Why Is Everyone Hanging Out on a Cloud?

ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN KEY WEST THE NEWSPAPER JAN 22, 2010

...Or better yet, why aren’t
they?

It’s a question everyone
is asking lately, what is all this
talk of doing business in “THE
CLOUD?”

Essentially, the concept
of “the cloud” is hosting business
services such as email,
calendaring, documents, invoicing
and bookkeeping out
on the web, and accessing these
services from any computer
in the world with internet access.

Hey, let’s face it, times are
changing. Our cell phones are
now as powerful as our desktop
computers were a mere four or
five years ago. The concept of
a small business, or government
agency hosting these
services in house is not only
outdated, but it has become
archaic.

Historically, a business
or agency would build
the infamous “server rack” in
a “server room” which would
include the necessary hardware
to host all these services. Staff
with thick rimmed glasses and
pocket protectors would then
be concerned with patching
servers, worrying about equipment
failure, concerning themselves
with a reliable power
source, making data backups,
and budgeting for the life cycle
replacement of this entire mess
of hardware and wires. The
points of failure were countless,
and the downtime was inconvenient
to say the least.

But today, with the advent
of companies like Google
developing all these services in
a web based platform, small
business and government
agencies can migrate it all out
to the web, and need only concern
themselves with reliable
internet connectivity to obtain
the same if not a better system
performance.

Companies like
Google have teams of engineers,
and much more reliable
equipment to host the services,
ensuring less downtime, better
access, and greater security. As
a business, your only concern is
providing staff with convenient
access to the internet, and this
gets easier every day. Further,
with the ever increasing
methods of obtaining internet
access, reliability and accessibility
become the norm versus
the hope.

The concept is demonstrable
by looking at the advent
of online banking. Most of us
can remember the time consuming
effort of writing checks,
licking envelopes, and incurring
the expense of postage.
Yet now, all this can be done for
free in a fraction of the time by
using online banking available
at almost every bank.

One local administrator
who has taken advantage of
the concept is State Attorney
Dennis Ward. Ward turned to
local consultant Matt Gardi, of
ViaVende Technical Consulting
to bring his email and calendaring
system into the twenty first
century.

“I parallel the difference
to snail mail versus email,” said
Gardi. “At the State Attorney’s
Office, by deploying Google
Apps, we were able to migrate
their email and calendaring
systems to the cloud, increasing
functionality, accessibility,
security, and reliability all at
a fraction of the cost of what
Microsoft was providing.”

Aside from the direct
cost advantage of licensing
fees, Gardi sees tangential
cost savings by leveraging the
systems in the cloud. “I give a
lot of credit to forward thinking
administrators who are
able to look past the hurdle of
systems migration, towards
the benefits achievable down
the road.”

Gardi also credits
Public Defender Rose Enright,
who with his assistance
last year migrated their case
management system to a web
based platform. “For instance,
being in the cloud would allow
for an attorney to access case
information, create a motion,
share it with her legal assistant,
and update a co-councel’s calendar
to reflect a change in a
hearing date, all from a mobile
device while she’s waiting for
the bus.”

When asked what other
agencies he believes could benefit
from the cloud, Gardi said,
“Well, I could argue almost any
business or government entity
would realize cost savings and
increased functionality, but seeing
as Google Apps provides
many of these services free to
educational institutions, what
comes to my mind immediately
is the Monroe County School
District.”

Recycling: The good, the bad, and the ugly

ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN KEY WEST THE NEWSPAPER FEB 13, 2009

by Matt Gardi

Recent consideration and
adoption of a recycling ordinance
in the City of Key West
has caused a healthy debate
among residents and City officials,
which is a good thing
as it has raised awareness. The
discussion alone has indirectly
promoted recycling all by itself.

That being said, during the
discussion a lot of facts and
fears were debated, many of
which were valid, and many
of which were not. Folks from
both inside and outside the
proverbial recycle bin threw
out so much factual rubbish, it
makes Mt. Trashmore look like
an anthill...and that is bad. Yet
ultimately, Key West’s recycling
rate is abysmal, and that’s not
just ugly, it’s coyote ugly. Something
must be done to address
the situation.

