Hearings Underway
Well, the hearings have started. It’s going to be interesting to see what gets said now that the words will be part of the official record. Any backtracking from this point, and it’s possible perjury or obstruction of justice charges, after all.
The hearing was scheduled to begin at 8:30 a.m., but the first witness, an investigator with the Inspector General’s Office, was not brought before the Civil Service Commission until about 10:45 a.m.
Mays, one of the first of the fired employees to arrive at City Hall, told KPRC Local 2 that he felt good about his case.
Hernandez, the former manager of the Mayor Pro Tem’s Office, and her attorney, Walter Boyd were the last to arrive at the hearing. Boyd was vocal before the proceedings began.
“I’m in the position of being declared guilty until I’ve proven myself innocent and having the opportunity of never responding to them,” Boyd said.
Uh, don’t you mean, your client? who mis-spoke, Boyd, or the reporter?
Now this part is very curious and I’d like to know exactly what was changed:
Boyd and other attorneys involved in the case are unhappy with changes made to the rules of civil service hearings, including which side gets to present first and the order of witnesses.
In the end, attorneys for the city and the employees reached a compromise. Each side will have 70 minutes to present their case and will be given to cross-examine the opposing side’s witnesses.
A few years ago, the city council made a large number of changes to the grievance procedure in order to reduce the number filed. Sharp restrictions were put in place. This sounds more like recent, special changes, just for this hearing, which is highly suspect. Sounds sort of like. . . . maybe the City wants to make sure of the outcome? Anyway, Alvarado is confident.
“I’m looking forward to taking the stand, telling what I know of the situation. I think once all the facts are laid out on the table, people will see what we have here are employees that stole from the taxpayers,” Alvarado said.
Nobody disputes that there was theft. The big question is how much you knew about it. (The bigger question is “why didn’t you know, and what are we going to do with you now?”)
Update: surprisingly, the hearing is being taped and parts were on the 6pm news. So far, after ten hours they are only on the second witness; a far cry from the “70 minutes” supposedly given to either side. The most interesting thing I saw is that there actually is a written memo delegating signature authority in financial matters to Hernandez. Veddddy interestink, no?
Update: Some of the more interesting excerpts from KHOU’s coverage:
The city’s legal department gave the attorneys copies of the supposedly secret, Office of Inspector General report and stated that none of the copies should leave the room.
“The commission’s trying to do the best they can under the circumstances,� said Walter Boyd III, at attorney for one of the fired workers. “They’ve never faced this situation before.�
The FBI sent agents to listen in on the testimony, but there hasn’t been much to hear that hasn’t already been reported on television or in the newspapers.
An attorney for one of the employees said their client would testify that the bonuses were paid in part as compensation for campaign work done on city time.
It would seem that some of the former employees could be laying the groundwork for a lawsuit against the city.
Well, “no duh” on that last one.
This on the other hand could just be a dumb mistake, but I confess to not understanding the difference.
Update: well “Duh!” on me, I was thinking in terms of %, not absolute amount.
April 11th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
KSEV had Rosie Hernandez’s lawyer on the radio last Friday afternoon and that was essentially the same thing he was saying, that they were changing the rules specifically for these hearings and that as of Friday evening, those rules still had not been finalized and that he probably would not find out what the rules were until he showed up at the hearing this morning. Heluva way to run a railroad if you ask me.
April 11th, 2006 at 6:32 pm
It’s no less than what I expect of them. I’ve gone through the grievance procedure myself, and regardless of what some others think, it is not favorable to the employee. At least not honest ones. If you have no integrity and have nothing to lose, then you can grab a lawyer and our legal department will usually fold. They act like they’re terrified of being sued.
In this case, the stakes are too high. If any of those four get their jobs back, the resulting backlash could threaten White’s re-election. Or I’d like to think so, but Houston seems to be full of the most apathetic citizens I have ever seen outside Louisiana. Maybe it’s because so many of us came from there to get jobs?
April 11th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
I too have been through the kangaroo court known as
the City of Houston’s Civil Service Commission hearings.
In the long run–
It won’t matter what the outcome of the hearings is–
It won’t matter if the employees sue the City for wrongful
termination…
It won’t matter that the City is relying on the Mayor’s
Executive Order #504 which outlines guidelines for
City Employee Discipline and termination…
That Executive Order is nothing but a facade–
it is not real–and if you read on, you’ll understand how
that is so:
In the end–nothing will aid the employees because the
City will flash its Ace in the Hole by relying on the fact
that TEXAS IS A RIGHT TO WORK STATE and in this
state, as in other right-to-work states, an employer
has the right to terminate the employment of an
employee WITH OR WITHOUT CAUSE…
In other words–employees in this State are employed
at the pleasure of the employer. Period.
Unless they were fired for discrimination based on sex,
race, age, color or national origin AND CAN PROVE IT–
OR if they can prove that they were fired in retaliation
for having reported what they believed to be a violation
of the law to the proper authority–the four employees
basically DO NOT HAVE A LEG TO STAND ON IN THIS
STATE!
Another interesting item to note is that the City of Houston’s
(which the CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSION is one and the same)
policy as it pertains to the grievance procedure is to terminate
the grievance process BY TERMINATING THE EMPLOYEE.
It is well documented–It has been admitted in state district
court by the City of Houston official in charge of employee
matters.
