KENNY NAWLING'S TAKES ON SERCO

I don't know who Kenny Nawling's is, and the article doesn't mention where we can hear his radio show, but this dude is already my hero.

http://www.kmov.com/special-coverage-002/Man-handcuffs-self-to-door-of-controversial-ACA-contractor-in-protest-268666342.html

“I would like to talk to the highest ranking official in this office, so you’re not willing to get someone to talk to me,” Nawling said. “What I’m going to do is handcuff myself to this door until someone comes out to talk to me.”

Residents of other nations have protested Serco as well. People have staged protests over the company in Australia. In the United Kingdom, the company is also embroiled in controversy over government contracts. 

He handcuffed himself to Serco's front door!  (This is the company that sabotaged ACA applications to the tune of $1.3 Billion dollars of taxpayer money-- 1.2 billion for the contract, and another 98 million extension to pay them to actually process the applications they sabotaged! My previous post about them: http://optinstl.blogspot.com/2014/07/serco-is-about-lot-more-than-sabotaging.html)

St. Louis needs more people like Kenny Nawling!

SERCO IS ABOUT A LOT MORE THAN SABOTAGING OBAMACARE APPLICATIONS

What does this have to do with public transportation in St. Louis?  Serco is the macrocosm of everything that is wrong with this country.  And possibly the entire world.

KMOV St. Louis has been running a lot of spots about the Wentzville offices of Serco that were given a $1.2 billion contract to process ACA, or Obamacare, applications.  If you have been following the news story, you know that they basically paid employees to do nothing, and processed almost no applications.
http://www.kmov.com/news/investigates/News-4-investigates-Workers-paid-taxpayer-dollars-to-do-nothing-259002161.html

They were just given a big fat $98 million government extension.
http://www.kmov.com/news/local/Controversial-ACA-contractor-receives-contract-extension-from-government-265783851.html

Serco is NOT a local company.  They began as the British arm of RCA, supplying services to the cinema industry.  They are a global defense and everything else contractor.

They run the Dubai and Copenhagen Metro's (mass transit).  They run parking meters in Chicago..  They own railway worldwide.  They do cyber-intelligence for the U.S. government and other large entities. They supply electronic tags (those leg bands) to the UK Ministry of Justice.

They run a school district  in the UK. They own prisons.  Leisure and vacation facilities.  Waste management services.  Facilities management at hospitals. Run the Iraqi airport.  (EDIT: They were in charge when this utterly bizarre loss of 12 billion dollars happened: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/feb/08/usa.iraq1 )

They run immigration Detention Facilities in the UK.  Give driver's licence and driver exams in Ontario. 

They are one of the largest defense contractors in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serco_Group

They acquired SI International, in Reston Virginia in 2008.  This gave them their U.S. address.****

http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/stories/2008/12/29/daily19.html

Serco just lost London's Dockland Light Railway.
 http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/jul/04/serco-loses-dlr-franchise-docklands-light-railway

People in the UK hate Serco, and rightfully so.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/sick-serco-meet-protesters-outside-outsourcing-giants-london-agm-1447747

http://politics.co.uk/news/2014/05/08/bucking-the-trend-poll-show-huge-opposition-to-privately-run

Serco haven't just overbilled the US.  Check out their contracts and follow the pattern of scandal. In the UK they billed the Ministry of justice for (electronically) tagging offenders THAT WERE DEAD.

Oh, and their hospital management?
From the Wikipedia link:
In health services, Serco's difficulties include the poor handling of pathology labs and fatal errors in patient records. At St Thomas' Hospital, the increase in the number of clinical incidents arising from Serco non-clinical management has resulted in patients receiving incorrect and infected blood, as well as patients suffering kidney damage due to Serco providing incorrect data used for medical calculations.^[59] A Serco employee later revealed that the company had falsified 252 reports to the National Health Service regarding Serco health services in Cornwall.^[60]

And isn't it nice to know that all of that personal medical information is in the hands of one of the largest intelligence contractors in the world?

