Time for a change

[Stephanie Gibson]

Posted to FB and sent to all parties at City Hall.

As many are reticent to sign their names to theirviews and opinions about what is going on within the department. I haveheard from many about Pam Schmidt. This post was a perfect summationofsuch. City Hall..we need to step up and do the right thing. Usevespia’s technique of showing up with termination letter or allow him toreesign.. Now, not in Mar.

Kudos to the writer…




Afterreading Pam's exit interview, you would have to be a raving idiot to not seewhat a horrendous set up this was to get rid of her. Vespia has done this timeafter time with employees he wants to get rid of and will continue to do thisuntil he leaves. The worst part of all this is losing someone that really caredabout the people she worked with and the excellence she provided while doingher job. Unfortunately, once he leaves, the administration under him will mostlikely continue to exact this same way of disposing of employees that they havebeen taught to do unless a decent chief is hired that has some common sense andeither gets rid of all the hatchet people he's hired for his own twistedsatisfaction. It's obvious that neither the past or current city manager orcommissions care about what's been happening at the police department . Shameon every one of them for letting this continue while some excellent employeeshave been forced to leave the department under similar or worse conditions.North Port PD was once a place which stood out among local agencies as theplace to work, with good people that could be counted on. Now you have anatmosphere where officers are tentative to perform their jobs fearing I'A.'s orbecoming the next target from admin if everything doesn't go perfect. He gotrid of Lieutenants because he feared they had the power in the department andmade sure their careers went to the dead end zone and brought in his own peoplefrom outside to take his replaceable commander positions. he replace 4 peoplewith six, has 3 openings which no one would accept after testing. That in itselftells you that nobody wants to be part of this charade he calls hisadministration. Maybe when a real chief comes here, he'll realize what avaluable asset Pam was to our department and hire her back and maybe he bringsin someone that doesn't cry and threaten to quit several times to be hisassistant chief. Maybe a real chief will dump this failed experiment ofcommanders and put the Lieutenants position back into the chain of commandwhere it should have been long ago. Maybe then there will be officers willingto move up in the department from within instead of having to go outside tofind people that are willing to take a position that nobody wants from within.That's because they all have no idea what it's like to work under an ineptleadership currently in place.
[IMG]file:///C:/Users/STEPHA~1/AppData/Local/Temp/msohtmlclip1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG]

[Stephanie Gibson]

Thank you whoever posted the last post.. who is next? This is your chance to get it out there.. to speak directly to City Hall and citizens.

[Stephanie Gibson]

My current count as of mid October is 20 employment separations. There was a post that 2 were expected to go but I haven't heard that they did.. last one I show leaving was.Cody Long.

Did the two leave and I missed it? Or is the one being alluded to today the 1st of the 2 that we heard about already?

Here.is hoping they choose to complete an exit interview and be completely forthright in whatever their opinions are. If nothing else, it will provide the new Chief with insight into dept issues.

Updating the 2017 employment separation count to 21 post Pam leaving..

[Stephanie Gibson]

I have sent emails to each individual Commissioners, asking for their thoughts on the State of NPPD. Please consider sending an email to each of them asking for the same. Use a dummy email account if you must but lets start thumping the drums. They cannot continue to not act.

Accountability and Transparency is paramount to trust andgood governance. Again and again, we raise the concerns and nothing isdone. While I know your hands are tied in as much you can make nodecisions, you do have the power of your influence and relationship with Mr.Lear. There are too many good men and women who have been sacrificed atthe dept an on the street because the current PD failures. Please stand up forthe cops that are really getting shafted here. They deserve better.

If you had manager with a turnover rate such as PDs, and youwere paying that manager 140K/year. Would you be supportive of him puttingin 40 hours on your 140K then moonlighting in Venice to pull an extra 4K amonth? What would you tell that manager..?

I would really like to hear your thoughts on the State of NPPD

Thanks, Steph

[Unregistered]

I have sent emails to each individual Commissioners, asking for their thoughts on the State of NPPD. Please consider sending an email to each of them asking for the same. Use a dummy email account if you must but lets start thumping the drums. They cannot continue to not act.

