[Occupymendocino] Fw: Scott Schnieder has misappropriated over $70, 000 in City of Ft Bragg Funds!

[nlnelson at mcn.org]

so why is HE not being asked to resign as was Humason of the Tourist Board??

Nancy



>
> MCTV was taken down by the City and brought in-house, now it turns out
> that they have been diverting Comcast funds and paying big fees to
> VisitMendocino, Scott Schnieder and Linda Ruffing. CORRUPTION AT ITS
> WORST!!
>
> ________________________________
> From: Annemarie <aweibel at mcn.org>
> Sent: Sunday, January 28, 2018 11:07 PM
> To: Ann Rennacker; David Gurney; Ed Oberweiser; Sue Boecker; Leslie
> Kashiwada
> Subject: Scott Schnieder has misappropriated over $70,000 in City of Ft
> Bragg Funds!
>
> Mendocino Coast Media
> January 26 at 5:12am
> Scott Schnieder has misappropriated over $70,000 in City of Ft Bragg
> Funds!
>
> Throughout all negotiations between Mendocino TV and Linda Ruffing, she
> and the past ad hoc committee insisted the City of Fort Bragg has no
> intention of ever running the PEG station, while behind the scenes her
> assistant, Scott Schneider misappropriates the Franchise Fees. We think
> the subscribers of Comcast should know why their local television
> station has been absorbed into the misguided city tourism promotional
> behemoth being created by the City of Fort Bragg, Visit Fort Bragg.
> Watch as Scott Schneider tries to create the same business model that
> got him kicked off of VMC and read how Linda Ruffing manipulates City of
> Fort Bragg funds to accomplish her personal goals.
>
> The Fort Bragg City employee, Scott Schneider redirected over $70,000 in
> City finances from what should have been from the City Clerk’s budget to
> finance building his own media empire. By claiming that his department
> spent the funds administrating the PEG station he was able to convince
> the two feeble minded city councilmen on the ad hoc committee that, even
> though he met only 3 times with the contractor, Mendocino TV, and sent 5
> emails, his department spent over $70000 in administrative and actual
> expenses!
> In the initial negotiations with Mendocino TV it was asked of Mendocino
> TV if we would also perform video production for Town Hall meetings.
> After in-depth investigation it was determined that the budget for
> Granicus, the City’s internet broadcast technology for recording minutes
> was derived from the city clerks budget and should not be spent for a
> completely different technology, broadcast television.
>
> PEG is funded by franchise fees paid by subscribers to Comcast CATV, not
> taxes. It is a private club essentially. Spending taxes on it would be a
> misappropriation of public funds.
>
> Granicus is a digital recording system for City Clerks to record public
> meetings, funded by public dollars. An incidental by-product of it’s
> digital stream is an audio/video signal that can be inserted onto the
> CATV signal but not designed or funded for distribution over CATV.
>
> As a result we could not perform the tasks requested because that would
> have entailed spending taxpayers dollars subsidizing a private
> television audience. The funds available from the franchise were
> sufficient to run the channel but not anything else.
> While waiting for the County of Mendocino to release subsequent
> disbursments, Scott came to our offices and pleaded poverty. He asked us
> to take a temporary 40% decrease in our payments, promising to make it
> up when the funds get disbursed.
> We found out later that Scott had taken the funds that he didn’t ‘have’
> and slipped it into his IT department budget. This came to light when a
> spreadsheet used by Scott for negotiating with the County of Mendocino
> for subsequent fee payouts showed a budget for over $70,000 during a
> period that Mendocino TV performed 100% of the PEG contract yet was paid
> 30% of the accounted for (by Scott Schneiders spreadsheet) funds.
>
> Mendocino Coast Media is a name for the planned new public access
> television station which has been turned into a government access channel.
>
> Annemarie
>
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