City to enter three-year 'probation' under the EPA
Terms include appointment of City Manager Marty Black as Compliance Officer and an additional three-year contract with utils management company OMI
-- John Patten, 06/29/06
-- jpatten@veniceflorida.com

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On Tuesday, June 27, 2006, Attorney Ron Noble of the law firm Fowler and White appeared before city council. Noble, you may recall, was one of the attorneys representing the city in the federal criminal case that was brought against the city as a result of the EPA investigation into unlawful spills and falsification of documents.

Noble appeared before council to explain the recently negotiated compliance agreement between the city and the EPA.

Several things worth noting before you watch the videos below. According to City Manager Marty Black, a continued three-year contract between the city and OMI, the private utility management company, was one of the demands that the EPA made and that the city conceded to. Additionally, according to Black, the EPA requested that Black become the compliance officer during the three-year term of the compliance agreement.

To put that into better perspective, think of the three-year term as though it were a sentence of probation, which is a fair analogy. Following that analogy, the EPA requested that Black become the city's probation officer (of sorts). Black is now responsible for fielding all complaints about non-compliance, investigating them, and then subsequently reporting them back to the EPA.

As to the three-year period of compliance, this agreement was necessary to prevent an EPA action of "debarment," or blacklisting. Noble explained the process of debarment and the ramifications in his presentation.

The three videos below represent Noble's presentation in its entirety.

INSTRUCTIONS:
Click on the arrow in the center of the video clip.
Internet Explorer users may have to click twice.
Embedded media players each have start and stop buttons as well as volume and advance video sliders.

John Patten is the editor and publisher of Venice Florida! dot com and had previously worked in broadcasting for over 12 years. He can also be incredibly rude at times.