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City Hall Stonewalls on BTP Melle
I finally received a call back on Friday, June 15th, from the head of the Mayor’s Neighborhood Services Office, Ms. Rita Murphy. Her report left a lot to be desired.
Here it is broken down:
1) Ms. Murphy said that she spoke to all parties involved,
a) Kevin Jackson,
b) Dean Esserman,
c) the people who sponsored the event, (City Hall will not reveal their name to me) and
d) Kenny Gross(?) an out-reach worker.
I do not understand how her speaking to these people provides any answers to Mt. Hope or answers as to what is being done to prevent another such horrendous occurrence.
Ms. Murphy assured me that it would not happen again. I was less than convinced since it happened last year during the "Hector" event and unless steps are taken to correct the problem it is sure to happen again.
I asked her who in City government will be accountable for the event going so wrong. I asked her that, since someone apologized to the police for the event, who will apologize to the people of Mt. Hope, who will apologize to me for what I lived through and witnessed and heard.
I asked again if I could get a copy of the permit application and the permit. Ms. Murphy said that she was in the process of asking the City’s legal department if she could release the records.
Everyone knows that those records are public and anyone should be able, by law, to walk into the DPW and request to see the records.
I asked Ms. Murphy if the DPW requirements had been met, i.e. The required insurance binder, the entertainment license, as required in the DPW guidelines and application.
Ms. Murphy grew uncomfortable with this line of questioning. She began arguing with me over whether there was or was not live music there. She insisted that there was no band there. I tried to explain to her slowly, that there was a DJ spinning recorded background music and rappers rapping live over the recordings. After all, I was there. I asked her if she had been there?
When I quoted her some of the offensive lyrics the rappers used, she used that as a pretext to end our conversation claiming that I had offended her. In truth, she had no answers to my questions and was eager to try any type of cheap, manipulative technique in order to distract me and to wiggle out of being accountable for providing real answers.
Today, I received a call from a ProJo reporter doing a background investigation about the June 1oth incident. He was reading from the police report and asking me for corroboration. I'll write more on this when time alows.
Posted at June 20, 2007 03:48 PM
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