Yes, they are rapists, too:
(Also from the Wikipedia article)
In September 2013, Serco was accused of extensive sexual abuse cover-ups of immigrants at Yarl's Wood Immigration Removal Centre prison in Bedfordshire, England ^[30] 

AND

The Union of Christmas Island Workers highlighted the systemic failure by Serco to manage the Christmas Island Immigration Reception and Processing Centre. The centre detains a large number of refugees including 1,000 children.^[36] Under Serco, there has been an increase of deaths in custody, self-harm, and of Serco staff beating prisoners. As well, there has been a deterioration of facilities leading to the decline of the physical and the mental health of detainees and of staff. Ombudsman Allan Asher on the Australian radio show AM said, "In the first week of June when I visited Christmas Island, more than 30 incidents of self-harm by detainees held there were reported."^[36] Serco, in a staged memo leaked to The Australian, blamed the detainees for "creating a culture of self-harm," in order to use it as a "bargaining tool."^[36]

How did they do with that School district?
Serco held a 10-year contract with Bradford City Council between 2001 and 2011 to manage and operate the local education authority,^[65] providing education support services to the City's schools. This period was marked with "real problems" according to senior council officials and was taken back in house by the local authority after this period.^[66] Serco similarly manages and operates Walsall^[67] and Stoke-on-Trent local education authorities.^[68] Serco is one of Ofsted's three Regional Inspection Service Providers, responsible for school inspections in the English Midlands.^[69] Serco is also the provider of a Student information system, Facility, used in schools and colleges in several countries.[70


What DOESN'T Serco have it's fingers in?

EDIT: Consider the fascist possibilities of a corporation that control's driver licencing, education, prisons, medical care, detention, as well as intelligence gathering, cyber-spying, etc, globally.  If we made a map that showed the influence of Serco and their other corporate peers (CACI, Lockheed, etc), would we see a world dominated by U.S./British private intelligence corporations?  

Also, consider that Serco does the same work as USIS, LLC, the company that put Snowden at the NSA, 
 http://online.wsj.com/articles/u-s-gives-new-contract-to-firm-that-cleared-nsa-leaker-1404344583

In fact, here is Serco's protest of a contract award to USIS, LLC:
http://www.gao.gov/products/d02600#mt=summary 

So what does this have to do with public transit in St. Louis?  It's not a direct link.

Serco is the macrocosm, and Bi-State Development Agency is the microcosm.  This is the template for agencies and companies that receive government funding.  Developing infrastructure (transportation or intelligence gathering) makes the private company wealthy, and they in turn feed the politicians with power in the infrastructure-- and of course massive campaign funds.

All government money comes from the taxpayers.  The macrocosm and the microcosm are nothing more than means to rob the public.  Serco is just an extremely transparent example.

Happy Fourth of July! 

***** SI International is worth investigating on it's own.  Ray Oleson founded the company in 1997.  He'd worked for CACI before that.  CACI formed in 1962.  CACI has strong ties to Donald Rumsfeld and the Bush regime. A British American defense, spy, and intelligence contractor, with massive global operations.  CACI was sued in 2004 by a group of tortured Iraqi Abu Ghraib prisoners.  The result of the suit is on-going today.  Since 2007 they have rather suddenly began purchasing over 20 other IT companies, at a rate of several per year.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CACI

SI International's 2008 purchase date is not coincidental to the global financial collapse.  It is too big to go into in this post, or in a blog post at all, it is book length, but SI ties to the Bush family and W's presidency, and probably back to WW2 and St. Louis investment banker Herbert Walker (GW Bush maternal grandfather, and founder of the bank that GW Bush's brother William "Bucky" still runs.  And let's not forget the banker that laundered gold for the Nazi's, Thomas McKittrick, from St. Louis.  After WW2 he brought Reichbank's Emil Puhl to NYC.) 

https://www.twst.com/interview/15562 

http://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/vprr/03/9999999997-03-020592 

Unravel the knot of SI International, CACI, Serco, the Bush Family's St. Louis and WW2 activities and ties to BIS and the Nazi's, and you could unravel every conspiracy theory, illegal war and scandal since the "Great War." (It was great for them!)

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/143053/hitlers-american-banker 

This list includes Serco, CACI, and all those like them (from 2008):

http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_globalmilitarism19.htm 

It is worth reading the whole list.  Guess who else?

USIS= (listed as a consortium sub-contractor under the Boeing project listing)= the contractor that vetted Edward Snowden, however, mostly famous for their ties to the Bush regime's Carlyle Group, who are famous for their Iraqi war profits, and sub-prime mortgage crisis insolvency.
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_carlyle15.htm

SECOND EDIT: Not big on 9/11 conspiracy theories, but Serco comes up in doc's a lot on such sites.  Their CEO (he retired just last year) was on the 47th floor of one of the towers on 9/11
https://decryptedmatrix.com/live/serco-the-biggest-company-youve-never-heard-of/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Hyman

http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/history2/10/Serco-Group-plc.html

I can't work out what these links are actually saying, both badly written and unclear, but apparently someone tried to sue them for a military death:
http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/06/1999-marine-links-serco-red-switch.html

http://www.abeldanger.net/2014/06/2001-marines-wrongful-death-suit-in-re.html 

BI-STATE DEVELOPMENT AGENCY IS RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVIDING PUBLIC TOILETS

Metro is a "doing business as" (dba) of Bi-State Development Agency.

