Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller signs vandalized

Monterey County Sheriff Scott Miller, who is seeking re-election in the June 3 primary, had at least five signs vandalized or destroyed in the past few days.

Not surprisingly, no one has come forward to claim responsibility. At the time of this blog posting it was unclear if there was any investigation.

Monterey County Probation Association breaks silence on sheriff endorsement

One of the most contentious endorsements of the Monterey County sheriff's race was made by five people.

The 5-person board of the Monterey County Probation Association, which represents 198 Monterey County Probation Department employees, voted to endorse sheriff candidate Fred Garcia in January, according to past president Dawn Allen.

Garcia was the only candidate to speak to the board. Allen said it is not that Garcia was the only candidate allowed to speak, it was that he was the only one to reach out to the association.

Mike Richards, Steve Bernal and current sheriff Scott Miller are also running in the June 3 primary.

The endorsement became an issue last week when Garcia was forced to issue a correction press release after he mistakenly told 12,000 voters in a flier he was endorsed by the county Probation Department, which would have been illegal for the department.

After comments by Miller about the matter in The Herald, Garcia fired back with a press release accusing the sheriff of "dirty politics" and implied the probation department's chief Manuel Real was playing politics.

"Is Mr. Real using his position at the county to campaign for Scott Miller on the public dime?" Garcia wrote.

Allen distanced herself from the comments Monday morning while speaking to The Herald.

"While our Probation Association, not the Probation Department, has endorsed Fred Garcia for sheriff," she said in a prepared statement, "we do not endorse any negative commentary by any candidate about each other, the Probation Department and, especially, our chief."

Allen said the association is considering changing its bylaws to allow all members - not just the board - to vote on endorsements, similar to the Monterey County Deputy Sheriff's Association.

In that association's vote in March, no candidates received its approval because a majority is needed for the endorsement. Miller got the most votes with 49 out of 135 votes cast, or 36 percent of members. Garcia got 21 percent, Bernal got 16 percent and Richards received 9 percent.

All four candidates are expected to address members of the legal community Monday at 3 p.m. at the law offices of Miguel Hernandez at 40 Central Ave. in Salinas. It is open to the public.

Sheriff Scott Miller claim on Hwy 68 to be removed

Submitted photo

A message likely seen by hundreds of drivers between Salinas and Monterey is in the process of being removed.

Sometime around May 6 an individual, or group, hiked up a hill off of Highway 68 near the Reservation Road exit and spray painted a message about Sheriff Scott Miller.

It said, “MEDIA SHERRIFF (sic) MILLER GOT $10,000 FROM P.G. ART HEIST SCAMMERS.”

Whoever wrote the message never came forward or produced any evidence. Miller said he had no idea what the message meant and the other campaigns distanced themselves from it.

The property is owned by Santa Monica-based Domain Corporation and leased to cattle ranchers.

In a letter from Domain Vice President Mark Kelton, he tells the sheriff the matter is a mystery to him too.

“We are very sorry to learn of this incident and have no knowledge about who is responsible for these statements,” he wrote. “. . . Upon discussing this matter with the cattle ranchers, they told us that they were also disappointed that someone would trespass on the property to spray paint any type of message.”

It is impossible to say for sure, but the message seems to point to a two-year investigation by the Sheriff’s Office into stolen artwork from a Pebble Beach home.

The men who said they had been robbed, Angelo Amadio and Ralph Kennaugh, said they lost $80 million of dollars of art.

Current sheriff candidate Mike Richards said in 2009 (as then-spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office) investigators suspected Amadio and Kennaugh of possible fraud.

Richards, who remembers the case well, said Thursday he has no idea who wrote the message.

There are no records of Amadio or Kennaugh donating to Miller’s 2010 or current sheriff’s campaign.

Fred Garcia accuses Sheriff Scott Miller of 'dirty politics'

A day after Sheriff Scott Miller criticized sheriff candidate Fred Garcia for a campaign error, Garcia has accused Miller of playing "dirty politics."

Garcia mistakenly listed the Monterey County Probation Department as his top endorsement in a campaign flier. He had actually been endorsed by the county Probation Association, the union for department employees. 

It was a big deal for the probation department, and its chief Manuel Real, because a county entity is forbidden by state law for endorsing candidates. Miller called it an "egregious error." 

"(Miller) continues to slander his opponents because of his personal record of failure," Garcia wrote in the release, which is posted below. 

A central theme in the release is that Miller somehow gave The Herald a letter the Probation Department had sent to Garcia in order to create a smoke screen from his son's sentencing earlier that day. 

I actually got an anonymous email about Garcia's election trouble Friday and had some difficulty obtaining it from the county until Tuesday (mostly because I thought the letter actually came from county counsel). It was me who pursued getting the letter and not Miller who gave it to me. I called him for comment, and the other candidates in the June 3 primary, as I do for every sheriff's race story. 

Garcia also implies Real may have an ulterior motive for asking him to correct his flier. 

