Venice on the web
A semi-regular column

Overwhelming
On Thursday, March 11, at 7:00pm, Venice's finest filed in to a back room at Gianni's restaurant and closed the door for what was originally scheduled to be a one-hour or so meeting. Only dues-paying members of the Fraternal Order of Police, Venice Lodge 57 were allowed in.

Press were not just excluded, there had been an effort to keep advance knowledge of the meeting from being known. This was private stuff, keep the heck out; remember -- we have guns.

Over three hours later, the cops came back out.

What happened in that room during those 3-plus hours changed everything about how the cops and the media would relate in what has become an escalating and bloody three-way war between the media, the department's chief and four high profile local public servants (two of whom had somehow forgotten that they had retired).

Well...

What happened in that room should have changed how the cops and the media would relate, anyway. Something funny happened on the way to the fourth estate and nobody's still clear on exactly what.

Major statement: The FOP supports Hanks
Media reaction: who? what?
When they emerged, a bit disgruntled but ostensibly unified, the cops had a major statement to make: The FOP fully supports Jim Hanks as chief of the Venice Police Department.

Now that's a bold statement, one that ought to make the media stand up and take notice.

The media didn't bite. Barely blinked, in fact. Whether it was because the FOP was trying to control the news a little too tightly or because the media wanted blood and got milk instead is debatable. It all seems very odd, though, that after weeks of a media siege on the department, and particularly on its chief, this important piece of news slipped by, barely noticed.

There was a small mention in the Herald-Tribune, it was buried at the bottom of a pile of news briefs, the same section where they normally put their retractions and corrections. The Gondo took a pass and didn't even mention the vote.

While the FOP's vote will probably have an impact on city hall, its primary intended audience never got the chance to hear the message, an audience that had been inundated with news stories about how the department was a minefield of internal warfare and unrest.

The meeting
Attempts to contact FOP spokesman Robert Palmieri both before and since the meeting have been unsuccessful, and the official press release from the union was not given to this web site, the only media outlet that had actively expressed an interest in carrying the story.

According to Palmieri's statement to the Herald-Trib, the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of supporting the chief. While unions typically do not give out actual vote counts in such elections, I received one report from a reliable source that the vote was 88% in favor of Hanks. So far, I have been unable to independently confirm the percentage, but I am reasonably confident in the accuracy.

The meeting itself was described to me as highly contentious and boisterous at times, and yet controlled and on-target. A little dirty laundry and a few bones of contention were brought into the light, discussed, yelled about, and dealt with in a sometimes unpleasant (to put it mildly) but healthy fashion. Anyone who had a gripe had a chance to air it, the gripe was heard, noted and then the meeting moved on towards the vote with the understanding that FOP members would act as a unified force based on the results of the vote.

A little background -- Joe Slapp is not an obsessed and bitter man
The only reason this FOP meeting was organized was to have a vote in confidence in their leader, Hanks. Four -- count 'em -- four public officials had already publicly blasted at Hanks, three of them calling for Hanks' resignation, and all of them representing the dying political regime that has held this town in an iron grip for a number of years.

The situation was exacerbated by an ill-informed TV news reporter for local cable news channel, SNN. David Karsh did a series of reports for the channel, citing years-old documented rifts in the police department. The problem was that Karsh barely knew the players involved and had no clue about the history. His reports were filled with inaccuracies and bad assumptions that had a few Hanks-haters applauding and everyone else groaning. Karsh's reports became a catalyst for the last remnants of the good ol' boy crowd to rally forth in a last ditch attempt to regain control of the police force, something that the majority of the cops are desperately trying to avoid -- they don't want to be part of any political faction, they just want to be cops.

Karsh gave retired city manager George Hunt and retired police chief Joe Slapp some quality TV face time. Hunt and Slapp, now fallen-from-grace good ol' boys, both stated that Hanks should retire, ostensibly so that someone a tad more controllable could take the helm. In a story first aired on March 4 on SNN, Slapp went so far as to recommend asking the men and women of the department how they felt, that they all believed that Hanks should resign. "Just go to the rank and file," Slapp angrily stated on camera while jabbing his hand into the air for dramatic emphasis. Classic moment in TV news, that.

Slapp didn't stop there, though. Just to prove that he really was not an obsessed and bitter man, Slapp recounted the past few years for Earle Kimel of the Herald-Trib in what would be Kimel's final journalistic piece* as an H-T reporter assigned to Venice. "Slapp says he was 'livid' when Hunt chose Hanks [to be chief of police]. But that does not mean he worked against Hanks in any way, insists Slapp," Kimel wrote in the March 7 edition of the paper, and that was actually one of the nicer things Slapp was quoted as saying in the article.

Nope. No bitterness there, not a trace.

