25 APR 07: HEARD BUT NOT SEEN
The list of finalists has been announced for Southeast "Green Eyeshade Awards" in investigative journalism. A familiar Columbus name is on it, but you'd never guess which one. Sorry, Tim Chitwood - your shift to city government reporting at the Ledger-Enquirer didn't quite do it.
A Nashville TV station is nominated for a Green Eyeshade Award, for a series of investigative reports on Bill Heard Chevrolet. Bill Heard has a dealership there, as it does in Columbus and other cities - but in Nashville, there seems to be a large number of complaints. So "Mr. Big Volume" seems to be more like Mr. Big Trouble.
Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville has several pages all to itself on WTVF's web site. And to the delight of everyone, they do NOT include one of those annoying "brought to you by" sponsor ads....
WTVF's first report on Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville aired last July. It focused on a man who signed a contract to buy a used pickup truck, paid $8,100 for it - then discovered the dealership repossessed his truck in the middle of the night, and put it back on sale. The customer's check didn't bounce. The salesman apparently feared he would be -- as in fired.
A salesperson from Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville apparently decided something was wrong, and the customer needed to pay $10,000 extra for his pickup. They warn customers about reading the fine print of contracts - but you'd think the dealership would do the same thing.
Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville blamed what happened with the pickup on a rookie salesperson's mistake -- and it told WTVF the customer should have realized the $8,100 sale price was wrong. Based on the deals offered on "Super Shows," I probably would never have guessed that. I would have guessed the truck had a hidden engine leak of some sort.
That report by WTVF apparently led to other complaints, because a second close-up on Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville aired in November. A woman claimed a salesperson left her an answering machine message after buying a car, telling her the dealership ripped her off. That's the sort of up-front honesty the Better Business Bureau likes to see....
Former managers at Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville admitted customers were given blank sales contracts to sign - and bosses filled in the price lines later, sometimes for thousands of dollars more than promised. If the salesperson winks more than once during the sales process, be skeptical.
Another tactic by Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville involved letting people drive unfinanced cars. The customers thought they had car loans, but learned weeks later they didn't. At times like that, I could understand repossessing a car in the middle of the night - when the customer is at home, and can get a ride to work with a neighbor.
Then there were the customers who claimed Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville inflated their income on car loan applications, to get them qualified for vehicles they couldn't afford. One unemployed woman was listed as having an $80,000 job - as if the sales staff doubles as a team of faith preachers.
Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville admitted to WTVF in November it was "working very hard to correct any problems of the past." That's nice to know - and from the stack of complaints at the Better Business Bureau's Nashville office, the company attorneys aren't missing any paychecks.
WTVF recently won a national "Headliner" award for its probe of Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville. And the Tennessee Consumer Affairs Office is conducting its own investigation. It would only be fair if managers engaged in fraud were arrested around 3:30 in the morning.
Bill Heard Chevrolet has its world headquarters in Columbus - so why haven't you heard much about all these troubles in Tennessee? Actually, I have heard hints about them in recent months. But plenty of people have complaints concerning car dealers. Take the Phenix City Council, which is running them off 14th Street....
Since WTVF is a CBS station, WRBL would be the most likely Columbus TV station to show the reports on Bill Heard Chevrolet. Perhaps the staff never has known about the story. And now that the Country Music Association Awards has changed networks, there's little need for them to go to Nashville anymore.
An archive search Tuesday night at the Ledger-Enquirer's web site found no mention of the complaints or investigation of Bill Heard Chevrolet of Nashville. But I found a lot of sports stories with "Bill Heard" and "Tennessee" in them - so when are they renaming the Nashville football stadium after him?
But there may be another reason why Columbus news outlets have been quiet regarding Bill Heard's troubles in Tennessee. The car dealer spends a lot of money on advertising. Would you risk bringing up something that could cost you a sizeable percentage of your income? But then again, how much business would Bill Heard have by only advertising in the Phenix Citizen-News....
E-MAIL UPDATE: On Sunday we posted one e-mail from Deb Owens about the Muscogee County Library Board. Since then, she's e-mailed us several more times about the topic. E-mail addiction can be dangerous, you know....
Some of her items are repetitious, so we're trimming the e-mails a bit for that reason. But Ms. Owens begins by looking ahead to next Tuesday:
Dear Richard, On Tues, May 1, a council vote will be taken for what to do with the SPLOST 6 MILLION. We cannot get phone numbers and here are some problems we cannot address without speaking with the Library Board members. Committees are not listed-minutes are not provided. The Library board meets this Thurs. if anyone would like to attend.
