We are titling this report "Do not do business with the City of Jacksonville Florida."
In September of 2008 we were contacted directly by a procurement officer to take part in a bid to provide our services to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office for a reporting system. We had to sign up to their procurement system and become a vendor. We followed the rules and did exactly that. We set the bid and waited. We won!
When we started the project, the Sheriff's office had no idea of what they wanted. They had no documents to provide in detail of what they thought they had wanted. To this day, no one will admit who put the current document together that we bid on even after asking point direct over 20 times. They will not tell us because of fear of their IT staff being not too smart. So, we had to spend a lot of time getting down to the facts of it.
Keep in mind, JSO has a rule to stick to the document only. They will tell you that they can't move or do anything else than what is on that RFQ or document you bid on and any changes, additions or any other must be in writing and agreed upon. However, they will tell you they want more and if you do not give it to them, they will terminate you and your contract causing you to loose money, lots of it. In fact, they also take advantage of this to steal your product straight out from under you. This is called 'pay to play'. Does the Illinois governor ring any bells? This happens all the time with Jacksonville Sheriff's office and it happened more than several times with us.
JSO could not provide us with any assistance other than give us a development server that we can only install on, not develop with. That's fine. However, they did not properly install the features and software on the server they had. In fact, the software they were using was illegal. The log records showed us that too many errors came up with them installing patches and upgrades that Microsoft would not allow due to the software not being registered. This caused us extreme problems down the road. We knew this and we advised them of this and we suggested that they test our final product on our servers. They refused.
We were also asked if we could provide them a demo of our other business software that they did not want at first, but then changed their minds, to be tested on their servers. We agreed and it worked. After that, they said they did not want it and to keep making the custom software they wanted. However, they insisted that they wanted many features that this other software provided. We said that we could not do that because it's protected and it would be a violation. They did not care. In the meantime, they conducted a backup of that protected software and did not tell us about it. We knew this from the log files that they indeed conducted a backup of the software. We confronted them of this by phone and by emails. They flat out denied of any backups and in fact informed us that only we had access to that server and they never touched it.
We were contacted two weeks before inauguration day, January 20, 2009 to have the final product ready. We advised them it was not ready yet and we still had one month left to go on the contract. The chief of police at that time was Mark Richardson and he was constantly threatening us that if we did not go his way, we would loose the contract. We had to scramble because we needed to get paid. However, their server was causing issues and cutting us off all the time, every five minutes in fact. We informed them of this and they told us that we were the ones to correct this problem, not us. We informed them that we could not and asked them how because the server must be manually updated, not otherwise. They finally gave in and tried to fix the problems. However, we were not able to upload our completed software in time due to this and I called Chief Richardson and informed him of this due to their server having issues. He screamed at me that we had better have it ready 'or else' and then hung up. I won't mention here his other offensive and abusive words. I had asked for an extension and also sent them an email that we need time for the server to be corrected so that we can test our product first before demoing it. He said, "There will be no extensions."
Note: Who in their right mind schedules a demo of a product that falls on a day of the President of the United States Inauguration, especially since it happens to be the first black president of this country and at 9am EST? Only JSO.
January 20, 2009, 9am, the demo is set up, but we informed them that it was not ready because we could not test it and we were told we did not have time to do it. We started the meeting online and recorded it. JSO said that they were waiting and what was the problem? We kept telling them that we were getting kicked out of the system and could not log-in due to JSO servers kicking us out all the time. After 20 minutes, they said, "wait and we'll come back; we're going to check on this." We waited ten minutes. JSO came back and informed us that the meeting is now moved to 4pm EST and to be ready. 4pm EST came and went; they could not get their servers working. We were then told, 10am the next morning.
Note: Do you remember that we were given no extension?
The next morning came, they still were not ready and we were told 4pm EST that afternoon. 4pm that afternoon came and we still had not tested our software. In fact, we were told that they would be assisting us throughout the night, which never happened. We received a call ten minutes prior to 4pm and were told to be ready. We had that amount of time to install our files and it was not enough. We were still getting kicked out. We never had the chance to even test it. The demo came and went and we were told that was it and if I had any questions or concerns. I pointed out everything to the Chief and advised him that this was a terrible thing to do and it gave us no chance and no time to prepare and in fact, it was forced to be ready one month ahead of time. That was it.
