As readers know, I've committed to posting as much as I can from my court notes and from my Freedom of Information results so that when the judge's verdict weighs in on Friday, July 27th you too will be able to "judge" justice.
Here we go.
Day One of the Antonio Batista trial (Monday May 27, 2007) Mississauga Ward 9 Councillor, Pat Saito takes the stand. The court does its Hand-on-the-Bible swear-in. Councillor Saito swears to tell the Truth.
On the stand, Ms Saito detailed the numerous times that Mr. Batista tried to get in touch with her regarding his property tax bill.
From my notes:
Regarding when Councillor Saito was made aware of --and read-- the Pothole Poem:
Saito: "office's policy to contact Peel Regional Police" (source: notes)
"If anything comes into our office our security policy appears [sic] to be a threat it's referred to Peel Police" (yes, I know there are words missing, I had to write fast).
When she was asked to make a decision regarding whether she felt the poem was a true threat, Councillor Saito instructed Staff to:
"Yes, follow the procedure."
On the stand, Councillor Saito made reference to "policy" then "security policy" and "procedure".
One can conclude from her testimony that The Corporation has a security policy such that "if anything comes into our office" that "appears to be a threat" the situation is "referred to Peel Regional Police."
I happened to put in a several Freedom of Information (FOI) requests on The Corporation of the City of Mississauga's security-related policies and procedures. I even drafted a duplicate FOI for security policies and procedures for Peel Region.
As luck would have it my latest Freedom of Information result arrived this week. (I bet it's the first Mississauga FOI to be opened on the island of Maui.)
Allow me to share. After all, that's what Freedom of Information is supposed to mean. My FOI questions are in bold --answer from The Corporation of the City of Mississagau immediately after in italics.
3. Public Complaints about Corporate Security over past 10 years.
There are no responsive records.
4. Records of any committee/entity monitoring or assessing corporate security.
There are no responsive records.5. Records of teaming with Brampton, Caledon, Peel to share or communicate policies for consistency throughout region.
There are no responsive records.
7. Policies and Procedures with Peel Police regarding "calls for assistance" and arrest protocol from Corporate Security to Peel Police.
There are no responsive records.
Back in February, I had requested records of bannings/arrests etc from 1996 through 2006 to compare with data that I got freely from The City of Hamilton (yes, didn't need to fill out a Freedom of Information request. I only had to email and ask The City of Hamilton. I had zeroed in on Hamilton when I discovered a document showing Council assessment of five-years worth of facility bans to help them determine the appropriateness/effectiveness of their policies.)
When I made a request for five years worth of data from the Corporation of the City of Mississauga, they could only provide me information from January 1, 2006 to March 20, 2007. Quoting from my Freedom of Information:
"Prior to 2006, the database is not searchable by category "bannings" therefore it is not possible to produce statistics for those years [ed: 1996 through 2006] without manually searching individual occurrence reports for each year." ("individual occurrence reports" = paper)
Now get this. Also from FOI (Mr. Batista would presumably be in those "occurrence reports" as would Don Barber):
"There are approximately 7,000 occurrence reports for each of the years listed [I'd specifically asked for 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002 and 2003 to compare with the City of Hamilton occurence reports for those five years Do the Math. 7,000 occurrence reports times 5 years = 35,000 occurrence reports.] And "not possible to produce statistics for those years [ed: 1996 through 2006] without manually searching individual occurrence reports for each year." )
The FOI continues:
"Each report would have to be individually reviewed to identify whether it was a banning and to describe the cause of the ban." Note this would also be true of arrests and the cause of the arrest. To repeat "not searchable by category... therefore it is not possible to produce statistics."
Like statistics on fairness. Like statistics on trends.
The FOI continues:
"Under that Act, [ed: Freedom of Information Act] an institution is not obligated to create a record if that record does not exist."
... and...
"It is the City's position that a manual search of occurrence reports to compile the requested information for the years prior to 2006 would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the City."
From a February 19, 2007 Freedom of Information result:
5. Public Complaints Procedures against Corporate Security Officers
There are no written formal public procedure regarding Corporate Security Officers.
Guess that explains:
3. Public Complaints about Corporate Security over past 10 years.
There are no responsive records.
Ya think?
Not only does all this information affect Mr. Antonio Batista, let's not forget that Don Barber is next on deck at Brampton Court facing an assault charge against a Mississauga Corporate Security officer.