We feel that the Library Board and Directors are acting irresponsibly and we would like to see the Library Board/Directors disbanded. The Library Board is operating outside of the law.
The Library Board operates in secret- without accountability- without the public being able to find out who the members/committee members are, with contact info. The board apparently feels completely comfortable- by avoiding all responsibility of interaction with the public or providing the public the public's record. They operate like a bunch of NAZIS.
The only viable option is to have the Library Board disbanded and to replace it with someone who is elected, either the School Board or an elected Library Board. Considering the Library Board's abysmal failure to provide open government and the sculpture debacle with secret unannounced meetings in private offices, with unauthorized contractual agreements for the people's money, and all the while for about 8-9 months the newspaper not reporting it. NO ONE SPOKE UP.
Now, the loss of Mr. Rothschild, with his recent resignation, proves the unworthiness of the group to act in a responsible manner.
The Board is acting outside of the law:
1. Library Board Members, Directors, Committees, and the members contact information are not available to the public, are not on the website, nor are proper-working emails, and phone numbers are NOT made available upon request to the Library Director, Ms Claudya Muller. (Does it sound like a foreign country?)
2. Meeting times, agendas, and most importantly Meeting Minutes are not on the website.
3. The many Committees, and the Committee members, with meeting times, agendas, and Meeting Minutes are not available on the website.
4. Ms. Muller will not comply with the Sunshine Laws and even state the names of the committees, nor the times they meet, nor the members of the committees.
5. Ms. Muller will not send them in email-though they have been requested numerous times. (you can see her responses on my group
6. Ms. Muller will not email any MINUTES AT ALL. She has steadfastly refused dozens of requests, with written refusals. She is in direct violation of the Sunshine Law and since i have now requested them of the entire board i know they are also in direct violation of the Sunshine law.
7. All members ignore emails.
If I printed all of the emails I have sent requesting minutes, I would endanger the world's supply of paper.
Ms. Muller's excuses for not placing the members info, meeting minutes and budget on the website have been:
1. They cannot email minutes because the minutes are not digitized (they are in longhand?)
2. They cannot put members names, contact info, MINUTES, and list committees, with relevant info on the website because:
a) they do not have time
b) they do not have man power
c) they do not have trained personnel
d) the library is operated by volunteers and they do not have technical expertise
e) they cannot pay more for the server- for extra pages-(untrue)
f) no one visited the members page before so they took them down
g) why should she send them when I can make an appointment and sit in her office and read them (they are her responsibility and she must protect them)
Has the woman ever thought of strolling to the computer section of the books (she is in a library-right) and educating herself?
May I request that the Library Board/Directors comply with the law and provide minutes via email, as the minutes are in a digitized format the second they are composed on a computer, and not only has Ms. McGreggor said she uses a computer to compose minutes, in the past, but she has emailed minutes to me. Again, they are digitized the minute they are put in a computer---The Sunshine Law, which i have sent to you states:
Please see section 7 B of the Sunshine Laws, It states:
"Records maintained by computer shall be made available where practicable by electronic means, including Internet access, subject to reasonable security restrictions preventing access to nonrequested or
nonavailable records."
The minutes are available and should be provided to anyone who asks for them. If they were placed on the website there would be no need to provide them to anyone because then anyone could print them in the Library from the Library website, or at their home from the Library website. That would be the most efficient method of providing minutes to the public- as the only time ever spent in providing minutes would be the few minutes it takes to place them on the website.
The website is a universal source of information. All other local governing bodies have superb websites. The City has one of the finest websites in the world, and they and the Board of Education have their meeting minutes on their websites. Both the City Council and the Board of Education are elected. The Library Board is not elected and there feel no accountability to the public.
Again, outside the law:
1. refusal to send member contact-phone and accurate emails
2. refusal to send names of committees
3. refusal to send committee meeting times & agendas
4. refusal to send committee member names and contacts
5. refusal to send committee meeting minutes
6. refusal to send meeting minutes
Ethics violations-the entire board-directors.
Library Board- Until the determination of how to best have the Library Board accountable to the public through elections or disbandment- please comply with the law.
Thank You,
Deborah Owens
AboutColumbusGA Yahoo Group
First things first - how did Ms. Owens find out the Library Board is meeting Thursday, considering it's not posted online? (And at what time and location?) Oh yeah, I forgot. Most libraries still have reference desks.
