SAFETY SUMMIT HELD BY CITY HAD LITTLE TO DO WITH SAFETY AND MORE TO DO WITH DOG & PONY SHOW FOR LAST TERM MAYOR STODOLA'S CAMPAIGN FOR ANOTHER TERM AND WASTING PUBLIC FUNDS

The city of Little Rock hosted a so called "Community Safety Summit" this past week.  There was little discussion of any real substance and noticeably absent was any speaker from the Little Rock Police Department. How can the city have a summit on safety and not include a panel member from the police department?

Perhaps befouled LRPD Chief Kenton Tremar Buckner could not participate as perhaps he was out of town due to another job interview.

Maybe it was because the whole affair was a public relations stunt for Stodola's campaign for mayor and the New Orleans mayor's campaign for president - an office he joked that he was not seeking even though he is speaking about not running all over the county at events like this. If NOLA mayor Mitch Landrieu does not run for president, he might consider taking  his stand-up comedy routine out on the road. More on that later.

Individuals were invited to sign up to attend the all day event or segments.

OUR PUBLISHER OPTED TO ATTEND THE FULL DAY EVENT

Last term mayor Mark Stodola made opening remarks, but said little about safety, crime and in particular homicides  (at time of publication of the post LR has 14 so far this year).

MAYOR MARK STODOLA URGES ATTENDEES TO MOVE TO THE FRONT, SAYING HE WON'T BITE.

The morning segment was sparsely attended. It dealt mostly with how an organization could get city funding or rather apply for limited funding that these organizations would have to fight for.
 

MANY OF THE ATTENDEES WERE CITY EMPLOYEES

Only two City Directors, Ward 3 representative and Vice-Mayor Kathy Webb and Ward 7 representative B.J. Wyrick were present at the beginning of the event. Ward 6 Director Doris Wright slipped in just in time to eat lunch.

Luckily coffee and snacks were provided to help pass the time you were wasting waiting for lunch and to wonder when you would hear about safety issues.

The first two hours covered how to apply for some of the limited funding the city has for community programs and how to search Google to additional sources of funding. Obviously an extremely hard effort was put into this by the city.

The first speaker to mention anything about crime and broach racism was Anthony Smith with Cities United.

FIRST MENTION OF A REAL SAFETY ISSUE WAS BY ANTHONY SMITH

 
Smith, after getting updated homicide numbers from the crowd when he low balled the current total, quickly re-calculated that Little Rock has experienced 255 homicides from 2012 to the present day.

Apparently Cities United has problems with facts.  Their website states that Little Rock, ALASKA instead of ARKANSAS is a partner city.

Smith had a panel of preachers that did not directly deal with safety in Little Rock. They touted their programs - helping the needy and mentoring to youth- and it seemed as if they had supporters mixed in with the city employees that made up most of the morning audience.

Missing from this panel was Little Rock's most prominent anti-violence advocate Rev. Benny Johnson, founder and President of Arkansas Stop the Violence.  

REV. BENNY JOHNSON WAS NOT INCLUDED IN THE MAYOR'S FAKE SUMMIT

Rev. Johnson has been vocal about concerns with the racially divided Little Rock Police Department and city leadership's lack of leadership. Rev. Johnson was lucky LRPD officers that responded to a 911 call he made last year about shots fired near his residence did not shoot him when they mistook his cellphone for a gun. You can read our post about that incident by clicking here.

The most useful thing in the entire morning session was the presentation by Tyler Corwin with the Casey Family Programs. It really had nothing to do with safety either, but it was one thing that could actually be used by many activist here in our city.

Corwin showed the data resources his agency could offer and their system makes the city of Little Rock's Open Data Portal what is really is, a piece of clunky, unusable junk. 

The Casey Family Community Opportunity Map was the tool he demonstrated.

It has a plethora of information that can be obtained by a click. Their system clearly shows the racial divide in our city north and south of the Wilbur Mills Express Way/I-630.