"Is Mr. Real using his position at the County to campaign for Scott Miller on the public dime?" he wrote. I have sent an email to Real to see if he wants to comment about this. 

Garcia's press release ends by raising questions about Miller's ballot claim to have saved the taxpayers $500,000 by refusing to "double dip." I have written about that issue here.

Candidates Steve Bernal and Mike Richards are also running for sheriff.

Fred Garcia press release: 

press release garcia may 14 _1_.docx

Stonewalled by the Defense Department on Guardian block

I am being stonewalled by the U.S. Department of Defense.

This summer I wrote a story about The Guardian being blocked on Army bases because of the leaks by Edward Snowden.

As a follow up, I did a public records request to see all the websites the Army was "filtering" on its bases.

I got the request back, which showed the Army had only blocked one website all year - a link to a 2010 diplomatic cable from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on The Guardian's website.

This is weird because:

The diplomatic cable had been on the website for three years.

The Army told me in June it had restricted access to The Guardian because of the National Security Agency leaks. 

The same cable is on the New York Times website and not blocked there. 

To get to the bottom of this I contacted the Army Network Enterprise Technology Command, or NETCOM, because it had answered my questions for the story in June. 

This time, the agency's spokesman Gordan Van Vleet said I needed to contact U.S. Army Cyber Command (NETCOM is a subordinate to Army Cyber Command). So, I made some calls and was told to contact Jennifer Downing, a spokeswoman for the command. 

On Nov.22, I emailed Downing (at the time I couldn't find a phone number) about some questions about my public records request. She emailed back on Nov.25 that "OSD Cyber PAO will be replying to your questions below. I am passing your information to him."

She did not bother to tell me who it was or what "OSD" meant but - after two emails - she coughed up a name and phone number. The man who would answer my questions was Defense Department spokesman Lt. Col. Damien Pickard. 

I called Pickard on Tuesday and got him on the phone right away. I was feeling good about it because Pickard said that he had been consulted about my Freedom of Information Act request earlier in the summer. 

Unfortunately, he had to get going to a previous engagement and would call back in an hour and a half. I normally just start asking questions but, for some reason, I just let him go. 

He never called.

So I called later that day, again on Wednesday and now Monday. Nothing. 

I am not giving up. I still have plenty of folks to keep bothering and I've only become more determined. Yet I thought it was worth noting on my blog that there seems to be a coordinated effort not to talk about this.  

The Army blocking an individual website on its bases made international news, I think with good reason. The Army did admit it and explained why (classified information on those websites, etc.) but just what the heck is so bad about this public records request that no one wants to give any answers?

I won a public records court case (sort of)

Justice prevails! Just slightly!

I'm happy to report the New Jersey public records enforcement arm, the Government Records Council, agreed with me, somewhat, in a complaint I had made against Warren County Community College.  

A little more than a year ago, I was a scrappy Express-Times reporter covering northwest New Jersey. I mostly reported on county government but I was lucky enough to get our local community college as part of my beat. To say the least, I got some great stories out that place. 

For reasons I will not discuss here out of libel concerns, there was a ton of suspicion behind the scenes -- in the newsroom and in the community -- about a building the school bought for a satellite campus in Phillipsburg. 

After the sale was complete I made a public records request for closed-session meeting minutes of the school's board. Unfortunately, whenever the 445 Marshall Street building came up the rest of the sentence was blacked out. The college claimed it was "attorney-client privilage" that kept me from seeing what was written. 

So, I filed a complaint.

I contended that the sale had already taken place so the college had no reason to block out discussions it had about its purchase. To bolster my point, I also threw in a bunch of complaints about how the college had clearly avoided protocol when it handled my request. 

The GRC decided this summer the college's response to my request was "legally insufficient" because the college's custodian, Dennis Florentine, failed to respond in writing to all the items in my request. Also, it said the college had limited my access to information by demanding I fill out its official request form. 

When the council reviewed the unredacted records I asked for, they found it was not direct communication between a lawyer and a client. But, it did contain a "summary" of advice from a lawyer so they were still allowed to redact it because it still fell under the privilege clause. 

The council said Florentine did not have a "positive element of conscious wrongdoing or was intentional and deliberate." Translation: His response violated the law a little bit but he didn't mean to do it. 

You can read the council's entire report below. 

That's it for now. I promise to get back to local stuff later in the week, including a request I got back from the city of Monterey (Hint: It has to do with taxes). 

Photo courtesy of Warren County Community College

Warren County Community College

Finally! Valorie Pollard's photo

As you may remember me lamenting last month, we were never able to find a photo of 2nd Lt. Valorie Pollard.

Pollard was a pilot in the Army Air Force in World War II and he remained missing until the Defense Department finally identified his remains this year.

I wrote about it on this blog after my request for records on him failed because the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis lost them in a horrific fire in 1973.

Good news though! I was just talking to his daughter, Sandra Pollard, on the phone and she sent this image along. Sure, it is not the best, but it is still pretty cool.

I had called Sandra Pollard because Gov. Jerry Brown has ordered all Sacramento flags at half-staff in honor of Pollard today.