The Manipulation of Meadville

It's not often that you'll find us struggling to find where to begin, but here we are, not sure where to start. It's not a lack of information, but rather the abundance of it, that makes this difficult. We knew the college had a black eye due to their Puppeteering Professor, Joe Tompkins. We knew the city was being run by someone other than council and city staff. What we weren't prepared for, was the deception that has permeated the city. We can't make this up, and we won't make this up. Unlike the made-up information they feed to you to gain your support and votes. It's time to wake up Meadville. Open your eyes and read the lies, because we're about to jump into the deep end.

You may be thinking, we've explored this before. You'd be right, we did. You can imagine our shock when we discovered there was even more than we had found before. This time, however, we want to highlight how unscrupulous Joe Tompkins and some of the city staff really are.

Disclaimer; If the city did not redact the information, we're not going to. It is their responsibility to redact what they need to before releasing records, if they failed to do so, that is on them, not us.

Also adding,

We see a few issues with this email thread so far; first off, they have excluded Councilman Jim Roha from this communication, why? Second, did Maryann just tell them how to get around the Sunshine Act?

But, here's the more comical thing;

Even if Autumn is not on the ongoing email correspondence, if the members of the subcommittee are, and have discussions via email regarding agency business, then they would still be in violation of the Sunshine Act. How? Because if a quorum of the committee is discussing agency business, that is a meeting and it must be done publicly. We're not public officials and we know that, and so does most of the city. However, they seem to want to find ways to avoid holding public discussions.

A brief refresher on the Sunshine Act;

If you were curious, this was the public meeting that was held just hours prior to the email that Joe Tompkins sent;

Granted, providing information to the subcommittee and members of council isn't necessarily a discussion. We're going to just let that go for the time being and see if anything comes up later. For now, we want to get back to those questions that Joe had forwarded from his free attorney. (We aren't going to delve into that again, read The Puppeteering Professor to understand who Bob Damewood is.)

Staff answered in red on March 2, 2022. Joe replies in purple on March 18, 2022, and staff replied to his reply on March 23, 2022. To be clear, no members of city council were on these emails. They avoided Sunshine Act violations, but they proved a crucial point; Joe Tompkins is in charge, not city council and not the subcommittee. At least not on this topic.

Please ensure you read Joe's thoughts in purple under item 4. "I'm curious to know the reason why we should include housing authority properties." Some would argue they are currently the worst offenders in the city when it comes to protecting their tenants, but yet, Joe thinks they shouldn't be inspected? For the record, the city website lists the Housing Authority units as 347. Pretty sad when city staff doesn't know how many units their own Housing Authority has, especially when the information is right on their own website. Moving on though;

We're going to skip over some of the instances of Joe Tompkins asking city staff to research various items for the subcommittee meeting. While it indicates his involvement and his ability to direct city staff on what to do, it would make for a long and boring read, because there is a lot of that that occurs in these emails. That said, let's look at some brief talking points from the April subcommittee meeting;

Keep in mind, the subcommittee met on April 27, 2022, at noon;

Be wary folks, we've said it before about the inspection program helping them collect more in per capita taxes. They can say one thing, but be working on another. We'll prove that later on, but you'd be wise to be wary.

After the meeting, Joe sends this email;

Joe really wants to know what all of these units rent for. A minute after he sent that email to city staff, he then forwarded it to Mayor Kinder.

We want to point something out, the fire department inspects rooming houses annually, but yet, Joe wants to inspect them with this new program because he's heard horror stories. Are the inspections not working then? Because if they're inspected, they should be healthy and safe, right? Just a thought to ponder.

Also note, they were careful to exclude Larry from this email thread, likely to avoid issues with the Sunshine Act. Although he was initially on the email thread, it seems like maybe he was removed when Joe replied.

Back for a moment to the rooming houses;

Now, we're starting to get into some really interesting emails. Joe Tompkins and Gary Johnson openly discuss some of the inner workings of the rental inspection program. It becomes slightly concerning to read, as they mention ways of phasing in other mechanisms that could supplement the money coming into this program. Hiring more staff to accommodate this program, which may or may not be fully covered by the cost of the program itself. Know what, enough of us typing what you'll see, why don't we just show you so you don't think we're making anything up.

Joe got a reply from Maryann on May 18, 2022, with Gary's responses in red to Joe's questions in black;

That last line is telling, "I only ask because I want to keep things moving". There are a lot of I's in that sentence. Why is Joe the driving force? Is it because he's the master of the puppets, the master of Meadville, and his initiatives are what drive city council and city staff to act on various items?

In case you haven't realized, we're trying to go in chronological order. That seems to be the best way to proceed here. With that said, we found this interesting tidbit in May of 2022. It is an email between Renna and a housing advocate. This advocate met with Renna and Joe to discuss a few things, but apparently, the city is working on an "inspect first list";

It's odd if you consider the ordinance itself states the following;

They don't say specific property owners in the ordinance, but they are seemingly picking out a few to be sure they inspect them first.