Hunt wanders aimlessly into camera view, asks for a stick of gum
Hunt's camera time on SNN, first aired on March 5, was equally, if not more, bizarre. Hunt, sounding like Dean Wormer in Animal House, stated that Hanks should retire because of a double-secret-probation-type agreement that Hunt and Hanks supposedly had worked out years before (and that, of course, was not on paper). Hunt stated that Hanks had agreed to ride off into the sunset after an agreed-to 30 years of service was attained, and that the horse had been saddled up on March 1 of this year. The fact that Hanks only has 28 years in with the city was, well, ......you know how George is with facts.

The mayor and his foot -- "Eat At Joe's"
Next up in the Karsh parade of players, Mayor Dean Calamaras.

The mayor had stated at a prior city council meeting that the city manager should make such personnel decisions as the hiring and firing of department managers. Flash forward two weeks: the mayor stated at a council meeting on March 9 that there had been many problems at the cop shop under Hanks' reign, perhaps too many. Calamaras went on to give high praise to Joe Slapp. What wasn't known at the meeting was that Calamaras had already taped an interview with SNN that called for Hanks' resignation. In an SNN story that first aired late in the day on Tuesday, March 9, Calamaras stated that Hanks should retire: "It's time," Hizzonor stated.

Calamaras was no doubt taking his cue from his good friend, Joe Slapp. Slapp, however, had the protected benefit of being retired, thus he could close his door and ignore outside criticism. The mayor did not have the same luxury of distance -- he was now in the thick of it with no easy way out.

The press responds
Almost immediately, both local newspapers took strong issue with the politicos' use of the police department as a municipal ping-pong ball. The Gondo reacted first. In an editorial dated March 10, the Gondo took Hanks' side, but with some clear reservations. The gist of it was to give Hanks a chance to finally run the department unencumbered, but the paper was fairly rough on Hanks for not taking a strong stand in the past.

At the same time, the Gondo was blunt and harsh with Slapp. The final paragraph in the editorial was nothing short of stunning: "Memo to Joe Slapp: The city let you hang on to get your full retirement. It's time to ride off into the sunset -- quietly."

Slapp apparently got the message -- he hasn't been heard from since.

The Herald-Trib's editorial on March 11 was equally harsh, only it was aimed at Calamaras for his remarks both at the council meeting and on TV. The short and sweet of H-T's message: put a sock in it, Dean.

The very next day (and probably after a few slaps in the back of the head from fellow council members), Calamaras flopped over again. On Friday, March 12, Calamaras was back in an SNN vid-bite stating that the city manager should make these decisions. "We're all still friends, we had a bump in the road," the mayor was quoted on TV as saying about Hanks and himself.

Some bump.

OK. Moving right along....
Even the police department's own press officer, Detective Mike Treanor, went on the record and turned on his boss. Speaking in his capacity as public relations officer, thus speaking officially for the department and for the chief, Treanor was quoted in the Venice-Gondolier Sun's March 10 edition as stating "I'm not upset, I'm pissed;" this in reaction to the way an internal investigation in the department was handled. Treanor stopped just short of publicly calling for Hanks' removal, but the implication was fairly clear.

While Hanks won this battle and City Manager Marty Black is stating that Hanks' job is secure, Hanks is scheduled for a disciplinary pre-hearing based on a complaint filed against him by Treanor. Black is recommending a five-day suspension and a letter of reprimand for the way Hanks handled a now well-publicized internal investigation in the department. That pre-hearing is set for this Tuesday.

Black, in reality, has no choice in the upcoming course of events. Bound and determined to bring the concept of "due process" back into vogue within municipal personnel processes, Black will be setting a strong precedent here, one that is needed to be established.

While it is unfortunate for Hanks that he will be the test case for a new workplace philosophy, Hanks and Black will both benefit from the precedent -- the next time a serious issue needs to be dealt with, a clear roadmap will have already been drawn. In effect, all employees, supervisors and department heads have just been put on notice -- there's a new sheriff in town and a new set of rules, and none will be able to complain that they are the first to have to deal with a new set of unexplained guidelines. Even being a favored son, like Hanks, will offer no protection.

Case in point: the utilities department, which has long been suffering from bad publicity, bad employee relations and a pesky ongoing EPA criminal investigation that is purportedly in the Federal Grand Jury stage as you read this. Some folks in utilities are watching all of the current events at the police department with some amusement -- the cops took the heat off of them, if only temporarily. They should be watching all of this very closely for a very good reason: the actions Black takes with the police department will set a long-overdue due process model for any actions he will take in the future in dealing with the utilities department.

All of this newfangled, high falootin' due process stuff should turn off much of the media frenzy in short order. It's hard to work up a good case of moral outrage when issues are being dealt with procedurally and publicly.

The future's so bright, ya gotta wear shades.

*Kimel is still with the Herald-Trib. He's now working in the Port Charlotte bureau, having accepted the position of community editor.

Photos on this page are from screenshots of Karsh's SNN reports, used under guise of the Fair Use Exemption to U.S. copyright laws. 

John Patten is the head of Web Operations for Creative Pages, and has worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.