Hoggard on the RMA report: "What I can tell you is the report is complete, disturbing and damning and city manager Mitch Johnson did what had to be done."

I urged the bloggers at ConvergeSouth to think very hard before posting the report online. The ability to do so comes with a responsibility. The City has withheld the report for a reason.

Or so I'm told...I won't get a chance to read my copy until after dinner tonight.

Comments

[Cold Rain]

I'm trying to get a copy myself for analysis and a review at The Conservative Alternative.

[Bubba]

Oh, so the report is now in the "public domain", sort of.

How convenient for Johnson, Hinson, et al.

[Ed Cone]

Copies seem to be thick on the ground, Sam, I'm sure a well-connected attorney like you can find one.

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

It gives "Converge South" a whole new meaning:)

[ben holder]

"What I can tell you is the report is complete, disturbing and damning and city manager Mitch Johnson did what had to be done."

Hogg thinks rma is true? others dont..others like retired captains...people interviewed dsagree with what rma said they said...hogg of course runs to judge it quickly...please dont think the rma report is fact...question it...if you knew the people i knew u would not be jumping into the hogg wash.

[Ed Cone]

Sam, you used to say that anonymous comments were for "cowards" -- and now, after your tearful promise never to return to these threads, you are back, commenting anonymously. What up with that?

You are, as always, welcome to comment here under your own name, or "Cold Rain," or whatever.

[Samuel "Cold Rain" Spagnola]

Gee, Ed, how long do you think I figured it would take you to figure that out by doing an IP search? I've actually used several anonymous monikers ONLY on your blog in the past few weeks (all the while dropping hints - check out the post by "ACB", a.k.a. "Anonymous Chickenshit Blogger" 4:23 pm on Sept. 27th) just waiting to see which one would draw you out of the woodwork into revealing my true identity. So now that you have done that, why don't you tell us who greendog is- or do you only preserve the anonymous identities of liberals? I'd say my plan has produced the outcome I predicted it would.

Nobody is really hiding here on this side- I'm just suprised it took you so long. I am not suprised you revealed this because that was my plan from the beginning- to point out your double standard as well as guage the different tone coming from you and your minions when a different name was used.

I also considered throwing out bombs like greendog and other anonymous bloggers do just to see how you would react, but instead I settled on being mildly irritating under the various monikers I have used, waiting to see what your threshold of tolerance would be after you discovered who I was. It didn't take much. I announced my own blog, and there you are revealing my identity right off the bat. Quite predictable, and quite the goal I intended from the beginning.

I also did not "tearfully" exit your blog. That is something that was made up completely by you. Rather, I have chosen to critique your blog and others and all the mistruths and biases in my own forum, The Conservative Alternative. I was originally going to call it "The Anti-Cone" or "enoc de" (Ed Cone backwards), but I decided that would be giving you too much credit. I quit posting on your blog because you were whining about how I was running off your narrow minded liberal readers who can't take hearing arguments from the other side or who are worried because I will be revealing their identities.

I say they are cowards because they won't reveal who they are. I still say that. My use of an anonymous moniker here was a stunt, and it worked. So are you going to reveal the names of ALL your anonymous bloggers, or just the one's you don't agree with? Your play.

[Ed Cone]

I have no idea who Greendog is, nor do I care.

And I don't routinely check IP addresses of anonymous commenters, or have any problems with anonymous bloggers or commenters. I have not posted Bubba's identity, for example, although I now know it, and although he's a fairly reliable hostile commenter.

When you left the address of your new blog, I went to the site, and after about 5 seconds said, oh, Sam has a blog. Since you have made such a fuss about anonymous commenters being "cowards," it seemed relevant to ask what made you different.

Feel free to keep your vow to stay away from this site.

[Roch101]

"I urged the bloggers at ConvergeSouth to think very hard before posting the report online. The ability to do so comes with a responsibility. The City has withheld the report for a reason." -- Ed

Reasons why the report should be posted:

1) You have it, I have it, police officers have it, other citizens have it. It is no longer a matter of whether or not the information can be kept confidential. That has failed. It is now just a matter of whether or not one has the right connections to be able to read a copy for one's self -- we have stratified access based on nothing other than connections. Try this: What special situation justifies you receiving and reading the report, Ed, but prohibits your neighbor from doing the same?

2) People who are named in the report has having committed some wrong-doing have a right to know if the community is reading about them behind their backs in what, after all, are the opinions of a private investigation firm and not facts adjudicated in a court of law.

3) Informants named in the report have a right to know if their identity is being shared around the community. If official acts have not already been taken to protect informants named in the report (as should have been done when it first became apparent that the confidentiality of the report was compromised), then named informants will want to know that their names appear in the report and that their cover has been compromised.

[David Boyd]

This is a tremendous point Roch has. The city should have released the thing (I'm sure heavily redacted would have been fine with just about everyone), but be that as it may, why should you have to have connections to know what's alleged to be going on in the GPD? Having a blog and thus having a means to broadcast interest in the report and hence get one's hands on it smacks of the same old elitism inherent in the government/media/power broker cabal that blogs have been helping to eradicate.

Seems to me if one was interested in putting the report online but was afraid of being sued, one might use a community computer somewhere to upload it on an anonymous blog and then share that address with some of those of us who are 'connected' to help get the word out. This thing shows up online enough, it might give the local papers (and bloggers) cover to cite the disturbing parts of it.

[David Hoggard]

Agreed David. It needs to go up in its entirity. Will you do it? Call me @ 273-2384.

[Dr. Mary Johnson]

This universal leak business is almost (but not quite) funny given the pummeling I got from JR this week before everyone "converged".

Given that pummeling, I find great irony in the statements, (1) "We have stratified access based on nothing more than connections", and (2) "Having a blog and thus having a means to broadcast interest in the report and hence get one's hands on it smacks of the same old elitism inherent in the governement/media/power-broker cabal that blogs have been helping to eradicate."

Might we be talking about "cliques"?

Roch's points are valid. The law has absolutely utterly failed to maintain confidentiality and serve its protective intent . . . BECAUSE (1) people cirvumvented the law to suit their own purposes, and (2) no one so far is enforcing the law. But figuring out an untraceable way to get the report online so the whole world can see it is STILL circumventing the law.

It's a mess and I don't know the city can fix it . . . short of going back to the original issues of (1) Why specifically is Wray out, and was that justified OR scapegoating to cover a much bigger problem?, and (2) Who in City Government or employ was the original leak to the N&R?

You guys might as well be living in Asheboro.

[The CA a.k.a. Samuel Spagnola]

My take here.