February, 2006

Fraternal Order of Police (FOP Successful on Getting Hard Date for Public Safety Spectrum.

The National Legislative Office has engaged in an aggressive lobbying campaign over the final weeks and months of the first session to persuade Congress to set a date certain for providing public safety with exclusive access to 24MHz of spectrum on the 700MHz band. Congress originally voted to grant public safety access to this portion of spectrum in 1997 to enhance the speed, clarity, and capacity of their communications systems.

Certain technologies, such as video transmission, real time information from experts in another location, instantly sending or receiving a photograph of a missing or abducted child, live video of evidence to speed analysis, building blueprints, hazardous materials data and other critical information, all require the use of spectrum. Unless the spectrum that Congress already allocated to public safety is cleared by the small broadcast television services which are transitioning to digital television, these technologies will remain unavailable to first responders serving in areas where more than fifty percent (50%) of our nation’s population lives and works.

In large part because of the lobbying campaign waged by the FOP, Congress has included a firm deadline, 19 February 2009, in budget reconciliation measure, S.1932, the “Work, Marriage, and Family Promotion Reconciliation Act of 2005.” The House approved the conference report on the bill on a close 212-206 vote the week before Christmas. A few days later, the Senate adopted an amended version of the report on a 51-50 vote, requiring Vice President Richard Cheney to cast the tie breaking vote in favor of the measure. The House had already recessed by the time the Senate voted, and the Speaker of the House, Representative J. Dennis Hastert (R-IL), was unable to get the minority leadership to agree to reconvene that body to approve S. 1932. The Minority Leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), insisted on a roll call vote, forcing the House to wait until the second session before they could pass the bill.

The controversy on the budget reconciliation bill is unrelated to the public safety spectrum issue, which has bipartisan support in both chambers of Congress.

Article from the FOP Grand Lodge publication “The Journal” Vol. 11 issue 1 Feb 2006

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January 22, 2006

Bahamas Recompression Chamber to No Longer Accept DAN America Insurance
Nassau, Bahamas: Effective immediately, the Bahamas Hyperbaric
Centre, LTD will, until further notice, no longer accept the Divers Alert Network (DAN) America insurance for payment of diving related injuries. All divers traveling to the Bahamas are advised to either secure appropriate dive insurance from a source other than DAN America or be prepared to pay out-of-pocket for any treatments related to possible diving accidents that might require a recompression chamber. Of course the Bahamas hyperbaric clinic will continue to treat all patients as medically necessary.

Unfortunately, because the clinic is faced with increased financial pressure to keep its facility operational and its staff on ready alert, the Bahamas Hyperbaric Centre, LTD can no longer accept Dan America insurance as payment for services.

This action only applies to DAN America (not DAN Europe, DAN Southern Africa, DAN S.E. Asia - Pacific, or DAN Japan), as DAN America is the only insurance carrier that has not settled its claims with the Bahamas Hyperbaric Centre, LTD. It is worth noting that the other DAN World organizations, PADI, Insurance and all other dive insurers worldwide, including major medical health programs in the United States and
Europe, including National Health programs have settled satisfactorily claims for hyperbaric medical services with our company and continue to be accepted at the chamber.

For additional information please contact:
cdammert@medicalhyperbarics.com

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County settles drowning victim case for $1 million

ADDITIONAL BACKGROUND...