Bi-State Development Agency was formed in 1949 for the purpose of "making the region more attractive to business".

What was their first job?  CREATING THE METROPOLITAN SEWER DISTRICT.  Which is now a separate entity.

Bi-State did not even get into Public Transit until the 1960's, when they bought 15 failing private bus lines.

According to Wikipedia:
In addition, Metro also owns and operates St. Louis Downtown Airport (formerly Parks) and the adjoining industrial business park, paddlewheel-style river excursion boats, the tram system leading to the top of the Gateway Arch, and the Arch's parking garage. 
 ...
The agency was created on September 20, 1949 through a compact between Missouri and Illinois and ratified by the United States Congress. Metro's broad powers enable it to cross local, county, and state boundaries to plan, construct, maintain, own, and operate specific facilities in its effort to enhance the quality of life in the region. Its service area encompasses 200 municipalities. The agency continued to operate streetcars from the St. Louis Public Service Company in St. Louis until May 1966 with the discontinuation of the Hodiamont line.^[4] First public support of transit came to the region in 1974. Buses continued to dominate Metro's fleet until a feasibility study in the late 80's suggested the construction of a light rail line from Lambert St. Louis International Airport to 5th and Missouri in East St. Louis via an abandoned segment of railway; that included abandoned tunnels under downtown St. Louis and the then disused Eads Bridge lower deck railway.

Metro's own Comprehensive Annual reports show that the only thing that DOESN'T operate at a loss in the Arch Trams and the parking garage!

Without the public transit they are a tiny little agency, operating on less than $5 million a year.  It's the public transit that brings in the 160 million of taxpayer money.  It's Metro that allows people like John Nations to get a quarter of a million a year salary and the "grooming" for a senate seat.

When Metro (Bi-State Development Agency d.b.a.) says that they are "not in the business of supplying public toilet facilities" they are lying.  They are in the business of whatever they want to be, as long as they can justify it fitting in with "making the region more attractive to talented young professionals". 

Business owners benefit from increased public toilet facilities, too.  For example, one of my favorite restaurants is The Kitchen Sink (TKS).  They started out next to the Debalivere Metrolink.  They moved to Union Blvd. last fall because the owner was tired of people coming in to use the restroom, and also peeing on the side of the building and in his entryway when the restaurant was closed.

Yesterday-- even though I don't drink an hour before I leave for the bus, and often go 5 hours without using a toilet when riding the bus and Metrolink- I found myself needing a bathroom at the Delmar Metrolink.  Every business I approached had a sign stating "NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS."

If you own a business near a bus or Metrolink stop, you should call Metro and demand they get in the business of providing toilets. 

Metro's money comes solely from public money.  We should have the right to determine how they spend it. 

There is a legal basis for their responsibility to provide toilets.  Hold them accountable for this!

JAM THE PHONE LINES! CALL EVERYTIME YOU RIDE!  DEMAND THAT THEY INSTALL TOILET FACILITIES!

From Metro's Website:

History

In the beginning...
In existence for more than 60 years, Metro Transit is one of the nation's oldest interstate agencies.  However, it hasn't always been known as Metro Transit.
It was established as the Bi-State Development Agency (BSDA) in 1949 through an interstate compact between Missouri and Illinois, ratified by the U.S. Congress and signed by President Harry S. Truman.  (The BSDA adopted the name Metro in 2003.)  The BSDA was created to serve the region on both sides of the Mississippi - to have a regional outlook not tied to any one municipality, county or state.  As such, it was given broad powers that enable it to cross local, county and state boundaries to enhance the development of the region.  
Although the Agency is now best known for its transit system, it would be 14 years - in 1963 - before it operated a public transit vehicle.  In fact, during its first year of operation, the BSDA:

• Commissioned a comprehensive plan for development of the Missouri-Illinois Metropolitan District, outlining the major needs of the area and recommending solutions.
• Sponsored a study of the pollution in the Mississippi River in the St. Louis area.  This led to a successful program where local industries voluntarily agreed to treat wastes in order to reduce pollution.
• Completed a study of the sewer problems of St. Louis County, which led to the establishment of the Metropolitan Sewer District.
• Sponsored an area-wide survey of highways and expressways in Missouri and Illinois - one of the first instances of coordinated interstate highway planning.