Tag: Morris Communications

A Crusading Chronicle Turns to Jihad

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The independent media in east central Georgia fully expected the Augusta Chronicle to launch a crusade against 12th District Congressman John Barrow, the leviathan-besting survivor of six previous bouts with Billy Morris’ crumbling media empire, and we were not disappointed. The salvo began with an opinion piece on September 15 and letters to the editor blasting the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DNCC)’s ads on behalf of Barrow, which targeted Rick Allen’s government contracts. Allen, the Republican Party nominee opposing Barrow, quickly and adeptly incorporated the newspaper’s attack on Barrow into his own campaign ads. The crusade had begun.

The Chronicle and Allen actually were justified in ridiculing the DNCC ads, because it was RW Allen, LLC, who held those contracts, not Rick Allen, who has had a declining participation in his firm in recent years, while retaining the title of President of the Firm. Also, as Allen, the Republican campaign apparatus, local talk radio, and the Chronicle pointed out, most of those contracts were competitively bid on a hard price basis and the “cost overruns” were indeed minimal.

The DNCC baited a trap. The Allen apparatchiks, especially Morris Communications, stepped into it. John Barrow, a Harvard Law graduate, probably wasn’t an unwitting beneficiary. If he was, he won’t be much longer, for the denunciations and denials of the DNCC charges by Allen and the Chronicle will only focus attention on the scandal-plagued TEE Center project, now termed the Augusta Convention Center, where RW Allen was the construction manager and a Chronicle affiliate was the chief beneficiary. It wasn’t hard bid, but was one of those loosey-goosey “guaranteed maximum price” deals and Augusta was billed the maximum price.

Before the contract trap was even sprung by the Barrow team, the Chronicle-Allen media express derailed less than 10 days of leaving the station. Its crusade suddenly was rerouted into a jihad against Islamic US citizens of Augusta.

The Islamic Society of Augusta had gotten acceptance of an invitation to debate from both Allen and Barrow for a debate to be held at the Islamic Center in Evans on September 27. Steve Crawford, editor of the Columbia County News-Times, a Morris publication, had agreed to be the moderator. Both candidates agreed to the Islamic Society hosting the event, Crawford’s moderation, and the place.

With no warning, Morris management took its newly-found jihadi knife and backstabbed host and moderator by forbidding Crawford from moderating. The event was put into danger of cancellation. Barrow appeared at the side of the Islamic Society’s Dr. Hossam Fadel and denounced the Morris action. Rick Allen was silent, with the only response being the Allen campaign’s celebration of the “gotcha” moment of capturing Barrow in the company of a Muslim “cleric,” as they put it.

The debate was “saved” by moving it to the less-than-200-person capacity of the Columbia County Commission Chamber, from the 800-person-capacity Islamic Center. By several accounts, hundreds were turned away who arrived on time. The Chronicle’s jihadi knife got them, too.

Before the debate began, Columbia County Republican Party Chairman Dewey Galeas added fuel to outrage at Republican party tactics by refusing to take Dr. Fadel’s offered hand for a handshake. Such ugliness is sure to be linked to other recent incidents by the state and county Republican parties.

Inside there were discussions of these events and a question was asked about the threat of Islamophobia to the constitutional rights of US citizens that are supposed to exist despite race, creed, national origin, religion or political belief. Here is the video of those remarks.

The Insider at the Metro Spirit concluded:

When (talk radio show host Austin) Rhodes pressed Atkins to explain which candidate was uncomfortable with the Islamic Community Center as the venue, Atkins was honest.

“It was the Rick Allen campaign headquarters,” Atkins told Rhodes.

Someone in the Morris-Allen alliance decided that the images of knife-wielding terrorists beheading folks in Iraq would be a nice thing to pin on John Barrow, turning the law abiding, honorable citizens in the Islamic Society into victims of a back-stabbing. Newsprint won’t stanch the bleeding, and electronic publication won’t heal the wound.

The Chronicle‘s express might or might not get derailed at a guaranteed maximum price to its owners, but November 4 is Judgment Day, when the voters decide whose political future is decapitated and whether it will be with his own knife.

Cooking Sinergy on Reynolds Street

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Some like to use the phrase, “God Don’t Like Ugly”, to describe situations where extreme karma erupts, but isn’t it more apt that both God and Satan have senses of humor when mortal humans gore their own ox?

Readers will see the title and immediately think, “Synergy isn’t spelled that way!” Correct they are. Synergy is the creation of a whole that is greater than the simple sum of its parts. “Sinergy” is creation of an offense that is greater than the simple sum of its ingredients. “Sinergy” has gotten cooked up in heaping batches in a Reynolds Street kitchen in the Augusta Convention Center.

