Norfolk, Virginia - A City of Misplaced Priorities

The City of Norfolk, Virginia likes to portray itself as a modern progressive city.  Like so much in Virginia it is a sham facade meant to disguise a city that still operates largely on a "good old boy" system and where some neighborhoods and businesses get preferred treatment while the rest are largely left to fend for themselves and are supposed to be satisfied with whatever scraps are thrown their way bu the self-anointed city fathers.  Worse yet, despite all the studies that correlate gay friendly policies and acceptance to economic growth and attracting the so-called creative class Norfolk Mayor Paul Fraim is, in my opinion, a homophobe who views being gay or lesbian as a form of communicable disease.

 Two of the areas given very low priority by Fraim and his cohorts on City Council are (i) neighborhood maintenance and (ii) adequate police protection.   The first phenomenon was looked at  in an article in the Virginian Pilot where Norfolk is slashing its budget for neighborhoods while pledging many millions of taxpayer dollars to a new downtown hotel development.  Here are some article highlights:

Community leaders are upset that the city's proposed spending plan seems to favor new downtown projects over revitalizing struggling neighborhoods.

Norfolk's 2014 budget includes about $2.75 million for specific neighborhood plans, compared with $6 million last year, a change that City Manager Marcus Jones said is justified by a drop in the city's real estate revenue.

But some community leaders say the reduction threatens progress in key growth areas, such as Broad Creek, Fairmount Park, the Southside and Wards Corner, four communities among 20 with plans that outline strategic goals for improving infrastructure, acquiring land and rehabilitating struggling areas.

While the money problems are not new, neighborhood and city leaders say the cuts sting more now that the city has set aside money for other projects, including $4 million for a new Government Center Plaza downtown.

They also point to a decision this year to support a $126 million hotel conference center in downtown. That project will use $89 million in public money, including $16 million that the city has already spent.

As for inadequate and noneffective police protection, the Norfolk police department has been under manned for many years.   But worse yet, protecting taxpayers and their property seems to be a low priority.  How else to explain my experiences over the last three weeks.  In 2005 I bought a 1917 vintage arts and craft style house three blocks from the Old Dominion University campus.  I remodeled the kitchen and bathroom, repainted every surface  of the property, put on a new roof and installed new heating and cooling.  In short, I invested a lot of money as did other residents on my block.  I now live in Hampton with the boyfriend and my youngest daughter and her family live in the Norfolk house.  Where they are being terrorized by self-described gang members in a rental property that adjoins mine property at the rear.    Three weeks ago my house was hit by gun fire (see photo above) that shattered the rear storm door.  My family members have been harassed and intimidated, loud nuisance level music is the norm, etc.  What has been done to correct this situation? NOTHING.

Meanwhile, the police and City Attorney's office have the time to harass a client of mine who owns a restaurant for allegedly violating a city code noise ordinance.  Indeed a threat of criminal prosecution has been leveled.  Perhaps not coincidentally, my client is of Arabic descent.  Yet NOTHING has been done to stop the war zone behind my home despite calls and meetings with police and one meally mouthed message I received from the City Managers office.  

Visitors to Norfolk need to get a strong message - do not venture out of downtown or you may not be safe.  Self-described gang members are allowed to do whatever they wish while law abiding citizens cower in their homes and debate whether they need to go somewhere else for the night in order to be safe.  This is the real story of Norfolk under Mayor Paul Fraim and his gang of do nothing for regular citizens members of City Council.   Meanwhile I am left to ponder: do I sell the house and relocate my family members or do I let it go into foreclosure and drive down neighborhood property values?

Norfolk Police Raid New Gay Bar on It's Opening Nigh

After receiving telephone calls from patrons who were there (some of whom I know quite well), I have communicated with both the Norfolk City Attorney's office and the management of Jack's Attic, a new gay friendly bar in Norfolk, Virginia, about the police department's apparent storm trooper like conduct in raiding Jack's Attic on it's opening night. The City claims - in typical form - that the club did not have required permits while the club's management is adamant that they were not in violation of any city requirements and that there was NOT any entertainment in the second floor. I will be meeting with management of the club on Monday and hope to be able to give a further update next week as to who is telling the truth.