SOUTH OF I-630

NORTH OF I-630

The information paints a startling picture, but we knew that there was some truth to what people say about living south of I-630, but here is the data to back up that "urban truth" in living color.

City of LR Performance & Innovation Coordinator Melissa Bridges, looked like she was drooling at the slick mapping system Corwin was using. 

Our publisher recently attended a half day of training put on by Bridges and came away from it with the impression that the city's data portal was a good idea but it is years away from being useful other that a PR tool for the city. You can spend hours on their trying to find information only giving up in frustration.

BRIDGES AT THE OPEN DATA PORTAL PRESENTATION IN MARCH

The place got packed for the free lunch and we suspect that city employees were invited to drop in for a plate of barbecue chunks, slaw and potato salad.

After lunch the crowd thinned out again but a lot of older folks drifted in that looked like the ones you see at events held at the Clinton Library.

They were there to hear the the Mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, the guy that proclaimed too much during the event that he would not be running for President in 2020.

Last Term Mayor Stodala introduced Landrieu and admitted he plagiarized parts of his Little Rock for Life plan from his New Orleans for Life plan.

Then Stodola spent quite a bit of time commending and joking about Landrieu getting rid of confederate statues off city property in New Orleans.

We thought that was hilarious as Stodola proclaimed last year that Little Rock did not have that problem when all that was going on down in New Orleans and other placed in the country. Check out our post about Stodola's lie by clicking here.

We thought it was extremely insulting and insensitive for Stodola to praise and joke about the removal of confederate statues (he said Landrieu hid them in a secret vault somewhere) when he has not done diddly-squat to remove the only one off city property here in Little Rock. The one that has "Least we Forget" emblazoned on it.

It was a good thing that they did not permit questions at the end of the event as no doubt Stodola would have been called out by our publisher.

Clearly this was an event set up by Stodola to be used as a talking point in his campaign for another term. It was also a ploy to have the NOLA mayor here supporting Stodola and claiming that he was not running for president.

Clearly this was a waste of taxpayer funds, we will send a FOI request for that and post and update with our findings.

Speaking of FOI requests, part of the crap being doled out in the "how to get funding" part of the "security summit" was actually using FOI requests to get information about successful funding proposal and grant applications. Our publisher almost laughed out loud when this slide popped up on the screens. We have unanswered FOI requests from the city of Little Rock dating back to January.

Two panel participants were odd choices to us.  Mark Perry and Kevin Murphy.

Perry headed up New Futures for Youth until the city of Little Rock and other organizations like the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation pulled funding as well. 

MARK PERRY - HAD TO SHUTTER HIS AGENCY, NEW FUTURES, WHEN CITY CUT FUNDING

http://katv.com/news/local/lr-non-profit-closing-doors-after-28-years

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/2016/06/27/little-rock-youth-development-agency-closing/


Murphy, Chief Deputy Director at Arkansas Community Correction, the agency that Mayor Stodola often blamed for failing to properly supervise probationers that he falsely claimed were behind the crime and violence in the city, seemed another odd one to be presenting information at the "security summit".

KEVIN MURPHY, THE DOUBLE DIPPER AT ACC

Murphy was in the news a while back after it was discovered that he set up a non-profit agency. Mulligan Road,  that used prison inmates probationers to tear down dilapidated structures in Pine Bluff. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/14/us/prison-labor-pine-bluff-arkansas-demolition.html 

http://www.newser.com/story/229666/prisoners-who-tore-down-ark-blight-fear-toxic-exposure.html

http://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/sep/09/state-official-earned-2-salaries-audit-/

That program came under fire and lawsuits as the inmates and probationers were exposed to hazardous conditions on the job - namely toxic asbestos dust.

The Environmental Protection Agency ultimately got involved and after their investigation, a frustrated Murphy sent an email to Pine Bluff city officials saying it would be too expensive to address the agency’s listed shortcomings. “We have shut down the project,” he stated.

Murphy told use in an interview last year that after that experience he would never get involved in any program like that (one that helped inmates and probationers to try and get job skills) ever again.

