Public Meeting 2

           I arrived at today’s public meeting about intersections expecting the same thing I experienced my last public meeting. What I found was that even though this meeting was a lot smaller than the recognition meeting I attended before it was a lot more lively and interesting.

          Unlike the other meeting this one was about tax payer’s money and construction in their backyard. The crowd was pretty diverse, politicians, heads of neighborhood associations and just everyday folk wanting to know what’s going on.

          I walked into the rec center off of North Dale Mabry and Northdale Blvd, which is one of the intersections they are talking about redoing, and noticed poster boards with Google image type pictures depicting what the roads would look like. I thought this was a great idea to have the resident’s visual the changes instead of just telling them about it. The other intersection in question was North Lakeview Drive South and North Dale Mabry. There were also poster boards of this intersection next to the other ones. 

          This particular meeting was in what they call the Preliminary Design and Engineering Study, which in laymen’s terms means that they are proposing this to the public and trying to convince them to vote on it. The first intersection had 4 choices and the second had 3. The country and contracting company is trying to figure out which choice the residents would prefer over the other.

         The contracting team put on a video for the residents at the meeting. I thought this video was top notch and made me feel like doing this construction was a great idea….I DON’T EVEN LIVE HERE. That’s how convincing I felt this video was. It had great graphics and details, it told exactly what was going to be done and how much it would cost. At least that is what I thought…I’ve been around enough politics to know not everything will be disclosed.

        After the video, the head of the contract team offered the attendees of the meeting to get up and look at the poster boards and ask questions to any of the staff located at the boards.

        Although some might not agree I thought this meeting was very interesting. It made me think towards the future and if I would be attending a meeting towards such a topic. Being forced to attend public meetings, it made me realize that these are important and informative meetings that someday I will want to go to.  

          

         Quote of the meeting: “There will be a no construction option.” That was replied with clapping from the attending residents.

Public Meeting 2

           I arrived at today’s public meeting about intersections expecting the same thing I experienced my last public meeting. What I found was that even though this meeting was a lot smaller than the recognition meeting I attended before it was a lot more lively and interesting.

          Unlike the other meeting this one was about tax payer’s money and construction in their backyard. The crowd was pretty diverse, politicians, heads of neighborhood associations and just everyday folk wanting to know what’s going on.

          I walked into the rec center off of North Dale Mabry and Northdale Blvd, which is one of the intersections they are talking about redoing, and noticed poster boards with Google image type pictures depicting what the roads would look like. I thought this was a great idea to have the resident’s visual the changes instead of just telling them about it. The other intersection in question was North Lakeview Drive South and North Dale Mabry. There were also poster boards of this intersection next to the other ones. 

          This particular meeting was in what they call the Preliminary Design and Engineering Study, which in laymen’s terms means that they are proposing this to the public and trying to convince them to vote on it. The first intersection had 4 choices and the second had 3. The country and contracting company is trying to figure out which choice the residents would prefer over the other.

         The contracting team put on a video for the residents at the meeting. I thought this video was top notch and made me feel like doing this construction was a great idea….I DON’T EVEN LIVE HERE. That’s how convincing I felt this video was. It had great graphics and details, it told exactly what was going to be done and how much it would cost. At least that is what I thought…I’ve been around enough politics to know not everything will be disclosed.

        After the video, the head of the contract team offered the attendees of the meeting to get up and look at the poster boards and ask questions to any of the staff located at the boards.

        Although some might not agree I thought this meeting was very interesting. It made me think towards the future and if I would be attending a meeting towards such a topic. Being forced to attend public meetings, it made me realize that these are important and informative meetings that someday I will want to go to.  

          

         Quote of the meeting: “There will be a no construction options.” That was replied with clapping from the attending residents.

Not a T.V. body

      I am a big fan of violent, investigative, no holds bar kind of shows. In those types of shows you see a lot of dead bodies and wounds that make you desensitized to that stuff, if you are into that. All of the shows in the world could not have prepared be for what I saw and heard from the Hillsborough Medical Examiner’s office.

     Vernard Adams, MD Chief Medical Examiner spoke to my class for roughly 20-30 minutes, telling us the legal stuff about his line of work. A couple of interesting things Dr. Adams told us were about, who would want the public record, what their missions are and how they dispose of bodies.

      I was intrigued to learn that their missions were to investigate deaths that are unnatural and dispose of unwanted bodies. I just thought that an M.E. just autopsied the body and wrote a report. Dr. Adams told us that they have switched to cremating unwanted bodies instead of burying. I found this interesting until I heard later that it is because cremating cost about ¼ less. Some of the people that I didn’t think would want to have the public record were life insurance policy, state attorney and public defender. After Dr. Adams explained why, it made a lot my sense.

      Finally we get to the good part, so we get the tour around the three buildings and end up at the autopsy room/coolers.  Now I have to admit the way Dr. Adams talked about dead people amazed me, I’m thinking to myself “geez this guy has probably seen it all and it just doesn’t affect him anymore.” So we’re standing in the lobby and he tells us that there is an autopsy going on and he doesn’t think we can go in there room. Then all of a sudden the door to the room opens and BAM there is one our my classmates and a dead body.

