Cookin' the Books - Restricting Access to the Ingredients

On Tuesday, 770 KKOB AM afternoon drive time host Jim Villanucci confronted city officials with statistics that indicated that the number of accidents at intersections with photo enforcement has actually increased since the scam-eras were installed. The performance by the 5 "heavy hitters" (Kevin Broderick, John Castillo, Joe Bowdich, Ron Hetes, and John Walsh) was less than stellar. When confronted with Mr. Villanucci's statistics, not one of his guests could refute their accuracy. The show left listeners even more suspicious of the scam-era program and the city's motives.

If you're in government and your sacred cash cow is threatened by statistics that prove the cow's milk is sour... what do you do? The answer is simple, come up with your own set of statistics. In other words, cook the books.

Our Eyes tell us that Chief Schultz has the 5th floor working on changing the criteria used for counting accidents at intersections. Under this new scheme, only accidents that take place inside the box formed by the crosswalks would be considered accidents at that intersection. The rest would be reported as occurring on the street leading to the intersection.

As you can tell, the new criteria would drastically cut down on the number of accidents that are attributed to a specific intersection by eliminating almost all rear end collisions. This approach makes scam-eras look more effective because rear end collisions increase dramatically at photo enforced intersections.

Statistics can be made to say whatever you want them to. The Eyes have it that the 5th floor's master plan is to re-work all of the red light scam-era accident statistics under the new criteria, and then get back on to the Villanucci show in a couple of weeks to "prove" that photo enforcement works.

We all understand the concept of apples and oranges here. These "new" numbers will be worthless as a true comparison because they are intentionally framed in such a way as to make them create the impression of a predetermined favorable result. Sometimes we call this "spin." (here's another example of spin that came from our pictured chef Trish Hoffman) Other times - like in grade school - we simply call it lying.

Restricting Access to the Ingredients
Apparently there are too many cooks in APD's kitchen and not all of them will cook the books the way the 5th floor wants them to. This week's furor over the scam-eras has APD brass worried about leak containment. We're not talking about information about on-going investigations... we're talking about information regarding what's going on in the rarified air of the 5th floor; information regarding policy that should be available to the public.

So in order to stop the leaks, information will now only be given to those ranking lieutenant or higher. Everyone below will be on a need to know basis only.

We'd remind APD brass that this centralized control model was used for decades by the Soviet military and their client states. Ultimately, it was proved ineffective because the troops in the field were unable to make decisions without consulting higher-ups.

Effective decisions are most easily and accurately made by those in the field, not those ensconced in an area command. Giving those officers all of the training and information they need (the necessary ingredients) is essential to efficient and effective department operation.