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I can say this: Having experienced anti-gay harassment by Norfolk police officers personally first hand some years back - activist Wayne Besen was with me at the time - I unfortunately tend to find claims of thug like behavior by Norfolk police officers only too credible. In my own case, Norfolk Police Internal Affairs seem far more concerned with covering up misconduct of police department officers as opposed to protecting the rights of wrongfully harassed citizens. As for the Chief of Police, it was virtually impossible to even talk to the man. Here's what WVEC-TV reported which parrots the City's version of events:
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NORFOLK--Many people are upset after Norfolk police are called to the grand opening of Jack's Attic on Granby street in Norfolk. The new gay and lesbian bar opened Thursday night on the second floor of Jack Quinn's Irish Pub in the 200 block of Granby.
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The city's bar task force tells WVEC.com that the establishment did not have a special exception for entertainment on the second floor. Jack Quinn's was warned not to hold the event, but according to police they held it anyway in spite of the ordinance.
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The task force says it was forced to take action and police moved in citing the bar for the violation.
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I would also note that given Norfolk's many crime problems, it would seem to be far more useful to citizens to have police officers on the street stopping crimes and vandalism (they often won't even take reports of property damage from vandalism) rather than harassing a gay friendly business establishment.

Gay Teens Get Harsher Punishments Than Straights

Sadly, I cannot say that I am shocked by the findings of a new study that found that gay and lesbian teens in the United States are about 40 percent more likely than their straight peers to be punished by schools, police and the courts. Not after my personal experience in my divorce - and those of a number of friends - where the judges seemed particularly vengeful against gays for "choosing to be gay." Shockingly, in my own divorce a conservative judge nominated by former Governor George Allen described being gay as a "choice." As this study revealed, this same anti-gay, religious based discrimination is falling on LGBT teens. The full study results can be found here in Pediatrics, the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics (a legitimate organization unlike the faux group cited by FRC). The Washington Post has a story on these unfortunate findings. Here are highlights:
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The research, described as the first national look at sexual orientation and teen punishment, comes as a spate of high-profile bullying and suicide cases across the country have focused attention on the sometimes hidden cruelties of teen life.
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The study, from Yale University, adds another layer, finding substantial disparities between gay and straight teens in school expulsions, arrests, convictions and police stops. The harsher approach is not explained by differences in misconduct, the study says.
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"The most striking difference was for lesbian and bisexual girls, and they were two to three times as likely as girls with similar behavior to be punished," said Kathryn Himmelstein, lead author of the study, published in the journal Pediatrics.
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Stacey Horn, an associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, called the study important and compared the findings to racial disparities in criminal sentencing. "To me, it is saying there is some kind of internal bias that adults are not aware of that is impacting the punishment of this group," she said.
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The results showed that, for similar misconduct, gay adolescents were roughly 1.25 to 3 times more likely to be sanctioned than their straight peers. The sexual-orientation disparity was greatest for girls. Girls who identified themselves as lesbian or bisexual experienced 50 percent more police stops and reported more than twice as many juvenile arrests and convictions as other teen girls in similar trouble, the study said.
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"This is a symptom of school administrators, teachers, court officials, police officers - anyone who works with youth - not necessarily being equipped to handle the challenges" faced by the teens in their care, he said. "It's much easier to punish the youth than to work with them and figure out why they may keep getting in fights and what is leading to this behavior."
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Jody Marksamer, a staff attorney and youth project director at the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco, said the study brings data to what advocates have seen for years: that biases, overt and subtle, often play out in courts, in schools and with police.