Accountability and Transparency is paramount to trust andgood governance. Again and again, we raise the concerns and nothing isdone. While I know your hands are tied in as much you can make nodecisions, you do have the power of your influence and relationship with Mr.Lear. There are too many good men and women who have been sacrificed atthe dept an on the street because the current PD failures. Please stand up forthe cops that are really getting shafted here. They deserve better.

If you had manager with a turnover rate such as PDs, and youwere paying that manager 140K/year. Would you be supportive of him puttingin 40 hours on your 140K then moonlighting in Venice to pull an extra 4K amonth? What would you tell that manager..?

I would really like to hear your thoughts on the State of NPPD

Thanks, Steph

and there reply will be under the city charter we do not run the day to day operation of city hall, that's BS, they hired Lear, they can fire him, he is given a directive by the majority of the commission and fails to abide by it, he is gone, just that simple. How about a charter change, take away all that power you give A$$ Manager Schulte (Lear is just his puppet)
The majority of the commission, four females (previously referred to as housewives with part time jobs) and hanks. They are more concerns with junk car ordinances than the rights of both male and FEMALE city employees. We have lame duck Linda, Debbie excuses excuses, JL who is smitten by men in uniform, and what has been her contribution so far and last but not least the dinosaur next mayor VC who will further take us into the black hole. Maybe west villages is right to secede from NP !!! We voted for change we certainly are getting the same over and over again....

[Stephanie Gibson]

Irmapushes overtime for city departments
North Port Sun (FL) -November 18, 2017
Author/Byline: LAUREN COFFEY; Staff Writer

NORTH PORT — Every year,the city’s department heads guess how many hours their employees will work, andhow many ofthose may be overtime.

The result can end in the range ofhundreds ofthousands ofdollars, often unavoidably. But the 2017 fiscal year doubled that number, thanks to onefactor officials could not predict: Hurricane Irma.

The Sun went through the FY 2017 budgeted overtime for each of the 11 departments,choosing three that had standout numbers: the building department, road anddrainage and the police department.

Police: Overtime is a necessity for safety

The North Port Police Department accumulated more than $440,000 over theirestimated overtime, with Hurricane Irma making up $300,000 of those dollars.

“Irma, oh my gosh,” Assistant Police Chief Mike Pelfrey said. “All the guys hadto be there in a central spot in case something does happen. The poor guys atthe shelter, they had to be there. With North Port High School, it was packed.We had around 3,000 people at the school.”

Pelfrey said storms and investigations are some of the biggest, unavoidable reasons forovertime.

“Those huge, long-term investigations are a big reason,” Pelfrey said. “Youwant to do the right thing and have to do the right thing. To capture some of the evidence, whichis perishable, you have to stay focused on and stay on it, stay on it, stay onit. I can remember an investigation I was involved with was 17 straight hoursand I don’t think I ate because you’re just on it.”

He also added there has to be an officer at every City Commission meeting,which are held at least three times a month. Each officer attending is alreadyrunning on overtime, as officersnot on overtime cannot be pulled off the street.

“We can’t pull them away from the street to man the meeting and then allow thestreet to be unsafe or uncovered with calls for service,” he said. “So a personon overtime has to be there for six, eight, 10, 13 hours at a time and that’sall time-and-a-half overtime.”

Right now the city is running on more overtime for every situation, since thedepartment is short-staffed. There are 94 sworn officers for NPPD, with 103 officers as the goal.

“(Overtime) is our only tactic right now,” Pelfrey said. “You have to look atit from a fiscal perspective of:Is it responsible to do overtime and get those quality employees that we need,or hire anybody? My philosophy is we need quality employees because we’retrusting them with the public’s safety.”

[Stephanie Gibson]

Pelfrey claims $300K of $440K of the FY 16/17 OT budget overage is because of IRMA and Commission meetings...

Really Asst Chief?

SHS math, Excel and the City provided records provided to me a few weeks ago says you are not even close to being right or accurate. Did ya think you were going to pass that mistruth to the public and get away with? do you have no idea what you are talking about? Either way, it is pretty troubling.

Good Grief.