We were then cancelled and we challenged them on this and went through the grievance procedure with the city ombudsman, Dinah Coleman. Keep in mind that she gets paid by the city of Jacksonville.
We won our project back and Dinah informed us that we were short changed by one month. That's the bottom line of it.
When we started again, Chief Mark Richardson was not there. Why? He had retired the week after the demo. He wanted to have this last item completed before he left. In fact, he had wanted it to go to another company that happened to be the only other that bidded on this project. After we completed our project, we noticed that this other company has a system that is very similar to ours and had questions about it. We know for a fact that JSO has been in contact with them. As far as sharing information, that remains to be seen, we're holding on to our information.
The new project had a Director, Micheal Edwards, in charge of patrol and enforcement. We had a meeting with everyone and went over the new RFQ and he has a famous sentence he utters all the time, "I'm a man of my word and if I say something, it's going to happen." It's what he didn't say to us, too that happened. He was the next man sent in to finish the job.
In this meeting he stated that he was going to ensure success and that we were going to get paid as soon as possible because we had initially agreed temporarily to let the first time go so we can ensure JSO has success and a product they can be happy with. The ombudsman, Dinah Coleman, started out good, but she just isn't a finisher. She just fades away and gives every excuse in the book why she could not return your calls or emails. "My battery went dead on my phone," "my friends Lexus had a flat tired and broke down, I needed to go help her," "I had such a terrible headache this week." There's more, but you get the picture.
My project manager and engineer had to work with people with titles of senior software engineers and that is only because they had been there a long time, not experience or level of programming. This caused us to work even more and give more. JSO had started to ask for more and we actually gave it to them. We informed them of this and we also informed them that we were not going to keep adding to this again and again items that were out of scope and not in the RFQ. It's not that we would not do it, it's that fact that they would not agree to pay us more at this time, so we refused to do them and advised them we would discuss it after completion of this project and then open a new PO and move on with any other enhancements or requests. They consistently ignored us every time we called them, they would not answer, ever. We emailed them, they would not return emails. We called the Ombudsman; she would not do anything, no return calls, nothing. We then had to start sending our requests to the Inspector General, Pam Markham who was involved in this from the beginning. She helped us at first and let us knows that she was in charge of the Ombudsman. Then I am informed by the ombudsman that she is not her boss. I had to start pressuring JSO and COJ. No one was listening, including their attorney's. We sent them a letter advising them of their ignorance and blatant disregard of our concerns. They continued to ignore them. We sent a letter to the COJ attorney's, Sheriff Rutherford, Under Sheriff, Director Edwards, Mayor Peyton, Inspector General, Ombudsman and no one would answer including emails and phone calls.
We completed the project on April 8, 2009. We advised them to start testing it to find out what they liked, what they did not like, right down to the color if they wanted it changed, before we conduct the demo, so that we would have it ready. In our new contract, JSO had agreed to a 24 hour turnaround in responses, in fact, all responses. They never did, this part was always ignored in all aspects of everything. It took them until April 22, 2009 to respond and when they did, we had another meeting. In that meeting Director Edwards said, "I approve of this system, let's begin the testing of it." He also stated that he would completed this in ten days or less, whichever comes first and when it was over, we would get paid. "I'm a man of my word." Yes, a man who works for Sheriff Rutherford.
Before we installed the final code, we sent an email to JSO asking them about the code from the first time around from our proprietary system. Was it ever backed up? We needed to know this because we were going to delete all final records. We were told this. "No, this server has never been backed up and we do not plan to perform routine backups of this server until the application is ready for production when we move it over to a production environment."
Here is a transcript of the entire process of this request by emails:
-Begin
From: Layne, Caroline E.
Sent: Fri 3/20/09 9:33 AM
To: Tek; R
Cc: Sines, Kevin M.; Brunet, James P.