Anyone prepared to drop down five bucks and fill in a Freedom of Information form to ask for:
3. Public Complaints about Corporate Security from January 1, 1974 when according to the Kariya (Mississauga Sister City) website "The three towns of Mississauga, Streetsville, and Port Credit were merged on New Year's Day of 1974 into one city, and the City of Mississauga was born."
Signed,
The (And Gee, ya got to wonder how many other municipalities are like this...) Mississauga Muse
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"Edward R. Murrow --My Hero". To Go Directly to the clip on YouTube or Google Video)
"Mississauga Saga". To Go Directly to the clip on YouTube or Google Video)
"A Flag named The Andre Marin". To Go Directly to the clip on YouTube or Google Video)
All "Antonio Batista Pothole Poet Trial" Blog entries:
THEIR MISSISSAUGA, yes, and ever increasingly --THEIR MISSISSAUGA (May 27, 2007)
Hypocrisy Democracy (May 28, 2007 7:27 am)
"What would Edward R. Murrow do? What would he want me to do?" (May 28, 2007 11:55 pm)
"We have to send a message to the public" Crown Attorney. (May 29, 2007 2:51 PM)
A pothole never loomed so large (John Stewart's "Random Access") (May 30, 2007)
"The government must not silence its critics by force." ---Clayton Ruby (May 29, 2007) (May 31, 2007)
"She does not think how you feel" Antonio Batista (June 4, 2007)
"Mrs. McCALLION what is wrong with the City of Mississauga?" (Antonio Batista) (June 5, 2007)
"Reasonable Person Test" --Crown Witness (June 6, 2007)
And I bet you thought that I'd forgotten about Antonio Batista, huh? (July 16, 2007)
On the nature of "accountable" "accountability" (July 18, 2007)
"We must employ every possible tactic to dissuade those who try to silence us with fear"
---The Mississauga News Editorial (2007-03-24)
Click here for John Stewart's Blog
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Comments (2)
We do live in a secret society.
We all are aware that not too long ago City Councillor Carolyn Parrish during a terse debate in City Council categorically stated that, “We do not live in a secret society.”
Oddly that remark was never officially noted in the minutes of the meeting. My prediction is that years from now when some political scientist or historical researcher attempts to get information about that pivotal moment in our City’s history by searching the ‘official record’ they will get the response, ‘There are no Responsive Records’.
City of Mississauga has a Record [destruction] Retention Policy. I have always been under the idea that the word ‘retention’ meant to keep, to save or to file away in perpetuity. I never thought that it meant how a short a period of time something was kept on record before being tossed out or deemed a non responsive document.
CSIS, the CIA and even the British Royal Family do not have as far reaching Official Secrets Policy as we appear to have. I say appear to have because we don’t officially have any thing called an Official Secrets Act; or for that matter we don’t even have any secrets, official or otherwise in Mississauga. If we do it is a secret.
What we have in Mississauga are Non Responsive Records, In Camera Council Meetings and Freedom of [to request] Information.
Can we get answers? Can we get information?
Rarely yes but usually no.
We cannot get answers and we cannot get information.
What we can get from the Corporation is a ‘response’ and that response is more often than not is ‘no response’.
Figuring out the Mississauga Brand of an open society is like trying to figure out a double-multi-negative statement.
Like don’t we not have no secrets in Mississauga or do we don’t have any secrets not to hide?
I look forward to everyone’s non responsive response to my no secret disdain for evasive doublespeak.
[For the record, Councillor Parrish's actual words were, "This isn't a secret society"]
Posted by Stephen Wahl | July 21, 2007 12:09 PM
Posted on July 21, 2007 12:09
Clearly the Corporation doesn't need to analyze its records to see how well Corporate Security does its job. Your FOI response plainly says that there have been no public complaints about CorpSec in the last ten years. They must be stellar heroes!
Oh wait, the Corporation doesn't have a procedure for submitting or handling a public complaint. Never mind.
On another note, I recall watching the Council meeting at which you spoke about the Records "Retention" bylaw. (Aside to Stephen: think Bush-speak, Clean Air Act allows more pollution, that sort of thing.) At one point, when the deletion of email was brought up, some Corporate minion said that before email was deleted, it would be examined and if found to be relevent it would be printed out and kept. This was supposed to reassure you that nothing really valuable was lost.
Wrap your head around that. An easily searchable format is deliberately altered to a format that allows them to respond that "a manual search of [reports] to compile the requested information... would unreasonably interfere with the operations of the City."
So the question is: was this policy devised by incompetents or by Machiavellians? You decide.
Posted by Bright Snoop | July 23, 2007 12:04 PM
Posted on July 23, 2007 12:04