Murphy introduced Nisha Garmalla the Director of Good Grid.  Good Grid is a
an internet portal called designed to assist Arkansas's former inmates in their transition back to society

http://ualrpublicradio.org/post/website-assists-arkansass-ex-offenders-nears-official-launch

NISHA GRIMALLA

At first glace this looks like it might be useful to coordinate the mostly resistant agencies that assist homeless and others (resistant in that each agency does not want to give up control of their mission and become subservient to rival organizations).

These organization have told us that this database is concerning for advocates.

"Tracking of this information could be turned against the very people it was set out to help. However if it creates a space where overlay and are prevented it would be awesome. Great tool if used safely", one advocate for homeless and voter registration for felons that have paid their debt to society told us.

Another said, " I've actually sent some of our folks to them for help and they were angry with me the next time I saw them. Said that they were told they couldn't help them. So I don't send anyone there anymore".

Lastly we felt so bad for Victor Turner, Director of Housing & Neighborhood Program for the city. He was unable to make his presentation due to a technical failure. Apparently the system that fellow city employee and panel member Melissa Bridges is problematic for city employees as well as citizens.

Voters see through Stodola and know that its #TimeForChange and to #CleanOutLRCityHall .


 

BLACK POLICE OFFICERS FILE CIVIL RIGHTS LAWSUIT AGAINST CITY OF LITTLE ROCK - THEIR ATTORNEY ATTEMPTS TO BLOCK INVITED SUPPORTIVE BLOGGERS FROM ATTENDING THE PRESS CONFERENCE

IS MIKE LAUX REALLY A MONEY-GRUBBING, CARPETBAGGING ROAMING SHYSTER?

This was another bad week for swamped Little Rock City Attorney Tom Carpenter, troubled City Manager Bruce Moore and befouled LRPD Chief Kenton Tremar Buckner.

The roaming State of Chicago licensed attorney Mike Laux - yes Laux has no license to practice law in Arkansas, except in federal courts- something he never told potential clients that sought him out for representation that reached out to us -  filed a lawsuit Monday morning and held a press conference to lay out all the details. 

We say that Laux is a roamer  because we can't pin down where he actually has a real office (we will delve deeper into this in a future post). The information on his webpage is out of date. His LinkedIn page work experience does not match what you can find using a Google search to see what he has posted himself about his own work experience.  We assume he omits firms that he has been associated with in an "of counsel" position when he wears out his welcome or they have finished using him for a particular case in which they needed an smart-ass, over-confident shyster to take a deposition. 

According to city attorney Tom Carpenter, Laux is good at taking depositions (we suspect because he like to badger folks) and has used Laux to speak to classes when he taught courses at the Bowen School of Law. This is ironic as Laux rips Carpenter just about every chance he can. 

The complaint was filed in federal court Monday morning on behalf of LRPD officers Sgt. Willie Davis, Lt. Earnest Whitten, Sgt. Derrick Threadgill, and former LRPD officer Jackie Parker. Laux said Lt. Johnny Gilbert Jr. and Capt. Tonya Washington will join the complaint as soon as they receive letters saying they have the right to sue from EEOC. 

The lawsuit seeks compensatory damages to make up for lost wages, Laux said, but also seeks to enjoin the city from continuing what Laux and the plaintiffs call racist and "uneven" practices in hiring, discipline and promotions. Laux said the LRPD has a clear hierarchy, with older white male officers at the top and black female officers at the bottom.

You can watch an edited version of the press conference.

Or the raw footage we shot of the entire press conference.

Laux was extremely confrontational with fellow blogger, Chef Ean Lee Bordeaux. Laux did not want Bordeaux to cover the press conference for his blog, Corruption Sucks and went so far as to try and snatch Bordeaux's camera.

Laux was butt-hurt about a post Bordeaux made on Facebook back in August 2017, in which Bordeaux referred to Laux in a specific descriptive manner.

Laux then went after the publisher of this blog threatening him with the same banishment as he did Bordeaux, until he found out that one of his clients had personally invited him to attend. Laux tucked tail and went to the corner.

