Good luck finding the full, unedited video of Tuesday's barnburner of a Deerfield Beach commission meeting. The one currently posted on the city's website is only a fraction -- the uncontroversial fraction -- of what transpired that night. So says the blogger who claims to be a victim of those edits: Chaz Stevens (How did you guess?).
Stevens, who sleeps with one eye open, apparently, says that the full video posted around 3 a.m. Wednesday but that it was gone by 9 a.m. that same day. And he says that even that video wasn't complete. Rather, it cut out, suspiciously enough, just after Stevens' henchman (well, ninja, to be politically correct) took the podium.
We don't have access to that video, but Stevens says the video cut the moment after the ninja mentioned the city parks worker who this week has become an international story -- Cassandra Moye. It's quickly become the biggest scandal of Noland's short reign as mayor, and there's been lots of competition.
But actually, the ninja was only practicing the ancient art of misdirection.
The video he actually came to play before the city was this one,
which shows Mayor Peggy Noland's husband Howard appearing active and
healthy in 2001 despite his drawing disability payments for neck and back injuries
while working with Deerfield Beach Fire-Rescue.
Stevens says that a "highly placed source" at City Hall told him that since the city's internet connection was functioning at every other location, the "glitch" could have only been triggered at the dais, presumably by a city worker out to protect the mayor from whatever embarassment Stevens had planned for her. He notes that the glitch was fixed after his ninja's presentation concluded.
This afternoon, Stevens sent this message to the city manager's office:
I respectfully demand that a complete and through investigation be launched into why the live video feed was cut during my 3 minute written request.
Additionally, the archived feed for that meeting has been removed from the website.This will be the 2nd time (edit: here's the first time) that my rights have been seemingly trampled upon by the City of Deerfield Beach. My first video presentation was denied and the second was lost in action.