I don’t claim to be an
expert, and admittedly I don’t
have all the answers, but I do
feel I have good insight on the
issue. I served on the Burlington,
VT City Council when we
grappled with the recycling
issue over a decade ago. I’ve
lived in Heidelberg, Germany,
where I kid you not, my wife
and I produced one thirty gallon
trash bag a month at most, and
everything else was recycled.

Maybe it was because I had to
walk down to the “Rathaus”
(AKA City Hall...somehow they
got the name right over there)
and pay about five bucks for a
numbered trash bag to place
in my bar coded trash bin, or
maybe it was because we were
conscientious recyclers...I prefer
to think the latter.

And finally,
I have tried to avidly recycle
here in Key West, and have experienced
the frustration both
as a resident, and as a business
owner on Duval street.

Let’s take a look at the
obvious. Recycling is good.
There is no valid argument
that can be made to suggest it
is better to place something in
the trash that could be reused.
End of story. However, reusing
misinformation as a proponent
is bad because it only gives opponents
the ability to incinerate
all the arguments of the pro-recycle crowd.

First, everyone
needs to stop suggesting the City
will save a million dollars. I have
seen this on the petitions, and I
have heard countless residents
and City officials make this
proclamation. Nothing could
be further from the truth. It is
not only simple minded, but it is
disingenuous to recruit supporters
by suggesting this. No, we’re
not going to plug a budget gap
with “recycling savings.” Simply
because we pay $66 dollars per
ton of trash, and recycling will
reduce the total amount of trash
does not mean that the City or
residents will save one penny.

Even during times when the
recycled materials fetch a good
price on the market, there is a
net cost associated with the collection,
transportation, sorting,
storing and reselling of the full
range of recyclables. Even if Key
West increased its recycling to
fifty percent and reduced its
trash disposal costs by as much,
don’t delude yourself into thinking
Waste Management, or any
business for that matter, will take
the hit for the increased cost of
the recycled materials they pick
up. That increased cost will come
back on residents one way or
another, whether it be through
increased trash and recycle rates,
or some other form of taxation.

No question “it’s the right thing
to do,” but recycling costs more,
it’s a zero sum gain and someone
has got to pay. It certainly won’t
be Waste Management.

Speaking of Waste Management,
another ugly fact is
that they don’t actually want to
recycle. I have seen their staff toss
the contents of my residential bin
into my garbage can. I have seen
them toss bundled commercial
cardboard into the trash truck.

I have been told that I have to
go out to their facility to get
a recycle bin, and when I do,
aggravated staff hunt around
for ten minutes trying to find
one. My stories are not isolated
incidents as evidenced by the
countless other similar stories
articulated at public forums.
The pretty presentation at the
commission meeting of their
single stream sorting facility
stunk like a dirty milk jug, considering
they escape being held
accountable for such frequent
incidents.

Not only do these
infractions contribute directly
to Key West’s abysmal recycling
rate, but they indirectly deter
motivated recyclers from even
trying. I unfortunately count
myself among those who have
been discouraged as a direct result
of what I have witnessed...

and yes, I can tell the difference
between a trash truck and a
single stream recycling truck. I
must have missed the language
in the recent ordinance regarding
fining Waste Management?

Think about it, they get paid
by each resident for recycling
whether or not the resident participates,
they get paid per ton of
trash they haul, and they incur
additional costs if they actually
collect the recyclable material.

Their incentive is to haul trash,
and enjoy a low recycling rate
regardless of whatever pretty PR
they push...and it all gets back
to their contract with the City.
It makes one wonder why the
City is even a middle man for
residential trash, and if such a
contract is even helpful.

Ahhh, the City. It’s funny
how the ugly six percent recycling
rate comes right back to the
City. It’s the same government
entity that created a contract
that motivates our trash hauler
to toss recycling in the trash
and created an uncompetitive
environment where residents
have no choice, that has now
passed an ordinance regarding
residential recycling.