No, this server has never been backed up and we do not plan to perform routine backups of this server until the application is ready for production when we move it over to a production environment.
Caroline Layne
Information Systems Management Unit
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office
phone: (904) 630-1215
e-mail: caroline.layne
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tek
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 12:29 PM
To: Layne, Caroline E.;
Subject: RE: Access to JSO Network
I would like to make this perfectly clear, as stated in our meetings we need to be on the server in order to delete any and all proprietary code and to also find out what backups (IF ANY) were made, that is the reason for Rick's question. If you need any notes from the meeting I would be happy to provide them to you. Otherwise, please let us know if there were any backups made of this server or any downloads for that matter of any code. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: Access to JSO Network
Date: Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:23:38 -0400
From: Caroline.Layne
To: R CC: Tek
No we do not have a backup of that machine. If you wish to backup what currently exists on \\devi6 that is on you guys.
Caroline Layne
Information Systems Management Unit
Jacksonville Sheriff's Office
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: R
Sent: Friday, March 20, 2009 12:17 PM
To: Layne, Caroline E.
Cc: 'Tek'
Subject: RE: Access to JSO Network
Hi Caroline,
I will be removing any old code that is there on the machine. I would also like to know if you have any backups of the code that resides on the devi6 machine.
Please let me know if I can proceed with cleaning up the machine.
Regards,
R.
-End
You can see how we were concerned about JSO having a copy of a system that they clearly did not pay for, purchased or even having intent of buying or using, so we had to make sure. They ensured they had no backups, but we knew that they did which is why we asked them.
During this entire process we had issues with them constantly asking for me and more items that were not a part of the RFQ. We send letters and emails and we had zero responses, period. See some of our emails here.
-Begin
From: Tek
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2009 12:48 PM
To: caroline.layne; R
Cc: Micheal Edwards; Dinah Mason; J McCain
Subject: RE: Testing Results
Caroline,
Have you ensured that any of these items on this sheet list are not extra items and/or not in the RFQ? If so, please state next to it that it is a task item for later on.
Also, if there are any items on this list that are business rules that were not specified in the RFQ, please remove or specifically note them as tasks for later on.
From what I have read so far, some items appear obvious to me from not reading the manual.
On conference, please be ready to duplicate the error. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------
RE: JSO conference call?
From: Tek
Sent: Wed 4/22/09 4:53 AM
To: Dinah Mason; Micheal Edwards; caroline.layne; R
Cc: D Reed; jmccain
Hi Dinah,
From now on I expect JSO to conduct themselves accordingly and not request a single item if it does not say so in the RFQ, let them put it on a future task list. Payment of this current RFQ must be received before any other item.
Finally, JSO agrees that whatever request they ask for from here on out will either be pre-approved by the City of Jacksonville's Procurement process or we receive an official letter with items accordingly.
Dinah, words from COJ with 'not authorized' goes for both sides, not just Tek. It appears that JSO does not seem to understand this important point that you easily send across to me. Also, through several emails and conversations between you and me, Tek never agreed to several current situations going on at this time and I have specifically told you the process step-by-step of what we're doing and how we're going to do it. There were no objections to this either.
I will await your call and inform you of my other concerns at that time. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: RE: JSO conference call
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 06:14:35 -0400
From: DMason
To: Tek; Micheal.Edwards; Caroline.Layne; R
CC: DReed; JMcCain
Hi Tek,
I have reviewed your e-mail along with the suggestion the testing and the correction of functions within the application may incur separate and additional billing, along with additional cost for the developer.
With respect to the RFQ and TEK any cost incurred by TEK is "only" related to the fulfillment of the obligation of the RFQ. Any additional cost TEK may have incurred in relation to the RFQ without prior written approval through the City of Jacksonville's Procurement process is not authorized.
Further review of your letter addresses the Foreign Language as a feature not in the RFQ; however the Foreign Language feature is addressed in the RFQ and has been addressed by TEK and JSO. Through conversation and e-mail, TEK agreed to further enhance the requested feature after clarification by JSO.