After the press conference Laux made a weak attempt at an apology for his extremely unprofessional behavior before the press conference. Our publisher told him to forget about it and move on. Shit happens, especially when you are dealing with shysters.

We thought that Laux had settled down and were surprised and confused when he demanded that we remove a video we posted on our YouTube channel about the press conference.  He did that in a strange, unprofessional series of emails.

Laux Email Chain by Russ Racop on Scribd

In the emails, Laux flat out lied. 

He claims that he told the publisher that the videos he made of the press conference, the one attended by reporters from the Arkansas Times, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, KARK, FOX16, and KATV  and made video or audio recordings, if shown would be damaging to his clients.

At no time did Laux ever utter that to our publisher.

You can read his emails above and see that for yourself. 

You can also listen to the only voicemail message he left. He called the publisher twice, but only left a message on the second call.

If a "man" will lie about the little things, like details, he will lie about anything. 

To quote Laux, "the truth is the truth." 

The truth is Laux is a liar.

We suspect that the reason Laux did not want anyone to see the videos is because of what he said. Perhaps he made a misstatement of facts.  Perhaps his rambling diatribe might make him look like an idiot. Perhaps the story he told about a childhood event was evidence of some deep rooted bias he wants to keep hidden. We have no idea why he wanted the video record of what he said taken down as once Laux was pressed by the publisher he resorted to name calling and refused to answer questions. Typical shyster move.

We hope that the officers made the right choice in selecting Laux to represent them. Laux might get the city to settle and write out a check, the city seems to do that an awful lot to make real and frivolous lawsuits go away. 

But this lawsuit will not change the way the Little Rock Police Department operates. That is also the unfortunate truth.

The publisher of this blog has been a staunch supporter of the right of Little Rock Black Police Officers Association to exist and has stood up for its members time and time again as a founding member of Citizens for Truth & Credibility in Little Rock Leadership, in this blog and before the Little Rock Board of Directors as a citizen and candidate for the board.

That will not change and that is also the truth.

#TimeForChange #CleanOutLRCItyHall

***UPDATE***

 We obtained an email that Laux sent Bordeux in which he admits that he "procrastinated" when representing him.  That admission can get Laux in trouble here in Arkansas even thought he holds no Arkansas license to practice law.

The Arkansas Office of the Committee on Professional Conduct, that agency that keeps an eye on attorneys, takes a dim view of lawyers that break our rules and laws.

Maybe Laux should brush up on our rules and laws if he is going to be operating in our state. 

Stay tuned, there is a lot more to come of this story.

***UPDATE - 03/19/18***

A reader sent us a screenshot from Laux's Twitter account that explains why he did not want footage of his press conference to be circulating.

Laux said that he was inarticulate. 

We guess that an inarticulate attorney would be damaging to your case and you would be ill-advised to have an inarticulate attorney represent you. 



 

MAYOR WANTS TO TRADE LAND & PARKING DECK FOR A SCULPTURE THAT WILL BE GIVEN TO THE CITY IN 7 YEARS - LATEST SHENNIGANS INVOLVE BACK ROOM DEALS CONCERNING YEARS OF UNPAID RENT BY THE DOWNTOWN LITTLE ROCK PARTNERSHIP AND POLITICAL PAYOFFS

At the agenda meeting last week, last term Mayor Mark Stodola and City Attorney Tom Carpenter were less that truthful concerning the penned deal between the city, the Downtown Little Rock Partnership and the Arkansas Arts Center. 

That deal has the city trading a piece of property it purchased for $500,000  in 1984 and which they then leased to the Downtown Little Rock Partnership to build and operate a parking deck upon. 

The agreement between the city and the Downtown Little Rock Partnership stipulated that the city will take possession of the parking deck in 2025.  That agreement also turns over ownership of a sculpture that the Downtown Partnership purchased for $185,000 in 1979.