Comparing a Library Board to "a bunch of Nazis" is quite a statement. Last time I checked, most librarians were still against banning books....
If I remember correctly, Ms. Owens asked all sorts of questions about the Library Board committees a couple of years ago, during the Albert Paley statue debate. Then all of a sudden, the names of committee members showed up on the central library's stairway walls - in the form of several giant plaques.
People deeply concerned about the Library Board and its committees would have used the 2005 mess to note all the committees and their memberships (I recall the City Manager was on at least one of them), and then started attending the meetings to keep track of what happens. If Ms. Owens has been unable to do it, maybe the two or three others who attended those meetings could help her out.
Shortly after that e-mail, along came this one:
Dear Richard,
City Council will decide on MAY 1, what to do with the $7 Million in LIBRARY SPLOST MONEY. THE LIBRARY HAS SUGGESTED BURNING IT ALL OFF WITH some things that can only be considered maintenance-that way a park cannot be built-there will be no money for it and the School Board members who are developers can have a field day developing the property. Pls see my group for specific laws that might be used to account for such abuse of office
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AboutColumbusGA/
One of the things they want to spend it on is $1 Million in Genealogy. Please see my group for details on that duplication of local resources and Genealogy scams.
So far the paper is not reporting this. A Library Board member is the wife of the former publisher of the paper. You may remember that the paper did not report on the sculpture purchase for months, though the reporter was in the meetings for months, reporting was not done until after the contract was signed and the former publisher of the paper's wife is the ONE who was pushing for the purchase of that sculpture. Your blog is therefore vital to the public's right to know.
We feel that the Library Board and Directors are acting irresponsibly and we would like to see the Library Board/Directors disbanded. The Library Board is operating outside of the law and is not accountable to the people as they are not elected and will not interact with the pubic or release full contact info.
The Library Board operates in secret- without accountability-without the public being able to find out who the members/committee members are, with contact info. The committees are not even listed on the website and it is like pulling teeth to get them to tell you who they even are. They refused to tell me. The board apparently feels completely comfortable- by avoiding all responsibility of interaction with the public or providing the public the public's record. They operate like a bunch of NAZIS. Contact with them and the record-MINUTES- ARE VITAL TO KEEP UP WITH WHAT THEY ARE DOING NOW....
To the Library Board- Until the determination of how to best have the Library Board accountable to the public through elections or disbandment-Please comply with the law, please provide minutes to citizens when requested.
Thank You,
Deborah Owens
MY CONTACT INFO:
deborahowens2000@aol.com
AboutColumbusGA Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AboutColumbusGA/
Anyone can join, one must join to post. Posts cannot be altered. Anyone can read archives. Contact me for more info.
(if you publish this can you please leave my entire signature block as is so that people can contact me? thx-d)
From the top: one million dollars is a lot of money to spend on genealogy. I'd think a membership in Ancestry.com would cost a bit less than that.
Perhaps the Ledger-Enquirer waited to mention the Albert Paley sculpture not because a former publisher's wife was involved, but because there was no signed contract. Or perhaps the reporter was as certain as the Library Board that everyone actually would like that art work....
But stop right here: this blog is "vital to the public's right to know"?! If you're looking for this blog to be a news alternative to the TV stations and newspaper, you're asking for more than I'm able to do (see point 2, subpoints a, b and d in the second list above) -- and you're misunderstanding what this blog is all about. I don't have income from this blog even to pay for my prescriptions, much less have reporters at all the committee meetings you want watched.
Check the top right corner of this blog again: "One man's often-humorous views." While we sometimes break news stories here, the emphasis is on humor. I'm not sure some people in Hurtsboro or in Columbus city government would agree with that, but that's what we try to do....
If you're pleading for this blog to become the successor to WRCG's Talkline and a "Crusader Rabbit" for small groups by investigating wide-ranging causes, then I give you two choices. Either I surrender this blog and walk away, since I can't satisfy your need. Or you start your own blog and go for it yourself. Blogs are free to create -- and I think sometimes the library even offers classes in making them.
I know from personal experience that I will upset Ms. Owens if I touch her "signature block." So it's there - even though prior posts have included links to her group, and we normally keep e-mail addresses off this blog as a courtesy to shield against unwanted spam. If she suddenly receives 100 offers of look-alike Rolex watches, don't blame me.