I understand this has been a very trying event for all involved; however this project is near completion of a system which is now being tested and tried as discussed and agreed upon by all parties involved.
By way of this e-mail I request to let the agreed upon time play out along with the aggressive testing; once this occurs I believe everyone will find at the end of the agreement (10 days or 1000 entries functioning properly) deliverables within the RFQ will be fulfilled.
I have a few meetings this morning; however I would like to discuss this with you later today; I will give you a call at 1:00 EST.
If there are any questions and or concerns, please give me a call at 255-8641 or 200-0648.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: she never did call me back. Also, do you see what she said in her email? She has a double standard. Second paragraph. "With respect to the RFQ, "only" related to the fulfillment of the obligation of the RFQ. Any additional cost must have prior 'written' approval from the COJ procurement process, otherwise, it is not authorized. Then she goes on to say, through emails, and phone conversations, the foreign language feature has been addressed and agreed upon. What a minute! We never agreed to this, we gave them two terms to agree upon and they did not. Why? Because they knew they could not, but they forced it on us regardless. Here she is giving us a double standard when we did the same with them on all the other matters informing them of out of scope items via email and phone conversations. So, JSO should have gone to their own procurement officer and approved all other items they were requesting, too...correct? No, not with JSO, it's a practice they use and take advantage of. The City of Jacksonville Ombudsman is enforcing a double standard on us and came clean on it. This explains why she never contacted us back in the future with all our other emails. She gave preference to JSO. It was her job and she is ordered to do so. By who?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Tek
Sent: Tuesday, April 21, 2009 7:55 PM
To: Edwards, Micheal P.; Layne, Caroline E.; R
Cc: Coleman-Mason, Dinah
Subject: JSO conference call
Importance: High
Dear Director Edwards,
Thank you for your time today; I know how valuable it truly is. There were a couple of areas that I have questions about that may not have been clearly stated in the meeting.
The RFQ is an important process. This allows JSO to fully qualify the intent and deliverables of a system. It is particularly important when dealing with any sort of software development and delivery. We feel we have abided by the RFQ's intent and delivered a quality package. In fact, we have (to our own expense) incurred additional development costs – at no cost to JSO – for changes made to the developer. This was done in the spirit and letter of the RFQ.
Your request for a ‘dynamic' system versus a ‘static' system, the foreign language feature was not part of it. Yet to ensure its availability, an RMS system capable of handling this feature is needed. This was not stated as a requirement in the RFQ. Had this been a requirement, it would have been included in both deliverable as well as function.
The testing phase of the project could have been handled differently and more efficiently, by starting earlier with adequate staff to test and re-test results. User acceptance testing did not begin until April 21st, even though it was available earlier than that since April 15th... including system being completed on April 8th. As I am sure you are aware, testing is a key and vital step in the development / acceptance; and is true of software itself. My issue now is that time has been wasted by what you have done today which should have been done starting on April 16th.
The concern here is on the amount of time and cycles that could have been used more efficiently and effectively. I have permitted the developer to complete additional programming to meet certain criteria without compensation for this effort. This is normally outside of the boundaries of the contracted amount.
It is my intent to complete this as quickly as possible in order to complete testing and achieve your sign-off on the product; so that neither party incurs additional costs. Beyond the agreed to matters, additional developer work will be considered outside of the RFQ/contract and as such subject to normative billable rates for that activity.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-End
Now you can see how they are consistently requesting for more and more and we are concerned we are not getting paid. Here is where they are setting us up. They are telling us of problems that do not exist and we can not replicate them and we had requested that ISO standards be adhered to when testing, they did not even use best practices.
Now that we are in the 'testing' mode, this means, the product is completed, finished, functional, tested, ready to use. During this time, you do not make any changes. You test the system only. Below you can see just one email of the several from them of requests and our concerns about this.
-Begin
Final testing?