That sculpture originally was placed in front of a McDonald's near Capitol and Main Streets back in the 1970's when the city foolishly shut down Main Street to vehicle traffic and bricked it as a pedestrian walkway.  It was later moved across and down the street in 1999 to its current location in front of Union National Plaza at Capitol and Louisiana streets.

The Downtown Partnership has never paid the city a dime and according to city officials the amount of past due rent is somewhere near 1 million dollars.

Why has the city not demanded the past due rent?  Why has the city not taken legal action to take over the parking deck for unpaid rent?

We will tell you why.  The Downtown Partnership is full of developers and members of the Chamber of Commerce and last term Mayor Stodola and troubled City Manager Bruce "Home Wrecker" Moore are board members and in are their pockets.

You will also notice that Director Dean Kumpuris is also a board member. That should make the vote interesting next Tuesday night as Kumpuris and last term Mayor Stodola will have to abstain from voting on the issue due to a conflict of interest.

We sent a Freedom of Information request to the city last week and as usual they are refusing to provide a timely response, if one at all.

They don't want the truth about their shenanigans to come out before they agree to make a foolish trade for something they will obtain free and clear in a few years.

Kumpuris is a vocal voice on the board whining about lost sales tax revenue yet he is working to exchange valuable property and a lucrative parking deck that would bring additional revenue to the city just to get the sculpture before the designated date that it would be gifted to the city and have it placed at the entrance of the renovated Arts Center.

Kumpuris, the mayor, city manager and the rest of the board of directors are not too concerned about the only Confederate statue glorifying an armed take over of a U.S. Military installation which  is located on city property just  steps away from the Arkansas Arts Center.. but that discussion is for another day.

We also contacted the attorney for the Downtown Partnership, David Menz.

Menz told us that all the files concerning the bond and the parking deck were in storage. We found that odd as he and the city had been working out plans to scrap the 1984 agreement to favor the district.

MENZ (ON RIGHT) BOOZING IT UP AT AN ARTS CENTER RECEPTION A FEW YEARS AGO

No doubt last term mayor Stodola wants to make this look like the deal of a lifetime and get that sculpture over to McArthur Park as part of his deal to keep the  Arts Center from moving to North Little Rock.

The Arkansas Arts Center has the sculpture situated as a focal point at the entrance of their re-imagined building posted on their blog.

Undoing the original 1984 deal now and giving up the land and the parking deck is a terrible decision. Especially when the sculpture will be handed over to the city in 2025.  The Arts Center can wait until then to have it displayed.

If the Downtown Little Rock Partnership was really into helping the city and the community instead of the themselves, why are the not volunteering to move the sculpture to the Arts Center with no strings attached?

Because its all about the money, hidden agendas and backroom secret deals to keep certain individual in power that are in the pockets of the white privileged business community. That's why.

#TimeForChange #CleanOutLRCityHall.

 

NEW YOUTUBE SERIES "LITTLE ROCK POLICE GONE WILD" DEBUTS - FEATURES MISDEEDS OF LRPD OFFICERS THAT RESULTED IN SUSPENSIONS OR TERMINATIONS

You asked for it and now its here, we have dropped the first video for our new YouTube series Little Rock Police Gone Wild.

There will be tons more so subscribe to our channel today so you will not miss a single episode.

Episode 1 features the antics of LRPD Officer Brandon "Butterball" Johnson and his abusive and violent treatment of a citizen of color that had too much to drink on his way home near  the old VA hospital on Roosevelt Road.

OUR FIRST EPISODE FEATURES OFFICER BRANDON "BUTTERBALL" JOHNSON

Officer "Butterball" Johnson must be one of the white officers that chooses not to live in Little Rock and must be ignorant of the city and its history to not know that LRPD has a station in the old VA Hospital building that has been on Roosevelt Road since the 1940's. Chances are you can stop anyone in Little Rock, especially East LR, and ask then what that big old building is on Roosevelt and they will says its the old VA Hospital.

Here is the premiere episode.

This is the internal investigation file we obtained from LRPD regarding the August 25, 2017 incident. 

