.

It may not be what you want to hear, or what we want to hear.  But if the integrity of the process--if you mean what you say--then you will trust what they are saying and you will not squeegee them into doing what you want them to do or what somebody has told you you should do, because I think there is a lot of that going on, too. .