From: Tek
Sent: Wed 4/29/09 12:35 PM
To: caroline.layne; Micheal Edwards
Cc: Dinah Mason; David Coffman
1 attachment
Testing_R...xls (22.5 KB)
Caroline,
Here is the sheet with our responses. Time is running out and we can't do all your work for you. We need concrete steps to replicate issues if they are indeed issues. You have one day to do it. We're not going to change this entire system all over again. 5pm EST is deadline and final sign-off. JSO has had plenty of time since April 8, 2009 for all testing. Tek is concluding this project is finalized and any other items are out-of-scope and must be addressed in a separate request after final payment.
Thank you for your business.
Sincerely,
Tek
-End
--------------------------------------------------------
During this testing we started to figure out their methods and how they were testing. It really wasn't that much of testing. In fact, our system was being sabotaged including being looked at by an outside source (we hold this as unknown in this report for obvious reasons).
The server logs were turned off; our database was entered into and manipulated by JSO. Errors occurred because of this. We had concerns about this and we confronted JSO regarding tampering with the database during testing. JSO has no reason whatsoever in our database as they do not own it, they have not created it and there is no logic for them to understand it, especially during a testing period. They had concocted a scheme to throw us off and made up a bogus report that never existed which we proved later on. When we confronted them about this, they denied it. We then officially opened a case on this and informed them of it. We started to investigate and go into the system. That is when we noticed the server logs were manually turned off which can only happen on their end and by JSO. They denied this, too. Finally, after several emails and calls, they came clean and admitted to opening the database during the testing, but would not state why. Now, this has caused the entire process to go wrong and testing of this ten day period that was supposed to get us paid right after a not happening thing. I called for a conference call so that we all can go through A-Z every step and see if there is anything wrong, which we knew there was not. In the meantime, I sent this email to the Ombudsman who ignored it. Keep in mind the dates, April 30, 2009 would be the final day of sign-off and this email is the day before. She never responded to it.
-Begin
RE: Please call me?
From: Tek
Sent: Wed 4/29/09 4:13 PM
To: Dinah Mason
Dinah,
We're entering the final day tomorrow and we're starting to run into issues and I need to speak with you.
We have been doing items out of scope by request of Director Edwards and this, in accordance to the contract, would mean that it is broke.
We have done so much and over the limit and we need to have this concluded ASAP. JSO has asked for many items that were not a part of the RFQ and if they are having issues with it and changing their minds, we are not responsible for it and they have agreed to this, but keep requesting regardless.
My last email to you stated this request because they did not want to pay me for the extra work and I wanted it in writing as the only compromise because nothing is free. Let me put it to you again as you have agreed with me, anything extra is not for free. They agreed. Even though they did not respond, they took that issue out of the request and commented on it today during our meeting that it was fixed and they are happy. An agreement is an agreement and if you don't agree to this, then we need to find out a solution ASAP and/or we get paid extra for all the items they requested. I will not accept not getting emails or just because they did not respond to it. They had plenty of time to respond since Wednesday when that email was sent. Sign-off is at 5:00pm no matter what. The system works and has been delivered.
Also, we know that Caroline went into the SQL database and erased some information. There is no other way. It caused numerous items to break and cause errors. I wish to discuss this with you. I'm sure you were present in the meeting on April 20, 2009 and my requirements for testing and information. JSO is delaying this project and we must have finality.
We have a conference again at 10:30am EST, but I am available anytime prior to that.
Sincerely,
Tek
-End
---------------------------------------------------------
Here are the emails of this bogus report they said existed, but never did. They went into the database to try to created it there without using the system and thus there is a report that is missing, the system now does not work because 'where is this report'? Are you following this?
-Begin
RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls?
From: R
Sent: Wed 4/29/09 8:38 PM
To: 'Tek'; caroline.layne
Cc: 'Micheal Edwards'; 'Rhonda Nettles'; 'David Coffman'; 'Dinah Mason'
Caroline,
Please check your email server's sent queue for the email regarding the Report # 09-000596. I am sure a copy should be there if it was actually sent. When you retrieve it, please send it to me to investigate further.
Thanks,
Rick.
