This blog is dedicated to exposing and documenting misdeeds and misadventures of departments and employees of the city of Little Rock, Arkansas. [news@snarkymedia.com/ 501-487-1699]
A Snarky Media Group publication
This was poorly timed as a tourist in Arkansas from Italy had been murdered in Little Rock the previous month in the midst of one of the most violent years in the city's history and the offensive against the homeless was accelerating.
City leadership a few months earlier had tried to ban feeding the homeless by local church groups in public places. That proposed ordinance was tabled after a huge outcry by angry frustrated citizens.
Crusty City Director Dean Kumpuris made possible the most uncompassionate remark a city director has ever made. The hateful old fart stated that "it was a mistake to think that just giving some people some food accomplished anything".
After all, Dr. Kumpuris is a gastroenterologist and we are sure that he goes without meals quite often.
We challenge Kumpuris to live out in the rough for just a few days, and walking in the shoes of the city's homeless and leaving his cash and credit cards at his hovel overlooking the Arkansas River and the Big Dam Bridge. We suspect that his opinion about eating some handout food will change.
We wonder how many times he has volunteered to feed homeless and look into their faces and see what difference "some food" makes.
We doubt Dr. Kumpuris would have the balls to utter to the homeless what he did before the board. If he did, we suspect that "physician, heal thyself" would have a special meaning for him.
LRPD CHIEF FLIP-FLOPS LIKE A FISH OUT OF WATER ON LACK OF LRPD ACTIONS TO COMPLAINTS MADE BY REV. BENNY JOHNSON - ANOTHER FAILING MARK AGAINST HIM
On April 13th, we sent this email to Chief Kenton Tremar Buckner:
Kenton Tremar, or KT as we call him (as we are on a first-name basis now), fired off a quick response and directed one of his minions, Captain Max Spriggs to provide details of LRPD's actions (or lack of actions) to Rev. Johnson's calls for assistance.
CAPTAIN MAX "EAGLE EYES" SPRIGGS
Well, several days went by, then the weekend and no response was forthcoming from ole "Eagle Eyes".
So we fired off an email asking what happened to the response.
KT sent us this in response. Notice how he has now backpedaled and is not willing to give a timely response.
You might ask why. Well, it's more than likely that LRPD did little or nothing.
We do know that City Director Ken Richardson has gotten involved and so have so state legislators.
How much longer do we have to tolerate Bucker, errr... Buckner as chief of police?
What does he have on city manager Bruce "Homewrecker" Moore?
It is time to clean house at city hall and others in the media have recognized this as well. #TimeForChange #CleanOutLRCityHall #ByeByeBuckner
At the April 17th Board of Directors meeting, last term mayor Mark Stodola stated he never accepted money for his campaign from the Chamber of Commerce or from a Political Action Committee ("PAC") affiliated with the Greater Little Rock Chamber. He even questioned if they had a PAC.
They do - Progress PAC - and they gave money to him and every other current member of the board of directors.
We suspect that tax payer funds the city has given the CoC for years was trickled its way back to Stodola and the other directors in the form of contributions from the PAC.
We will have all the details posted soon. Stay tuned.
CITY DIRECTOR DORIS WRIGHT - WILL DO ANYTHING TO AVOID RESPONDING TO A FOI REQUEST
For the past year, we have sent FOI requests to the city of Little Rock for emails of board members.
Each time our request included those of Ward 6 Director Doris Wright. Wright has used the personal email addresses and the response we receive is that she deletes her emails after opening and reading them and they have no records to produce. Right.
Wright uses those email addresses for city business and one is listed as the one for the West Central Community Center.
As far as we can tell, Wright is the only City Director that uses their email as point of contact for a Community Center.
We were surprised and amused at the latest response from the city in regard to a recent request for copies of Wright's email correspondence. Look at what the response was.
Poor L. Lamor Williams is not the sharpest tool in the shed, or else he would not have repeated the ignorant, flimsy excuse given to him by Doris Wright.
Only fools like Wright and Williams would tell us such a thing.
Any person of average intelligence knows how to recover or change an email password. And if they didn't, they could Google it and find our how to easily and quickly do it.
We wonder if Wright is telling the truth about deleting emails as she frequently utters the phrase "I slept since then" at board meetings to cover her lack of recollection about something.
How does she keep track of issues that constituents contact her about?
How does she follow up on promises she makes in emails? We know one thing for certain about Wright, she began using a littlerock.gov email address after our publisher addressed the city board with concerns about city directors using personal email addresses for city business.
We exposed some of Wright's shenanigans dealing with the West Central Community Center in this post.
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
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.
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
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 .
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.
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.
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.