If we attributed ever hour in Sept to Irma.. only $69K, not $300K. Reality is prolly about half that if prior months OT is a fair guess.. So less than $40K NPPD OT Costs could be blamed on IRMA

The Commission remark is idiotic.. the Chief or Asst Chief or Captain is always present, they could serve as the PD protection for the meetings. We dont often have a problem at commission meetings and if so, the Admin on hand could deal with it. It is a huge waste to have men burning OT to collect speaker cards.

[Stephanie Gibson]

Leo board must not be fond of files beeing uploaded.. the image is awful but the file can be found on th NPCC FB page

[Unregistered]

Irmapushes overtime for city departments
North Port Sun (FL) -November 18, 2017
Author/Byline: LAUREN COFFEY; Staff Writer

NORTH PORT — Every year,the city’s department heads guess how many hours their employees will work, andhow many ofthose may be overtime.

The result can end in the range ofhundreds ofthousands ofdollars, often unavoidably. But the 2017 fiscal year doubled that number, thanks to onefactor officials could not predict: Hurricane Irma.

The Sun went through the FY 2017 budgeted overtime for each of the 11 departments,choosing three that had standout numbers: the building department, road anddrainage and the police department.

Police: Overtime is a necessity for safety

The North Port Police Department accumulated more than $440,000 over theirestimated overtime, with Hurricane Irma making up $300,000 of those dollars.

“Irma, oh my gosh,” Assistant Police Chief Mike Pelfrey said. “All the guys hadto be there in a central spot in case something does happen. The poor guys atthe shelter, they had to be there. With North Port High School, it was packed.We had around 3,000 people at the school.”

Pelfrey said storms and investigations are some of the biggest, unavoidable reasons forovertime.

“Those huge, long-term investigations are a big reason,” Pelfrey said. “Youwant to do the right thing and have to do the right thing. To capture some of the evidence, whichis perishable, you have to stay focused on and stay on it, stay on it, stay onit. I can remember an investigation I was involved with was 17 straight hoursand I don’t think I ate because you’re just on it.”

He also added there has to be an officer at every City Commission meeting,which are held at least three times a month. Each officer attending is alreadyrunning on overtime, as officersnot on overtime cannot be pulled off the street.

“We can’t pull them away from the street to man the meeting and then allow thestreet to be unsafe or uncovered with calls for service,” he said. “So a personon overtime has to be there for six, eight, 10, 13 hours at a time and that’sall time-and-a-half overtime.”

Right now the city is running on more overtime for every situation, since thedepartment is short-staffed. There are 94 sworn officers for NPPD, with 103 officers as the goal.

“(Overtime) is our only tactic right now,” Pelfrey said. “You have to look atit from a fiscal perspective of:Is it responsible to do overtime and get those quality employees that we need,or hire anybody? My philosophy is we need quality employees because we’retrusting them with the public’s safety.”

You HAD many quality employees with a tremendous amount of knowledge and passion but they just didn't fit into the Administrative mold so they were strategically pushed out for mediocrity. To quote one supervisor about a person in training "they could be in training for the next 20 years and still only be mediocre". Now that's quality work for the City.

[Unregistered]

You HAD many quality employees with a tremendous amount of knowledge and passion but they just didn't fit into the Administrative mold so they were strategically pushed out for mediocrity. To quote one supervisor about a person in training "they could be in training for the next 20 years and still only be mediocre". Now that's quality work for the City.

Now we have our basket case a$$ Chief intentionally spewing mistruths to the public. My question is did the city tell FEMA that they spent 300 grand on OT for IRMA, if they did just the filing alone would be a federal crime, this is just another example of the inept administrators that are allowed to work for this city.
Now commissioners Pelfreys intentional Lie to the newspaper was an obvious attempt to divert the true reason for the outrageous overtime which is simply Vespia in his diminished mental state firing or forcing good officers to leave, creating all this overtime. Commissioners you promised you would no longer tolerate such antics and here it is AGAIN.
Maybe it is time for a charter change and return to the fulltime Mayor form of government. First Lewis, then another Lewis and now Lear, it is obvious the City manager way of running things breeds incompetence and mistruths.
Incompetence breeds incompetence at our expense.