---------------------------------------------------------
From: Tek
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 11:28 PM
To: Ricaroline.layne
Cc: Micheal Edwards; Rhonda Nettles; David Coffman; Dinah Mason
Subject: RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
Rick,
Thank you. We're going to hold on to our other information, but in the meantime, please advise Caroline to research the 'Sent' file on their email server and retrieve that item. At least the date and time. If my assumption is correct, the subject line does have the information in it as "here is your report No.09-000596"? Please obtain this email, it's there.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------
From: R
To: Tek; caroline.layne
CC: micheal.edwards; rhonda.nettles; david.coffman; dmason
Subject: RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:49:16 -0400
Hi Tek,
I have spent the last hour and a half analyzing the database on JSO's devi6 machine and what I did notice was that the logging was turned off. Last Monday when I was in the system I had checked the log files and at that time, the logging was on. It was also on, on Tuesday, but strangely, today, the logging seems to be off. I wasn't able to view the log files for today. I looked at the data in the ‘reports' and ‘reportvalues' tables to find the data for report no. 09-000596 (the one which Caroline mentioned didn't exist even though the PDF was sent). No traces of that record, was found. My assumption here is that, if Caroline can show us the PDF, then, there is no way the data was removed programmatically, as our application doesn't delete any reports. The only explanation can be that it was manually removed, but, owing to the logs for today not being available, I cannot say for sure. It's strange that no other report went missing. Why only one. If this was an application thing then the behavior would be consistent.
Regards,
R.
---------------------------------------------------------
From: Tek
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 9:08 PM
To: Rick; caroline.layne
Cc: Micheal Edwards; Rhonda Nettles; David Coffman; Dinah Mason
Subject: RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
Thanks Rick,
From what you gave me already, Dan agrees that there has been tampering. Please have the information in the morning along with your notes for me. Dan will go through the logs and then I will continue with him afterwards unless he is on the WebEx with us. Please treat this as a case from now on. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------
From: R
To: Tek; caroline.layne
CC: micheal.edwards; rhonda.nettles; david.coffman; dmason
Subject: RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:57:14 -0400
Hi Tek,
I will do my best to investigate the log files tonight. I will have some results for you tonight or early tomorrow morning. I agree that any intrusion into the database when live testing is in progress can jeopardize the functionality of the application and is a violation of standards. I will do my best to investigate what exactly happened.
Rick.
---------------------------------------------------------
From: Tek
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 8:44 PM
To: Derrick; caroline.layne
Cc: Micheal Edwards; Rhonda Nettles; David Coffman; Dinah Mason
Subject: RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
Rick,
This was turned on according to our notes and previous testing. No excuse for not having these records. We need to review them ASAP and find a conclusion. To not provide them will be a violation because logging had/has been turned on. To ignore it and brush this off would mean that JSO is violating their own standards of having a system worthy to be online. This is a serious matter and we need to investigate it completely and thoroughly.
From what we have so far, there is a clear violation of the integrity of the environment during a live database and not using a user interface. When on a live database and conducting a query on the data including just opening a file is an illegal adhoc query. Clearly, someone was not following at least best practices which has usurped the process.
These manual attempts are very dangerous, causes time delays and causes issues on this entire system and will cause more work than required. Thus, this project is forcefully being delayed. There is absolutely no excuse why this project should not be completed by tomorrow at 5pm.
Sincerely,
Tek
---------------------------------------------------------
From: Rick
To: Caroline.Layne; Tek
CC: Micheal.Edwards; Rhonda.Nettles; David.Coffman; DMason
Subject: RE: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:34:56 -0400
I was investigating item#17 "Report Number 09-000596, what happened to this report????" in your list of issues today and could not find any trace of the record in the database. I took a look in out code and the only time the PDF is generated and sent to the user is after the report has been saved to the database. I would appreciate if you would send me the SQL Server log files so that I can trace the issue. IF you do not have logging turned on in SQL server, I would request you do so. Without such a long there is no way to find out if the record was manually deleted. We know that Caroline was in the database. There's no way to track what she did except for looking at the SQL Server logs. Please note that we are not pointing fingers here, but if you want an answer for this issue, then we need everything we can get, to investigate.
Thank you,
Rick.
-----Original Message-----
From: Layne, Caroline E.