May 4, 2005
Manistee lawsuit leaves troubling questions. It's been almost 10 years since Eugene Beck's body was pulled from the deep, discolored Manistee River channel after a fall from Memorial Bridge in downtown Manistee. Last month, a federal jury in Grand Rapids decided Manistee County officials were at least partly responsible for Beck's death, and ordered the county to pay $600,000 to Beck's family to conclude a long, bitter lawsuit. Shortly before trial, the City of Manistee settled with Beck's estate for $300,000, a deal in which the city did not admit wrongdoing.
What caused Beck, 28, to plummet from the span and drown on June 28, 1995? Many of the details are as murky as the river channel, but autopsy results showed Beck had been drinking. It's not the first time, nor the last, that alcohol played a role in a tragic incident. But federal jurors clearly took other factors into account, including the alleged behaviors of law enforcement officials who are employed to make appropriate life-or-death decisions. Jurors obviously found their decision-making flawed. In this case, it's hard not to scrutinize the role Manistee County's then-Sheriff Edward Haik played in the incident and its costly aftermath.
Haik, now a Manistee County commissioner, allegedly immersed his department and the county in the controversy over a "turf battle" when he banned a private dive team from entering the river in an effort to rescue Beck. A member of that dive team testified in 2001 that sheriff's officials threatened to arrest him if he interfered with a "water accident scene."
Manistee County officials also destroyed a tape of a 911 call about the incident. They argued it was standard practice to rid
themselves of the tape, though it surely sparked skepticism among jurors when they learned the county destroyed the recording shortly after receiving a Freedom of Information Act request for it. Haik refused comment on the incident and lawsuit when contacted last week by the Record-Eagle.
It's also relevant to question a federal judge's decision- making in this case. A federal appeals court last year said Robert
Holmes Bell, chief judge of the U. S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, improperly barred jurors from hearing potentially damning evidence in the original 2001 trial, including testimony about the destroyed 911 tape, a letter to the sheriff's department from a United States Coast Guard official that said they could have been on the scene in minutes if contacted, and other details.
The jury's decision reflects poorly on Haik, Bell and Manistee County. They didn't cause Eugene Beck to topple from memorial Bridge, but their actions did nothing to further the cause of justice.

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April 27, 2005
County, city to pay $900K in drowning
The trial ended days sooner than expected
By PATRICK SULLIVAN
Record-Eagle staff writer

TRAVERSE CITY - Manistee County must pay $600,000 and the city of Manistee $300,000 to the family of a man who drowned in the Manistee River 10 years ago. Traverse City attorney Grant Parsons successfully argued in a weeklong trial in U. S. District Court that Manistee County's then- sheriff, Ed Haik, prevented the rescue of Eugene Beck, 28, on June 28, 1995, because the sheriff was embroiled in a "turf battle" with a dive team.
Haik now is a Manistee County commissioner. Beck had been drinking when he plunged from the Memorial Bridge
into the Manistee River channel and drowned, according to an autopsy. Jurors in Grand Rapids awarded $600,000 to Beck's estate after several hours of deliberation Monday. The city of Manistee settled for $300,000 at the start of trial. "I'm going to go up to my son's grave site and I'm going to tell my son, 'it's over with' and now he can rest in peace," said Sharon Beck. "What they did to my son was wrong, letting him die like that." The trial ended days sooner than expected because attorneys for Manistee County called just one witness(*see correction below) and rested their case Monday morning, Parsons said. "The county had said it was going to put on its case on Monday
and then they didn't," Parsons said. "It says (to me) they didn't have much case to put on and after 10 years, I was surprised." Haik refused to comment when contacted by the Record-Eagle. Richard Winslow, attorney for Manistee County, contended there was no evidence Haik tried to thwart Beck's rescue. He said Parsons attempted to prove Haik created a perception that private divers could be arrested if they attempted a rescue, a point Winslow disputed.
"Our point was the sheriff recognized that he could not provide rescue service but offered assistance to anyone who could," Winslow said. "That's what he was doing that evening." Winslow said he would talk to county officials before deciding
whether to appeal the verdict or the award amount. "We're obviously disappointed with the verdict, because we feel that everything was done properly," county administrator Tom Kaminski said. Manistee city manager Mitch Deisch said the city did not admit wrongdoing in its settlement. Insurance companies will pay the cost of the verdict and settlement, the officials said. The case wound through the federal court system for years. The defendants earlier prevailed at a jury trial, but a federal
court of appeals judge threw out that verdict after finding that Robert Holmes Bell, the chief judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Michigan, improperly barred evidence. Parsons said that evidence - a 911 tape that may have been destroyed by the county after officials realized it contained evidence that hurt their position and that a U. S. Coast Guard official said he could have arrived within minutes to rescue Beck - was critical to winning the case.
Parsons said he will ask for attorney fees and costs for the years of litigation. He said he didn't know how much that would be, but said "it will be substantial." Winslow said the 911 tape was not destroyed by officials but was on a tape that was reused on a routine schedule because a Freedom of Information request came too late.

*Clearing the Record*
Because of incorrect information provided to the Record-Eagle, this story reported that an attorney for Manistee County only called one witness in a federal court civil trial over a drowning in the Manistee River. The defense attorney, Richard Winslow, called multiple witnesses.