From: Andrea Mogensen, attorney
To: John Patten
Date: November 2, 2008, 9:58 PM
Friday [October 31, 2008] was a deadline for all discovery-related matters as set forth in Judge Bennetts Order. These deadlines were established nearly two months ago and have nothing to do with the election except that Mr. Moore insisted that this case needed to be expedited on this time frame because HE was running for reelection. We have been griping about the expedited schedule since before it was set. You know that because you were there. FYI - several motions were filed Friday by various parties, not just us. Further, had the City not objected to our discovery subpoenas, the motion would not have been necessary at all.
The defendants and [alleged] liaisons waited until the last minute to turn emails over. In fact, they are still refusing to turn over innumerable discovery materials; e.g.: [Venice citizen and short-time Airport Advisory Board member Jim] Marble didnt produce the emails until September 22nd, and we had to go through more than 1000 of them. Despite a clear directive in the subpoena, his initial production did not include any of the attachments to his e-mails. We did re-request them in the deposition and received them very recently. Then, of course, we had to sift through them. The City produced 130,000 last Friday and we still havent had time to go through them. [City Councilman John] Simmonds dropped off volume four, and we still have not had time to go through that completely, either.
Had the individuals just turned this stuff over to the clerk when the suit was filed, and said oops, we screwed up, how can we help undo the damage? this suit would have concluded a long time ago (read: way before the election). The only reason this suit was filed was because of their failure to do that very thing in the absence of a court directive to do so. Not one of us on the plaintiffs side had any reason to think that it would still be going at election time, nor that anyone in the election would be involved.
The City officials and the would-be City officials have a legal duty to the public to keep them informed of the decision making process used in conducting City business, and a duty to provide the public records that exist to the public. I do not have such a duty, and neither does Anthony Lorenzo. However, we have undertaken the return of these public records and exposure of the decision making process to the people of the City of Venice. Youre welcome. It has been exhausting due to the lack of cooperation of those who have the legal duty to do that very thing. Again, youre welcome. If there is political fallout, the blame belongs to those who authored and then concealed the materials and not on the messenger who re-delivers them to the public.
Anyone who accuses me of looking for big bucks need only rely on the open government laws themselves to review my income history. In spite of being a very experienced attorney licensed in three States for the last 17 years, I worked for a paltry sum for the State of Florida five out of the last seven years in order to protect individual rights of charged persons. I took a cut in pay to the tune of 2/3 in order to do so. It is a moral imperative for me to do this kind of work. A brief review of my calendar and bank account would show you that I do pro-bono, contingent fee, and under-market work for folks who would like to contest government action against them. And I do it because I feel it is important work. Period.
This lawsuit is NOT about me in any way, shape or form. And dont shoot the messenger!
From: John Patten
To: Andrea Mogensen, attorney
Date: November 3, 2008 4:29 AM
Thanks for the response, but...
Bull in a china shop, forest for the trees, and a few other metaphors spring to mind.
Did it dawn on you that it wasn't much of a secret code if they were including decryption keys mixed in with the messages? Calling this a valid attempt to encode to actually deceive isn't much different than Jeff Boone accusing me of hacking or his subsequent delusions of homoerotic attractiveness.
It was a low blow, timed for maximum damage, and you hit the target beautifully. In the process, you've skewed the electoral process... with a huge lie.
In the end, you'll have cleaned up Venice, at least the language. You'll have taught us all not to swear, to be polite, to hold our forks correctly at the dinner table, to place our napkins on our laps. And you'll have left us with the thieves in charge again. They'll be polite, to be sure... for a little while. Your moral victory will be great and expensive and for what?
You already had [Mayor] Ed [Martin and Councilwoman] Sue [Lang] on a handful for your slap, but since they wouldn't fess up right away, you piled more and more and more, losing track of the real bad guys in your quest for your moral victory over stupid but basically honest people. Meanwhile the thieves and murderers sit on the sidelines laughing as you dig in to pile on as many jaywalking tickets as you can.
Don't shoot the messenger? You've already shot me. A more surgical approach on your end could have actually helped to clean up Venice. Instead, you're just a sniper on a rooftop, shooting at anything that crosses your field of vision.
Don't shoot the messenger? You actually wrote that?