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 1:13 PM
To: Rick; Tek
Cc: Edwards, Micheal P.; Layne, Caroline E.; Nettles, Rhonda J.; Coffman,
David E.; Coleman-Mason, Dinah
Subject: Emailing: Testing Results 042809.xls
> Please be prepared to discuss the findings at 04:00 EST today.
Thank you.
The message is ready to be sent with the following file or link attachments:
Testing Results 042809.xls
-End
---------------------------------------------------------
As you can see, we kept everyone informed of this and they totally ignored it, we could not even get them to talk with us. They refused to respond to emails even though we kept everyone involved. They did nothing.
We finally found out what they did and it was pure sabotage and a setup. We're not going to say it here, but we know what they did exactly.
We finally had that conference call on WebEx and went over the entire system, well, only part of it. Director Edwards stopped it because he knew we had them over the barrel and he could not say anything bad about this. He then started to say that he would give us his decision in about a week and then mail it to us whether or not they would accept this product. We disagreed and reminded him that he approved it already and there were no issues with is and that they tampered with the system to cause it to fail. He did not like this and then informed us that he was going to cut our access to the server off, which he did right then and there, to protect us from our own product. We demanded to take off the software because they do not own it yet and they refused. We then told them that if they cut us off, and we don't have our software, that they are in effect purchasing it and they now own it. Director Edwards did not agree and I advised him that he had already breached our contract weeks ago and we only continued so that we are so close to the end and we wanted closure. He did not agree, but we disagreed and advised him that he had just purchased this product and payment is now due. From this point on, JSO sent us a letter a week later and in that letter made up everything in it that can be refuted. They made up lies, bitter excuses to cover-up their theft of our product. It was planned from the beginning and everyone involved knew this and would not talk. This is why they ignored us. Even today, no one answers our legal letters, they ignore us hoping we'll just go away.
Furthermore, Director Edwards admitted in the letter that they had made a backup of our entire system from previously and that letter was written by Caroline Layne and signed by him...We call this covering your butt. We returned a letter to them to advise them to no do anything with our software and that they broke several Florida Statutes, all of them felony's. We also advised them that we no longer wish to do business with them and they can't have our systems and that they are not to have anything close to what we have. You guess if they will follow that or not.
Below is just one sample of several laws JSO and COJ broke. Let me remind you that enforcing a double standard of the procurement process to obtain code and IP and then covering it up is conspiracy.
The 2008 Florida Statutes:
812.081 Trade secrets; theft, embezzlement; unlawful copying; definitions; penalty.--
(1) As used in this section:
(a) "Article" means any object, device, machine, material, substance, or composition of matter, or any mixture or copy thereof, whether in whole or in part, including any complete or partial writing, record, recording, drawing, sample, specimen, prototype model, photograph, microorganism, blueprint, map, or copy thereof.
(b) "Representing" means completely or partially describing, depicting, embodying, containing, constituting, reflecting, or recording.
(c) "Trade secret" means the whole or any portion or phase of any formula, pattern, device, combination of devices, or compilation of information which is for use, or is used, in the operation of a business and which provides the business an advantage, or an opportunity to obtain an advantage, over those who do not know or use it. "Trade secret" includes any scientific, technical, or commercial information, including any design, process, procedure, list of suppliers, list of customers, business code, or improvement thereof. Irrespective of novelty, invention, patentability, the state of the prior art, and the level of skill in the business, art, or field to which the subject matter pertains, a trade secret is considered to be:
1. Secret;
2. Of value;
3. For use or in use by the business; and
4. Of advantage to the business, or providing an opportunity to obtain an advantage, over those who do not know or use it
when the owner thereof takes measures to prevent it from becoming available to persons other than those selected by the owner to have access thereto for limited purposes.
(d) "Copy" means any facsimile, replica, photograph, or other reproduction in whole or in part of an article and any note, drawing, or sketch made of or from an article or part or portion thereof.
(2) Any person who, with intent to deprive or withhold from the owner thereof the control of a trade secret, or with an intent to appropriate a trade secret to his or her own use or to the use of another, steals or embezzles an article representing a trade secret or without authority makes or causes to be made a copy of an article representing a trade secret is guilty of a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.