After the management at Augusta-based Morris Communications decided to go all-in cheerleading their TEE Center caper, which saw a Morris Communications affiliated company awarded with the management agreement to operate that now-infamous convention center, they failed to warn their local government reporters about the legal minefield lying in wait. Hundreds of pages of Uniform Commercial Code filings, easements and cross-easements, and the existing Conference Center operating agreement directly were impacted by the construction of the TEE Center. Poor reporters hadn’t the time or expertise to read the huge volumes required to avoid embarrassing blunders.

Sinergy struck reporter Susan McCord hard, when she published an expose about Augusta Commissioner Alvin Mason, prominently focused upon the number $1500, which was reportedly the amount of each of the campaign contributions made to Mason and fellow commissioner Corey Johnson by Augusta contractor Heery International in 2009.

$1500.

Whether it came through divine or demonic device is uncertain, but $1500 is the cost born by Augusta to refurbish existing kitchen equipment found in the TEE Center invoicing. According to the legalese in the documents recorded in the Office of the Augusta Richmond County Superior Court Clerk the equipment items were likely the asset of Augusta Riverfront, LLC, the Morris affiliate. Under the ongoing 50 year Conference Center agreement, extended by the TEE Center agreement, kitchen equipment was the responsibility of the Augusta Riverfront entity, therefore any “existing” kitchen equipment in the complex would not have been the property of Augusta.

Did Morris’ newspaper slam Commissioner Mason for a $1500 ethical lapse when their affiliate enjoyed exactly $1500 Augusta funds to rebuild its equipment?

In Augusta, a $1500 kettle whistles steam that Al Mason’s $1500 pot is black and the laughing imps who once hid out in the press room found their sinergy brewing in the $2 million taxpayer funded kitchen on Reynolds Street.

In the words of Bea Arthur……

When this writer spoke before the Augusta Commission against the SPLOST vote back in April, a heartfelt recommendation was expressed to have a “Truth Commission” empaneled in Augusta. South Africa found greater peace after Bishop Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela insisted on holding Truth Commissions after apartheid ended. Only when Augusta’s media giant comes to the table in a spirit of truth toward all communities and all people in your city will Augusta’s apartheid end.

That is how it looks from up here in the Lincoln County pine woods across the lake.

AG

Basenjis Don’t Roar on Reynolds Street

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Morris Communications has a new online venture it has branded as ROAR.us, but its three year case of lockjaw over the scandal-wracked TEE Center and Parking Decks doesn’t show any sign of soon loosening into ear shattering howls.

Morris wasn’t so quiet in the run up to approval of the $50 million boondoggle. In fact, it published a piece stating that the land its affiliate owned was to be deeded over to the city. It published guest columns from Convention and Bureau Chairman Barry White, saying that the Morris affiliate would donate $1 million of land and cover costs over the $350,000 funded by the hotel/motel tax, and another from the CVB’s Abram Serotta promising that the funding would be covered by the hotel/motel tax.

The noisy cheerleading promising no cost to the taxpayer over the $350,000 motel tax support is one bookend. The other bookend came in late 2012, when the Augusta Commission admitted that the operating costs could drain nearly $900,000 from the property tax supported general fund. The losses narrowed to $535,000 after the books for 2013 were closed, but did not receive rigorous questioning from a pliant Augusta Commission.

Between the bookends came a bribery trial arising from the Convention Center parking deck agreement, revelations that the land promised for donation for the parking deck by the Morris affiliate had $7 million in liens on it, the shocker that Augusta had bought $2 million of kitchen equipment that was the Morris affiliate’s responsibility, the stalemate of the management agreement that provided no accounting control over commingled food and beverages, commingled electrical costs that were supposed to be separately metered, and other snafus got virtually no attention from the Augusta Chronicle. (Dare we now call it the Augusta Scamical?) other than meek postscripts noting that there are “ties” between the Morris affiliate Augusta Riverfront, LLC and the Chronicle.

The Basenji breed of dog is bark-less because its voice box is muted. The Morris’ Augusta Chronicle and sister publications have been reported to be muted by senior management by the best of all sources – their ex-employees.

The attention given to Augusta’s General Fund during the month of August revived attention to the Morris caper and the surprise reversal of assurances that no general funds would be touched by the Convention Center Operations. The public was roaring its anger in the Commission Chamber on August 28, but the sound from Morris Communications sounded more like a basenji’s muffled, whiny grunt from a corner of that empty taxpayer-money-hemorrhaging parking deck on Reynolds Street.