As much as
I think the adopted toned down
version was a help in creating
awareness, it’s passage was
like leaving a half eaten slice of
pizza in the box, and tossing it
in the recycle bin. It simply was
the easiest thing to do so that
everyone could pat themselves
on the back, satiate constituents,
toss the hot potato, and claim
they are “for” recycling...kind
of like Waste Management is
“for” recycling. Why be creative
and think outside the pizza
box when all you have to do is pass a new ordinance, law,
or regulation, feel good about
yourself and move on?

Also
why isolate the residential side,
when the commercial side is
much more of a travesty? Don’t
draw any conclusions from the
number of commissioners that
are business owners...let’s just
leave those sour grapes on the
compost heap.

OK, OK, I feel the collective
sentiment of the reader at this
point. Enough of the criticism
you over-opinionated trash
mouth, what are your solutions?
As I stated at the beginning, I
don’t have all the answers, but
perhaps we should dispose of
the governmental red tape. First,
it’s the private organizations
like Love Your Island that have
been the most effective in raising
awareness during this debate.
Beyond that, how about giving
tax and regulation breaks to any business that consumes locally
produced recyclable materials?

Hypothetically, if someone
wanted to produce cardboard
furniture out of local cardboard
waste, grease the skids for them.

If some artists wanted to smelt
beer bottles and make a huge
artificial reef out of their creations,
let them use some City
resources like land, buildings
and equipment. How about a
worldwide contest for the best
idea for such a business, and
produce a press release similar
to what Australia just did for the
best job in the world. Provide an
incentive for a property owner
to offer a year of free rent for
housing and/or a business to
the winner. Think of the ideas
we’ll receive as entries.

Stop waiting for China to
create a demand for our recyclables,
and find ways to create a
demand for our own recyclables
right here in town. Across the nation,
waste oil from restaurants
is now in demand because of
people making biodiesel. What
restaurants once paid to dispose
of, has now become a commodity
because of the development of
the demand side of the equation.
I know, I know, it’s not easy,
and it’s clearly more difficult
than tweaking the language of
another ordinance, or writing a
bid for a contract to “haul our
trash.” But it is that sort of
brainstorming, inventiveness
and creativity that City leaders
need to manifest to create a more
effective solution, increase recycling
rates, and raise awareness.

Now, that would be good.

Did Court Clerk Kolhage Change Website to Try to Help Incumbent State Attorney?

ORIGINALLY APPEARED IN KEY WEST THE NEWSPAPER NOV 28, 2008

WHEN CITIZEN WATCHDOG STARTED ASKING QUESTIONS, KOLHAGE CALLED HIS BOSS AND ASKED THE SHERIFF TO INVESTIGATE HIM

by Matt Gardi

Can anyone ultimately ever prove motive? The only method people have to assess motives, are facts they can prove. That is why I have no alternative but to believe that staff from the county clerk’s office removed information from their public website, in an attempt to help State Attorney Mark Kohl win re-election, and County Clerk Danny Kolhage condoned it.

I’ll be straight up about one motive I had. I wanted to see State Attorney Mark Kohl replaced because I felt he was soft on crime. For the last few years, I forwarded any example of this to Free Press reporter Robert Silk. One particular morning in the heat of the recent election cycle I had the chance to read in the Key West
Citizen about a charming Mr. Dieter in Marathon who allegedly beat up his wife and her son with a golf club. Mr. Dieter it appears, according to my review that morning of the sheriff’s and clerk’s websites, had previously been arrested in 2004 for attempted murder and numerous other charges.

According to the clerk’s
website on the morning that
story broke, the state charged
him with five counts ranging
from aggravated assault to
battery, and dropped three of
the five charges, while Dieter
plead to two counts. He was
sentenced concurrently to a max
of 11 months and 29 days, and
received credit for three months
and a day served. And he was
out on the street, violating his
probation, within six months.
As I had done on othr occasions,
I sent that information in an email
to Mr. Silk.





