By 5th District Supervisor, Bob Berkowitz – June 15, 2017 Bob Berkowitz You can't imagine my shock when I looked at the front page of today's paper to see a quote from me that said, "Supervisor Bob Berkowitz said the Hemmingsen and Howard do not have the experience or the necessary contacts to spur any legislation on priority issues." Not only was the quote not taken out of context, it was never said at all, not at this board meeting, not at any venue, not at any other meeting, not even at any private conversations. In fact, I have never have even had an interview with reporter Reed. All of the quotes he has ever received from me have been through public board of supervisor meetings or from the recordings of those meeting. What was actually said at the June 13th Board of Supervisor's (BOS) meeting was accurately reported on page two. “Berkowitz commended the group on all it accomplished in D.C. saying, ‘You lose weight on that kind of schedule’." The Triplicate’s attempt to manufacture controversy where none exists, just to sell newspapers, is despicable. My remarks at the last BOS meeting can be located on the youtube.com recording at one hour and 37 minutes into the meeting. In remarks to Gregg Burns, our lobbyist who had just given a summary of what board members Howard and Hemmingsen along with Mayor Inscore had accomplished while in Washington D.C. “First of all I want to commend you on everything that you’ve accomplished the way supervisor Howard and Hemmingsen worked. That was one heck of a schedule you had for them. My God you could really lose weight on that kind of a schedule." (Supervisor Howard then remarked) “We had 22,000 steps on his meter.” Berkowitz continued with asking a question about sending a letter to Washington D.C. concerning Last Chance Grade. So what we have here are made up quotes from me in the Triplicate on page one where the paper makes makes a statement that I said “Hemmingsen and Howard do not have the experience or the necessary contacts to spur any legislation on priority issues.” Then on page two it accurately quotes me as saying, “First of all I want to commend you on everything you’ve accomplished.” If there ever was an instance of an out of control newspaper whose only goal is to foster controversy where none exists, this is it. Triplicate Editor Fornoff probably thought he could get away with this type of phony reporting because he has no oversight due to the retirement of the publisher. It just shows the he must be several nuts short of a full pouch.