An interesting note, the May 25, 2022 subcommittee meeting was streamed on the city's Facebook page. However, it is not listed on the city website.

On June 16, 2022, Joe meets with Gary to discuss a few things regarding the rental inspection program. We presume that no members of council or the subcommittee were present, but we have no way to know for sure. If none were involved, it further proves the point that we keep seeing, Joe is running the show. Regardless, Joe was kind enough to send a meeting follow-up, where he graciously recapped the meeting they had;

Be sure you read the third bullet point from the bottom, "come up with a safety-oriented checklist for the first round of inspections. After that, we can ramp up in the second and third rounds."

This seems like a classic example of saying one thing but meaning another. The reason they didn't include the specific items they will inspect with the ordinance is likely because they plan to continually change the inspection requirements. It's the same reason they didn't codify the fees into the ordinance, they intend to have the ability to update these yearly, as they see fit. Mind you though, they can update their fees any time they want to, but minimally they update these fees at the start of each year.

November 16, 2022 to remind you of this fact;

Need more proof that Joe is developing this program with city staff and that the housing subcommittee was all just a show to make the public think they were included? Happy to oblige;

Meanwhile, we have a discussion regarding a public forum;

It's a bit funny to read, "do you want me to check with Jaime and Larry to see if one of those nights works better for them?"

Why would Joe be asking them, and not the city manager?

Away from that meeting discussion for a moment. Finally, after Joe and Renna are happy with Joe's draft memo, it gets sent to Maryann and Gary;

From there, it would then go to Jaime and Larry to review.

Moving onward, we see Joe sending the memo to his free attorney, Bob Damewood;

Oh, and Joe didn't like the name;

Back now to that public meeting they had discussed holding;

We have another example of saying one thing but having other motives.

It's easy to gain buy-in if everything seems minimal. However, when you consider everything they discuss doing after the program is in place, you soon realize that some folks will tell you anything to gain support. In reality, it is all part of their larger plan. Bullet point two, we'll remind everyone of the million-dollar deficit the city faces. Yet, we'll add more to that?

Get Jaime and Larry up to speed? You mean, they haven't been involved this whole time? Are you seeing the pattern here?

We're not done yet folks. Of course, it's just about time for them to have a meeting with the landlords. You would think they would need to consent with city staff and city council. Would you think they would need to ensure Joe could attend, and which date would work best for him?

Want to guess what date they went with? If you guessed Joe's preferred date of August 25, 2022, you would be correct;

Joe lined up Ed Cardy from BIU and Andy Zimmerman from the city of Erie to be at the meeting as well.

Let's make sure we're clear about who developed this presentation though;

More meetings of the minds, with Joe and city staff, not council or the subcommittee. Maryann answered in red to Joe's questions in black;

Remember that email if you will about the "inspect first list".

More back and forth with Joe and city staff, and then at the end of September he asks the next steps. The reply;

"Please let me know if this sounds like how we would want to proceed." The question is, who is the city manager here?

Especially when you see Maryann once again forwarding Joe communications from the city's attorney;

Maybe the reason that Jaime and Autumn aren't on a subcommittee together, is because they know they'll be having meetings with Joe, and others, behind the scenes. While we must consider that simply discussing topics of interest is not a violation of the Sunshine Act, so long as a quorum of council, or council subcommittees isn't involved and the meeting isn't prearranged.

We'll put this here for your review;

This made us think back to this instance;

And although the subcommittees wouldn't be assigned for another month, Autumn and Gretchen were, and continue to be, on the Community Engagement subcommittee together;

Keep in mind if you will, all of the topics that Joe Tompkins discussed in his emails, and in the Zoom or Google meetings he hosted, all came before council to be voted on. Each item was eventually adopted by council.

This should be concerning to you for a couple of reasons;

Joe Tompkins is not an elected official of the city of Meadville. Yet, it is clearly evidenced here, and in our post The Puppeteerring Professor, that he is acting as if he were elected. Why is the city allowing this to occur?

Do these web communications and meetings mean that members of the agency were deliberating outside of the public setting on agency business? We were able to see at the start how Maryann instructed them to not "reply all". There is no proof that only those who were sent the invite attended these web meetings. Quite frankly, the trust in council has been lost as a result of some of these impromptu meetings. You may recall a few times when Autumn or Gretchen slipped up and mentioned they had met. If not, we'll refresh your memory;

March 2, 2022;

February 15, 2023;

Is it the habit of some members of city council to have meetings via email, or video conference? If there is this much deceit that is documented, how much of it may be undocumented, but still occurring?

Once is a mistake. Twice is a pattern. Three times is a habit.