A few days later, to illustrate
my point to someone
else, I happened to go back to
Mr. Dieter’s case on the clerk’s
site. Oddly, any information
regarding what Mr. Dieter had
been sentenced to for his myriad
of charges was gone. Most of
the case history was still there,
as well as a lot of boring event
detail. Only Dieter’s slap-onthe-
wrist plea agreement was
missing
Granted, not as austere as
gaps in the Watergate tapes, but
this missing information clearly
exemplified a central campaign
issue— that Kohl was soft on
crime. And it was only a month
before the election.

Let’s be real here folks,
it didn’t really look too good
to have another violent crime
allegedly be committed by
someone who Kohl had slapped
on the wrist for a previous violent crime. Why would that
information be removed from
convenient public access on a
four-year-old closed case, one
month before the election and
a few days after the article appeared
in the Citizen? Clearly
it didn’t hurt Kohl to have it
disappear.

So I e-mailed Clerk Kolhage
about the missing sentencing
detail, and copied reporter
Robert Silk. First, I cited the case
and the exact information that
had been removed, and then I
asked detailed questions. Does
his system track when changes
or deletions are made, and
by whom? If his system does
track the changes, who made
the changes, and why? I also
asked if the State Attorney had
access to his system, and if they
had any administrative rights
beyond “Read Only.”

Of interest, I did not mention
where I was currently employed,
which is at the Office of
the Public Defender as a senior
systems analyst— because my
concerns had nothing to do with
my job, and I had been very
conscientious in not using work
time to do my research.

Now, if you were County
Clerk Danny Kolhage, and a
member of the public made
you aware of such an odd deletion
from your public website,
wouldn’t you respond by either
explaining why it was gone, or
replace the information immediately?

This is where actions
begin to paint the picture of
motive.

The next morning, at
work, I received a call first from
a member of the clerk’s staff and
then from Mr. Kolhage, himself.
Both tried to explain the issue as
a misspelling of the defendant’s
name. I expressed my concerns
about being at work, and asked
Mr. Kolhage if he could respond
to the questions in my e-mail
in writing. To paraphrase, he
heatedly told me that this was
how he was responding, there
was no conspiracy, nothing else
was missing, and that the typo
would be fixed. End of story.

Well I’ve worked in government
long enough to know
that when someone is hesitant
to put something in writing,
you can usually assume, where
there’s smoke, there’s fire. But
for my part, I let it drop. The misspelled
name was corrected on
the website, but the sentencing
info remained missing, arguably
with the approval of Danny
Kolhage. It was October 7, one
month before the election.
However, Mr. Silk was, apparently, continuing to casually
probe and ask questions.

About two weeks later, he
made an official public records
request for any system log file
that would show the detail of
changes made to that particular
case information.

Well, for some reason,
Kolhage then called my boss,
Public Defender Rose Enright,
apparently angry about my activities.
Ms. Enright reminded
him that it was something I had
pursued on a personal level,
and had nothing to do with her
office, or her oversight of my
employment.

Shortly after that Mr. Kolhage
now believed it important
enough to have the sheriff’s
department open an investigation
of what he termed in the
police report as my “…allegations
and implied inferences that
there were some improprieties
going on.”

Then, according to Robert
Silk, Kolhage tried to brush off
Silk’s public records request by
claiming it could not be released
as it was now part of an ongoing
criminal investigation!

So, after having sent an
e-mail to Kolhage asking questions
about a public website, he
had called me at work, though I
never told him where I worked,
he had called my boss at work
regarding my actions, and now
Detective Hamilton of the Monroe
County Sheriff’s Department
came to visit me with a printed
copy of my e-mail.

Along with investigating
any illegal activity at the clerk’s
office, I was led to believe that
I was now under scrutiny for
possibly having used work
resources to obtain my information!
I pointed to the e-mail that
was sent at 10 at night from a
personal account, and showed
it only referenced the clerk’s
public website. I also explained
that I had made no allegations
of any illegal activity, and had
only asked questions which still
remained unanswered— and
I said that I was puzzled by
Kolhage’s bizarre reaction.