Belgian Catholic Offices Raided in Sex Abuse Probe - U.S. Church Hiding Assets

In a lesson that needs to be learned by police departments across the USA, in Belgium, police have raided and locked down the palace of the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels and also raided the home of retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels in connection with the investigation of sex abuse allegations against a number of Catholic Church officials. Meanwhile, it has come out that Dan Rather will be hosting a story that looks at coordinated effort by the U.S. Catholic Church to hide and protect Church assets from the claims of abuse victims - even as Pope Benedict XVI disingenuously makes statements that the Church wants to do right by abuse victims. As I have said before, I believe that members of organized crime families have more integrity than many of the "princes" of the Catholic Church who continue to prove themselves to be morally bankrupt. Even as they continue their anti-gay jihad and pronounce that gays are "inherently disordered." First, some highlights from the BBC on events in Belgium:
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Belgian authorities have raided the headquarters of the Belgian Catholic Church during an investigation into child sex abuse claims. A spokesman for the Brussels prosecutors' office confirmed that the palace of the archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels had been sealed off. Police also raided the home of retired Archbishop Godfried Danneels.
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Brussels prosecutors were looking for material relating to allegations of sex abuse, a spokesman for the prosecutors' office said. "This is a case that the Brussels prosecutors' office received recently, containing a statement of facts in relation to alleged sexual abuse of minors by a number of people within the Church," said Jean-Marc Meilleur.
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Separately, the offices of an independent commission set up to look into cases of sexual abuse were also raided. An inquiry into child sex abuse in the Catholic Church in Belgium has been running for several years. In April, the then-bishop of the city of Bruges, Roger Vangheluwe, resigned after admitting that he had sexually abused a boy earlier in his career.
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Pope Benedict XVI himself has been accused of being part of a culture of secrecy, and of not taking strong enough steps against abusers when he had that responsibility as a cardinal in Rome.
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My, my!! At last someone is treating high clergy as the criminal conspirators that they are. What a refreshing concept. Back here in the USA, Dan Rather is about to blow the lid off of more sleazy behavior by the Catholic Church. Rather's report, entitled "Spiritually Bankrupt" premieres on HDNet, Tuesday, June 29 at 8:00 p.m. ET with an encore at 11:00 p.m. ET. It will focus on the deliberate actions of the Church in hiding assets and seeking to avoid accountability for decades of criminal conduct against children and youths. Here are some highlights from PRNewswire:
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Next week, "Dan Rather Reports" investigates how the Roman Catholic Church has been hiding and shielding assets from victims of priest abuse. Some say the Church is behaving more like a big corporation than a sacred institution.
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From the Vatican on down, the church has vowed to make peace with hundreds of victims of a decades-long epidemic of sex abuse by its priests. But "Dan Rather Reports" found evidence that the church has done just the opposite: Wealthy U.S. Dioceses from California to Delaware have claimed to be broke and have filed for bankruptcy to avoid paying damages; Bishops have exploited arcane corporate laws to shield church assets from liability; and, in San Diego, parish priests have been caught literally hiding money in safes, according to court records.
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"If you or I did what the Diocese of San Diego did in that bankruptcy, we'd be charged with bankruptcy fraud, and we'd probably be in prison," said attorney John Manly, who has represented dozens of priest abuse victims in lawsuits across the country. "Dan Rather Reports" found evidence that some high in the church hierarchy have provided guidance.
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"One of the comments that came from one of the bankruptcy attorneys is that, 'These guys make Enron look like altar boys.' Pardon the pun," said Don McLean, who was abused as a 10-year-old altar boy, and sought damages from the San Diego diocese.

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What is maddening to me is that even as more and more evidence mounts that the Church hierarchy is for the most part utterly unscrupulous and morally bankrupt, members of the Catholic laity continue to grovel to these criminals and worse yet, continue to give them money.

Did Huckabee Pardon Cop Killer?