       I got to tell you seeing a lifeless body just laying there with practically nothing inside was gut wrenching. Those T.V. shows don’t do anything to prepare you for the real thing. I am glad I experienced a body in that state. I’ve been to funerals and even though they were sad, the body was put together. I’m going to stick to journalism and public records.

Live Blogging APME

      I arrived just in time to hear the conversation from Debra Adams Simmons, Editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, about LeBron James and his decision to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers. Patrick Stiegman, VP/Executive Editor and Producer of ESPN.com, discussed the coverage ESPN will provide of the Heat because of LeBron James’ decision to leave for Miami.

      Topic changed to an NHL team, New Jersey Devils, whom hired writers along with other professional hockey teams to cover their team and provide those stories to news papers. Hollis Towns. Executive Editor or Asbury Park Press discussed the issue. The New York Times cried fouled and proposed that the Asbury Park Press was letting the New Jersey Devils write their own stories instead of having actual journalist do it. Towns responded to the claim by saying that a lot of organizations are looking to make an extra buck.  By them hiring a writer and using their stories they would get money from that. Towns went on to say that it was an experiment that they no long do and only did about 3 times. However, he did say that they did read over and edited the stories provided by the team writer.

       In a way Patrick Stiegman said Twitter is devaluing  breaking news. Reporters and writers are more frequently posting their breaking news on Twitter.  Even though Twitter may be making breaking news less important it also serves as a boost to writers. Stiegman talked about Bill Simmons who is the most followed ESPN writer on their website.

       The conversation went on to if writers should have an objective or subjective view. Stiegman felt that sometimes it is good to be transparent and have a bias while Simmons disagreed. Simmons referred back to when LeBron James made the decision to go to the Miami Heat, one of her writers posted on their Twitter that they were very displeased with James’ decision.  She would have rather him not say any of that and stay objective.

            Towns talked about how his audience rather read about local sports than having to read about other sports team. He mentioned that his market is more about high school and recreation sports. The feedback he gets from his readers is that they rather focus on their own local sports instead of teams in other markets.
           Topic went back to LeBron James for a little bit and the Q&A ended with a woman asking about investigative sports journalism. All of the panelist agreed that, that type of writing style is important and needed in sports journalism.

Andrews and Dempsey

    It seems to me that investigative reporting is where it’s at. A couple weeks ago I listened to Matt Doig, of the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, talk about investigative reporting. Yesterday I was able to listen to both Steve Andrews, Senior Investigative Reporter, and Gordon Dempsey, Producer, discuss some of their investigative stories.

     By far the best story I heard from them was about the State Attorney, Harry Lee Coe, who was betting on horse races at work and “borrowing” money from employees.  I could barely wrap my head around the idea that Andrews story that led to the investigation of Coe’s financial records led to Coe’s suicide.  I kept thinking to myself that to be in this business you must have thick skin. Both Andrews and Dempsey revealed that they received death threats among other things after the suicide.

 “When I am doing an investigative report, I know everything about you. I know where you live, where you have lunch, the car you drive, even where you take your dry cleaning.”

    

    That statement alone from Andrews left an impact on me. It seems that to able to be an investigative reporter you have to get in deep with the person you are reporting on. Even though Coe lived in an apartment and his address was not listed Dempsey was still able to find out where he lived. Dempsey told us that he waited outside of Coe’s work and waited for him to leave and then followed him. Dempsey joked about how Coe drove like a mad man and it took him several tries to finally find Coe’s apartment.

      The story itself was an ethic decision to pursue because once Andrews requested Coe’s computer records, there was word that those files were being deleted. Instead of reporting on the files being deleted and giving up the newsroom decided to report the crime to law enforcement. Once that was set in motion it was all downhill for Coe.

      The main thing I took away for this experience was to be a great investigative reporter you have to stick with the story and sometimes make ethical decisions as a citizen of the community and not a reporter.

CourtHouse

          I still get taken back by the amount of information that can be obtained on almost everyone. After going through, what seemed like airport security, I looked around and was amazing at how nice the Courthouse looked and also how big it was. I envisioned a courthouse like the one in “My cousin Vinny” and was completely wrong. After hearing about all of the public record readily available to me, I just wanted to go back and spend the whole day looking up everyone I know.

         I found it fascinating that some people will go down to the Courthouse and create database from the information and then sell it. At first I didn’t believe Douglas Bakke, director of; family law, domestic violence, collections, sealing and expungement unit. But wouldn’t you know it that while I was on level 5 of the courthouse there was a women sitting there on her laptop doing exactly that. Personally I would drive myself crazy sitting there all day and typing all that data.

          When I went back to the first floor I noticed the extremely long line at the traffic desk.  The people could have been there to pay citations or if they had a problem paying online they would come in and pay them.  I kept thinking to myself how annoyed those people would be when they reached that counter because if I was in their shoes I wouldn’t be a happy camper.

            I went into the Family Law office where I saw some people looking over documents. I learned that this would be the office to go to if I wanted to learn about custody battles. Lucky for me, Doug Belden (the person I am profiling) has gone through a divorce and custody battle. So while I was there I looked up all of the cases file numbers through the computer and wrote them down so I can go in at a later date with them.

        I’ve tried to use the www.hillsclerk.com website but find it kind of difficult to find information. I think for any information I need I’m just going to take the trip down to the Courthouse.