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THE LAST PEOPLE THE LEADERSHIP OF  AFSCME LOCAL 1907 WANTED TO SEE IN THE ROOM WHEN THEY NEGOTIATED WITH THE CITY WERE "SALARIED EMPLOYEES"

NUMBER 26 - MAY 4, 2018

The last week has been interesting to say the least.  

At last week's Commission meeting Commissioner Carollo revealed that the information that he used to try and discredit Jose Espinoza when he spoke during the Public Comments portion of the meeting about the changes to the union job classifications that the Commission was scheduled to approve on that day - which they did - was information that he claimed someone had delivered to his office that morning.

It's hard not to speculate that whoever did provide the Commissioner with this information was part of the AFSCME union, given that the day before an unidentified male wearing a baseball cap and glasses had supposedly wandered throughout the MRC for approximately 4 hours passing out the following flyer.

I've been told that when several AFSCME members questioned this individual about his activities, he told them that he had been paid $300 to pass out these flyers.

In an effort to get more information about this individual, I submitted a public records request for a copy of the video of the cameras that record the entrance to the MRC Building and the Security Desk.

This is the response that I got.

THESE FOLKS WANT YOU TO VOTE FOR THEM

I attended a meeting of the Greater Little Havana Homeowners Association earlier this week - a story about why I did will be forthcoming soon - and two candidates showed up.

Eileen Higgins who is running for County Commissioner in the Special Election on May 22nd, and David Richardson, whose running for the 27th District Congressional seat in November.

I've tired in the past to provide folks with an opportunity to hear what candidates for public office have to say in the past, and this is just one more situation where I happened to be at the right place with a video camera.

On April 27th, the day after the Commission meeting where I had the encounter with Joe Carollo, AFSCME 1907 had a negotiating session with the city.

Attending the meeting was Joe Simmons, the president of the AFSCME local that represents Solid Waste workers.  Because this was a public meeting, Simmons started recording it on his cell phone.

When Moy realized that he was doing this he expressed concern that Simmons was recording the meeting without previously informing him, and also made a comment questioning whether Simmons was violating the law.

The notion that the president of AFSCME Local 1907 would question the right of any of his members to sit in on a negotiation session, and then several months later be so clueless about what is allowed at a public meeting are the equivalent of a DEFCON 5 WARNING that should alarm the membership as to what Shawn Moy and his little leadership clique have been, and are up to now.  

When any union leadership doesn't want their members present to see how they are being represented, even though the really dirty, nasty backroom deals actually get done in a back room, there are ample reasons not to trust that union leadership in anything they say or do.

In an effort to provide some transparency to the negotiations between AFSCME Local 1907 and the city, and to provide the membership with information that the leadership was uncomfortable in having members know about during the negotiations, below are copies of the minutes of the last 3 negotiation sessions.

Good Luck.

In short, video footage that could perhaps help in identifying this individual - an individual engaged in questionable and perhaps illegal activity - was being claimed by the City Attorney's office as exempt, in part because of a legal opinion that stated that such information could "reveal the capabilities - and as a corollary, the vulnerabilities - of the current system."

Given that the the only "security" system that exists in the lobby of the MRC building in a Driver's License scanner and camera for an initial photo of new visitors, along with cameras which don't really provide adequate coverage of the lobby is case a real incident ever occurred - not to mention that anyone with a cell phone can readily take photographs of any and all of this unobtrusively - this denial looks to me as less of an effort to protect legitimate security concerns, and more of an effort to shield the guy with the baseball cap and sun glasses - an individual obviously tied to the AFSCME union in some way - from being identified.

AIN'T NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS

The most interesting, perhaps even the most amazing piece of information that has come to the surface in the last week is that at the December 21, 2017, negotiation session between AFSCME 1907 and the city, the following concerns were expressed by the union - and one has to suppose that it was expressed by Shawn Moy, the union president - about salaried city employees being allowed to attend these negotiation sessions.

Here is the portion of the minutes of that meeting.