 Little Rock Police Department Internal Investigation Report DI2017-0233 by Russ Racop on Scribd



The full video has Officer "Butterball" Johnson giving his superiors a different version of what happened that what video details and actually occurred.  

Johnson should have also been found to have violated LRPD Rules & Regulations concerning truthfulness and use of force.

But he is white and the victim was black and LRPD takes care of its own.

#TimeForChange #CleanOutLRCityHall

BUCKNERS PRESS RELEASE IS BULLSHIT - WORD IS HE WAS TOLD HE WAS NOT GOING TO BE SELECTED AS CHARLESTON'S NEW POLICE CHIEF

KENTON TREMAR BUCKNER - LOOKING FOR A PLACE TO CALL HOME

We will call it as it is, that is what our readers expect us to do - the last ditch effort by befouled Little Rock Police Chief Kenton Tremar Buckner is pure bullshit, a ploy to try and gain favor of city leaders ready to replace him.

Buckner's use of official LRPD letterhead for a personal statement is itself a violation of LRPD Rules & Regulations.

Citizens posted these comments on LRPD Facebook page where they had posted  Buckner's letter.

We would have posted a comment as well but LRPD has blocked us in violation of our Free Speech Rights.

The week Buckner was in Charleston for a series of interviews we posted this. At 10:30 pm the evening we posted it, there were 29 active users on server registered to the city of Charleston looking at that page when we were reviewing data on Google Analytics. 

Buckner has been on thin ice here for some time and several board members  have told us that it might be time for him to go. Some have even told the city manger, and Buckner toady, Bruce "Home-Wrecker" Moore that he need to be fired.

There have been tense meeting and conversations between troubled city manager Bruce Moore and Buckner as pressure has been steadily poured out on Moore to get rid of Buckner.

There is speculation that Buckner has something on Moore that he uses to "blackmail" him.  It might be another undisclosed nasty home-wrecking incident or one involving some other sketchy activity.

An article that appeared in yesterday's edition of Charleston's The Post and Courier  that hinted that questions about Buckner's abilities were mounting and he was not going to be selected.

A savvy reader there even suggested what we and others know to be true.  The agency that conducted the search for the Charleston position let Buckner know he was out of the running and suggested that he uses the same sort of public relations tactic the city of Little Rock did with the Amazon selection process - pull out when you don't stand a chance for selection and try an use it to your advantage.

Using that private headhunting agency prevents Freedom of Information inquiries as the city of Charleston is "hands off" in the recruiting process and can skirt transparency in the selection process, including giving Buckner a heads up that he was out of the running. 

To make matters worse for the city, the Fraternal Order of Police, mainly composed of white officers that overwhelmingly choose to live somewhere else than the city for which they work, supports Buckner like one of those third-world children you can allegedly feed for a few dollars a month. For example, take a look at what appeared in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette yesterday.

Perhaps it is because that Buckner intends to let officers, like Gilchrest, that are on a purported "liars list" and have been relegated to positions where LRPD will not have disclose that they are Brady Officers, are to be permitted to go back to regular positions perhaps as payoff for supporting him.  Why LRPD keeps such officers will be explored and revealed in an upcoming post.

Certainly the Black Police Officer Association will not let Buckner off the hook so easily if at all.

No doubt Buckner will try and punish Sgt. Davis some more for doing the right thing and speaking out against a corrupt, biased system.

If Sgt. Davis and the BPOA had not made public the complaint about the racist and subversive white police recruit, LRPD would have white-washed the whole matter and swept it under the rug.

Sgt. Davis and the BPOA should be commended for their whistle-blower activities instead of being punished for attempting to make LRPD a better less biased and honest, respectable agency. Something that can never occur under befouled Buckner's leadership.

This is an election year for city leadership and a wave of change is going to wash over the city and clean out the scum. 

It's damn time.

#TimeForChange #CleanOutLRCItyHall

 ***UPDATE  3/9/18***

A newspaper in Charleston revealed the real reason behind pulling out from the job selection process. It was due to the problems with black officers and the issues that they have raised about his failed problematic leadership.