(3) In a prosecution for a violation of the provisions of this section, it is no defense that the person so charged returned or intended to return the article so stolen, embezzled, or copied.
History.--ss. 1, 2, 3, ch. 74-136; s. 1, ch. 85-34; s. 1240, ch. 97-102.
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We sent a letter to everyone, Mayor Payton, Sheriff Rutherford and with no response.
We called the Florida Attorney; they told us that we must go through the Sheriff's Office Internal Affairs division unit.
We contacted the IA and they ignored us. The process is this: We take your complaint, and then forward it to the supervisor in charge to make a decision. Guess who the supervisor is? You guessed it, the Sheriff, Under Sheriff and Director Edwards himself.
We then contacted the Florida Attorney again, informed them of this, they said that there is nothing they could do.
We contacted the Florida Attorney Generals Office. There is nothing we can do they said.
We contacted the FBI. The same thing.
We contacted the Jacksonville FBI after constant calling and they finally contacted us back and said that they will consider looking into this, maybe. It has been several weeks. No answer.
We contacted the Ethics Officer Carla Miller, she said we were in good hands with all of the above mentioned in JSO/COJ. She ignored us, too. Honor, Integrity, Honesty...the motto of JSO and COJ protected by those who hide behind it to take advantage of businesses with a procurement system that is faulty and allows mischief to take over and run rampant.
As you can see, no law enforcement with a grain of decency will take on the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. The top to the bottom Directors are full of corruption and take advantage of a procurement system to steal from legitimate businesses and expect that they can't afford to fight them. JSO has since just ignored every letter from us. The only thing they want to see is a court summons that they have been served, otherwise, they will not respond to you. Why tried to give them a chance, but hey, what criminal would or does?
We have tons of information on this case and can prove every single instance and the fact is, JSO has perjured themselves and lied numerous times. The city Ombudsman is a joke. She is worthless and I'm on record saying this and in letters to whomever her boss is. She has also called me back to inform me of what I had said about her and apparently would not continue to work on my behalf, which I pointed out, "you never did to begin with".
There are the people that we have had contact with and conversations with and they in effect did nothing.
Mayor Peyton - no response
Sheriff Rutherford - no response
Under Sheriff Mackesy - Wrote a letter and used another company's name and information violating trademark and infringed on the name and then no response.
Director Michael Edwards - Idiot and does not understand IT.
Pam Markham - Appeared nice and friendly, but it was just a front and she ignored us the entire time.
Director Michael Clapsaddle - no response
Ombudsman Dinah Coleman - no response
City Attorney - no response, in fact, tells me that there is a hierarchy that we need to be aware of, and it's the Director that decides, not them, so they will not respond to us unless the Director (Michael Edwards) does.
Ethics Officer Carla Miller - "Hello, I see that you have sent this to the Inspector General and the Ombudsman. Your matter is being handled by the appropriate people. Regards, Carla Miller, Ethics Officer
There are numerous other chiefs and assistant chiefs who are not willing to stand up.
Bottom line, the City of Jacksonville's procurement system needs an overhaul and JSO IT staff needs to be replaced by civilians. They take advantage of this to steal your products and/or services. Do not do business with the city of Jacksonville or the sheriff's office. They place a black eye on those who serve with passion and honesty. Those on top are not honest, have no integrity and no honor. They have caused us so much money and have stolen our code and we're certain they have given it to others. There needs to be a class action law suit against them on this and we intend to continue our fight until we get paid. There needs to be a Justice Department investigation on them. There needs to be criminal charges brought on all those responsible for the slightest cover-up and theft in being involved including perjury.
If you see a Citizens Online Reporting System on the Jacksonville Sheriff's Police website, it belongs to us. We can provide you with an exact replica of what they are going to place on their site. Shame on the City of Jacksonville and all those involved.
Tek
San Francisco, California
U.S.A.
Why file a report here? Ripoff Report is a permanent record! Other complaint sites copy our content then remove reports for money.