A third e-mail followed this one, requested by someone visiting that "All About Columbus" group:
Dear Richard;
Directors link- clarification-Board & Directors & Committees
My Funny Blogger- said this....
Well, not so fast here. I searched around the Columbus Library web site Saturday night, and found a list of Library Board members rather easily. Wouldn't a truly loyal library patron open a phone book from there, to get some of the other details?
First of all, some of them have unlisted phone numbers. At any rate their contact info should be posted. They are government officials as Library Directors and their contact info is subject to open records laws....
The link you cited is one which lists The Directors.
You will note that they have no contact info. The Library will not provide phone numbers for them either. If you do happen to get one of them on the phone they most likely will not provide info on the others-at least the ones i have asked would not. Most will slam the phone down when you call. If the library gives out emails you will be lucky if you get one half that work. They refuse to provide phone numbers....So that handles the Directors...but what about the Board--you know The Infamous Library Board?
They are not listed. Their names ARE NOT LISTED>
THE COMMITTEES ARE NOT LISTED>
THE RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE COUNCIL FOR THE EXPENDITURES USING THE $7 Million ($6 million and almost $1 Million in interest which the city is holding and which the city refuses to admit belongs to the Library money (pls see my group for the Attorney General's Opinion on SPLOST INTERST-use- INTEREST FOLLOWS PRINCIPLE) and oh, btw, the city refuses open records requests on the dollar amounts and use and placement of the interest)- so the Library Board's all important committees are secret. We don't even have the names of the Board members.
Unless someone has an old newspaper, they are out of luck on finding out who the Library Board members are. They don't want anyone to know who they are.
The Library Director will not send Committee members and names of the different Committees to me.
You will remember that the sculpture purchase was accomplished in a committee. We had two basic dissenters Rothschild and Hyles, who wrote that superb piece in the paper.
So, Committee minutes are vital and they will not provide any info leading to opening up the secret workings of the Library and its surrounds.
We need to know which committees selected which expenditures and with what rationale. That is why we need minutes of the meetings. Without the official record we can do nothing and they can do anything and that is precisely why they are not releasing records.
Thank You,
Deborah Owens
deborahowens2000@aol.com
AboutColumbusGA Yahoo Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AboutColumbusGA/
Thank you first for clearing up my confusion, between a "Board of Directors" and the Library Board. I recall from a couple of years ago that First Baptist Church Pastor Jimmy Elder was on the Library Board - so are we daring to say a Baptist preacher is a pseudo-Nazi?
You can microscopically analyze committee minutes and budget lines to your heart's desire. But one lesson from the Albert Paley fiasco is that if enough people in Columbus grumble and complain about a decision, top officials listen and the decision can be undone. That seems to make this city a bit different from the current U.S. Department of Justice.
BIG PREDICTION UPDATE: Well, I was almost right. The judges praised Melissa R. in every way, but they declared a New York "Knick City Dancer" named Asia the next Pussycat Doll. I guess this will make her Siamese....
Now to some less distracting stuff, which we learned on Tuesday:
+ The Russell County Sheriff's Office told WRBL it will open a substation in a travel trailer, parked in Pittsview. Huh - Pittsview, but not Hurtsboro?! Is this because Pittsview is a more dangerous place? Or is Sheriff Tommy Boswell concerned those roaming Hurtsboro thugs will hook up the trailer to a truck, and haul it away?
+ Russell County opened the Alabama High School baseball playoffs by conquering Montgomery Lee 9-1. One thing stood out to me as I watched the highlights on the 11:00 news -- I don't think a player named Rasmus was mentioned even once.
+ Montevallo mauled Columbus State in college baseball 19-6. The game was shortened to seven innings, by the "mercy rule." They don't have this sort of thing in soccer - and then critics say soccer is a wimpy sport.
+ Columbus native Sam Mitchell was named N.B.A. Coach of the Year, for winning a division title with the Toronto Raptors. I admit I had my doubts about his future last summer. But Toronto made the playoffs while Boston, New York and Philadelphia did not - showing why old-timers say pro basketball is in serious trouble.
+ Instant Message to Eckerd Drugs on Wynnton Road: Your prescription medicines are helping me heal, so thank you for that. But I hope you take my suggestion to heart - and please move the back pain items off the bottom shelf next to the floor. Not all of us shop for those things with grandchildren.
SCHEDULED THURSDAY: Another blog reader asking plenty of questions....
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