I will admit that I have little use for past and possibly future presidential candidate Mike Huckabee - especially after hearing him tell Joe Scarborough on Morning Joe that Huckabee believed that the U.S. Constitution needed to be made to better track the Bible. The man is an avowed Christianist who has no regard for freedom of religion other than himself and like minded Christian theocrats. While not as pathologically insane as Sarah Palin, the thought of Huckabee in the White House makes me cringe and the boyfriend and I would likely leave the USA were Huckabee ever be elected. Fortunately, one of Huckabee's past actions appears potentially poised to bite him in the ass big time: his pardon of convicted felon, Maurice Clemmons, who is believed to have murdered four Washington State police officers. A column in the New York Times looks at the story:

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SEATTLE – They were shot execution-style: four police officers starting a shift on Sunday morning at a coffee shop in a suburb of Tacoma. They were parents, each of them, community leaders, veteran officers.
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Who to blame? The suspect, police say, is Maurice Clemmons, a man with a lengthy criminal record and a pattern of serious mental illness. . . . Trying to explain how such a man could be on the streets, despite five felony convictions in Arkansas that should have kept him locked up for life, Detective Ed Troyer of the Pierce County Sheriff’s Office said, “Some people have to answer to that.”
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At the top of that list is Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and current host at Fox News. Huckabee granted Clemmons early release nine years ago, against the objections of prosecutors and victims. . . . this case also shows, as with an earlier episode in Arkansas, that Huckabee’s judgment is seriously flawed.
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If Huckabee were a liberal and a Democrat, he would be a punching bag for right wing blowhards an example of clueless, soft-on-crime politicians at their worst. Fox News would be stalking him, as they have others responsible for letting criminals out early.
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Instead, he’s been allowed to get away with issuing a passive, blame-shifting statement. In the release, issued Sunday night, Huckabee takes no personal responsibility for letting Clemmons out early. Instead, he cites “a series of failures in the criminal justice system in both Arkansas and Washington.” . . . Yes, a series of failures, resulting in the worst act of violence against law enforcement in the history of this state – four officers gunned down in “a targeted, selective ambush,” in Detective Troyer’s words.

A series of failures: starting at the top, with Gov. Huckabee. “This is the day I’ve been dreading for a long time,” Arkansas prosecutor Larry Jegley told the Seattle Times. Jegley had strenuously objected to Huckabee’s granting of clemency to Clemmons.

Letter to a GOP Congessman

The Hate Crimes Act passed by the House and facing a veto threat by Chimperor Bush continues to hang in my mind. In my former straight/closeted life, I was involved in the GOP, resigning after the wingnut Theocrats took over the party locally and nationally. As a result, I still know many GOP elected officials, most of whom act as if I am a leper now that they know that I (1) am gay, (2) usually work for their Democrat opponents, and (3) oppose the efforts of their wingnut base to impose a theocratic government on all citizens. I also suspect that a number hold a grudge for me warning them about rumors in the gay community concerning former Congressman Ed Schrock many months before he was “outed,” by tapes of his Mega Phone ads seeking gay sex that were reportedly recorded by a prominent Norfolk woman (Virginia's current Attorney General was among those I warned some eight months before Schrock's outing). Only one has been gracious enough to apologize to me for their less than kind words to me at the time.

With this back ground, I could not help but write a GOP Congressman about their vote against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act (fortunately, my current Congressman is a Democrat and voted in favor of the Act). Here’s the text of my letter:

You have known me for a long time. I was disappointed to see that you voted against the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act. As a gay, tax paying citizen, I believe that I am entitled to the same protection afforded under the current Hate Crimes Law that protects against hate crimes based on, among other things, religion. Until you have experienced it, you cannot know what it’s like to be mocked, physically threatened and fearful for your safety for being a “faggot.”

Unfortunately, I have had the experience. Worse yet, those who abused me and threaten me in this manner were Norfolk police officers and I was less than 10 blocks from my home. Filing an Internal Affairs complaint, etc., yielded no results and the officers involved are still out on the Norfolk streets. (Based on my experience, in my view, Internal Affairs works to protect the police and not the public.) Had I had protections under a federal statute, perhaps things might have been different.

If your argument is that you oppose all hate crimes laws, then please introduce a bill to repeal the existing federal statute – and watch the bigots of the “Christian” Right go ballistic. They want protections for themselves, but not other citizens who do not share their religious views. Therefore, I urge you to take away their “special rights.” Otherwise, please rethink your vote and support the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act if it comes back before the House of Representatives.

It will be interesting to see if I get any response. I am not going to hold my breath.