I might have been intimidated
if not for the fact I had wet
myself laughing at the absurdity
of being accused of wasting public
resources by a clerk who was
wasting public resources.

D e t e c t i v e H a m i l t o n
wrapped up his investigation,
citing no criminal activity had
occurred. But the sentencing info
still remained missing in action
on Kolhage’s website.

Mr. Kolhage eventually
provided Silk with some convoluted
info that did illustrate
the sentencing info that was
removed, but did not show by
whom, or when. Fortunately,
Detective Hamilton’s report
does include this information.
Apparently, Maria Arellano,
a felony clerk in Kohlage’s
Marathon office had made the
changes.

According to her sworn
statement, “This is not an isolated
case. I edit (clean up) all
or many cases that I’ve come
in contact with…” and, “The
implied allegations of the email
from Mr. Gardi is totally
unfounded.”

Her supervisor, Gail Mercer’s
statement said, “The Implied
allegations made by Matt
Gardi are not founded. Changes
made to the case in question were
done only to conform to other
cases appearance.”

Implied inferences, allegations,
improprieties…whatever!
Excuse me, but I was damn right!

Someone should explain to the
clerk and his staff the difference
between allegations, and
observations. I was 100 percent
accurate in my observations that
specific sentencing information
was removed from the website,
and all I asked for was who,
when and why. I never made
accusations of illegal activity,
so why the smoke and mirrors
to obfuscate the facts that were
eventually admitted to in the
police report?

Questions were swarming
around my head like black flies
in the mangroves. If deleting
information was so routine, why
not just reply to my e-mail in the
first place stating that?

On the other hand, if the
concern existed about “illegal”
conduct, why not initiate a criminal
investigation immediately,
and not more than two weeks
later when Silk’s public record
request would further prove my
observations?

My e-mail was sent on October
6, Kohlage initiated the investigation
on October 22. Also,
if everything was so innocuous, why hasn’t Kolhage ever replied
to my questions? Instead I had
to get my answers by requesting
a police report from the sheriff’s
department— which I received
in minutes by the way. How
many county resources were
wasted as a result of the fact
that Kolhage didn’t reply to my
e-mail immediately?

And why is it apparently
a standard work practice to
remove helpful information
from a convenient format such
as a publicly accessible website?
Are we to now expect that sentencing
detail will be removed
from every case in the system
for some illogical “conforming”
reason?

Quite the contrary. It’s
standard to have that sentencing
detail appear in the case
information, and Mr. Kolhage
and his staff know that. Who
are they trying to kid?

To prove my point, if you
go to the clerk’s website and
review other cases, you can easily
find sentencing information
(www.monroe.fl.us.landata.
com).

But here’s the kicker. Now,
for some odd reason, that very
same sentencing detail I originally
asked Mr. Kolhage about
having gone missing before the
election, and that was admittedly
removed to “conform to
other cases” by his staff, is miraculously
back on the website!

After the election! Go figure. For
fear of a full body cavity search,
I will avoid asking Kohlage for
an explanation.

Sure Kolhage can say that
he called for an investigation that
ultimately cleared him of any illegal
activity, and I can’t tell you
with certainty what the motive
was for removing the information
in the first place, and then
not replacing it immediately. All
I can tell you is what actually
happened:

• Information was removed
from the Clerk’s site
days after the Citizen article
appeared.

• Kolhage was made aware
of it, and ignored it.
He angrily called me at
work, although I had never given
him that information.

• He tried to get me in
trouble by calling my boss.

• He attempted to intimidate
me by initiating a criminal
investigation.

•He resisted responding
to a public records request by
the press.

•His staff claimed they
deleted the information as part
of their normal work routine to
justify its removal.

• But then they put the
information back on the websire—
after the election.

At the very least, in my
opinion, Kolhage abused his authority
and his control of public
resources. And he disrespected
a citizen who was simply asking
questions about his alleged
abuse of his authority.

Hopefully with a real State
Attorney now taking office, public
officials won’t feel so comfortable
with such questionable and
intimidating behavior.