The court hearing in which it is documented has not received
wide press coverage but is likely to get it in the weeks to come
because of the parallels which exisit between the case in which the City official’s testimony was recorded and the current case known as
“Bonusgate”.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:03 am
I’d be interested in knowing what case that is…. My understanding is that they terminate the process by forcing the employee to quit.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:05 am
[...] An employee on indefinate suspension receives no pay, accrues no senority, has no benefits, and is essentially not an employee. Except that the city rules still apply to you. The whole point is to make the employee take the final step of quitting. (Although commenter ngharrah disagrees, I’m not certain if we’re arguing semantics or facts yet.) [...]
April 12th, 2006 at 12:58 pm
In response to Ubu’s question concerning wanting to know
which case that is–Well it’s case number 97-22132 and
it involves a former co-worker of Rosie Hernandez’s
who like Rosie became aware that misappropriation
of City funds were being funneled into a City Department
Director’s campaign fund by way of an employee’s raise
(not Rosie) and the contributions that were making their
way into the Department Director’s campaign for a County
office were being left unreported on campaign finance reports.
The employee reported the fact that the misappropriated
City funds (which were being given to a Division Manager
at the time) were being routed to the City Director’s
campaign for County Attorney and were not being reported.
The employee reported the unreported campaign contributions
to the Harris County DA’s office at the time and the Harris
County DA’s office in turn contacted the City Director and
the Division Manager concerning the unreported contributions.
In fact, if the case file is examined, it will show that unlike Rosie
Hernandez, the employee had filed a grievance concerning the misappropriated/unreported monies–and that grievance was NEVER HEARD–instead the City terminated the employee.
That grievance is still technically “alive”–and the City of Houston
still has the obligation/duty to listen to it.
The City Department Director simply did not take the time nor make
the effort to listen to the grievance and fired the employee instead.
“Bonusgate” can very well bring that unheard grievance to the surface
and to the Civil Service Commission’s hearing table once again–
During the trial phase of the case (97-22132) trial subpoenas were
issued and trial subpoena after trial subpoena were ignored in an
effort to conceal the money route.
The employee was fired 84 days after she reported to the City’s
Civil Service Commission that her supervisors (the Division Manager
and the City Department Director) were not responding to her grievance
per the Civil Service Grievance Procedure Rules.
And it is presumed under law, that if an employee is fired within (or
inside of 90 days) after having made a report to the appropriate
authorities, that the employee was fired for having made the report.
So, Mr. Ubu–I think that should answer your question for now…
In fact, this answer might very well spin off many other questions,
wouldn’t you agree?
April 12th, 2006 at 1:09 pm
Oh yes, I agree very much!
This is exactly the kind of case that ends up in a whistleblower lawsuit, which the city drags out for years, loses, appeals, drags out more, and finally settles, forcing the ex-employee to accept a gag, aka non-disclosure condition.
Under the current situation though. . . . Anything is possible. Wonder if Chuckie is investigating this, or sitting on it? And maybe some members of the press would like to file a few TPIA requests?
April 12th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
If you’re referring to the press making some TPIA requests in relation
to case 97-22132, there really is no need to do that.
Case 97-22132 is sitting in the closed files section of the Harris County
Civil Courthouse and is open for public inspection.
There is definitely something wrong with the whole picture when
trial subpoenas are ignored and a cover-up continues.
And the case is presided over by a Judge (Tony Lindsay) whose
resume points out that she worked in the Labor Law Division of
the City of Houston’s Legal Department. And she (Lindsay) was
the only person who got to examine bank records (in camera)
to determine whether the terminated employee had been telling
the truth…and she (Lindsay) did so after admitting (in writing)
that she was “hazy” on the case and would need the assistance
of the attorneys in the matter to issue a final ruling on the case.
Then somehow, she (Lindsay) managed to get herself involved
in a cover-up scheme directed toward preventing the employee
the right to appeal the case–by signing the judgment during
“dead week” at the courthouse…umm–does sound like something
that Mr. Rosenthal should look into, agree?
Because this case and Bonusgate would definitely point to a pattern
of City funds being funneled to campaign accounts and left unreported
until those who failed to report the misappropriated funds start to feel
the heat–
In the 97-22132 case, the Department Director did not amend her
Campaign Finance Reports until after having been contacted by the
Harris County DA–and about four days prior to terminating the
employee who reported the misdeed to the DA–
In the Bonusgate matter…Hey–I haven’t seen this reported by
ANY MEDIA ENTITY/OUTLET–But in the Bonusgate matter,
Alvarado amended her Campaign Finance Reports (and quietly
so) with the help of Tony Campos (her ex-PR partner’s (Marc
Campos’ brother or father) on February 28th–at around the same
date that she hired Rusty Hardin (criminal defense attorney) and
Joe Householder (PR rep).
In the 97-22132 case, the Department Director involved also
hired a criminal defense attorney to represent her at a civil
proceeding…So–are you beginning to see the pattern here?
April 12th, 2006 at 1:49 pm
You can find Alvarado’s amended Campaign Finance Reports
(which were initially notarized by Rosie Hernandez, Christopher
Mays and Theresa Orta) on the website titled City of Houston
Council Campaign Finance Reports–but the ones with the
February 27/28, 2006 dates are in the corrected versions
of the 2005 reports–and you shouldn’t have to submit a Texas Public
Information Act request for that.
Alvarado should have really announced that she had amended
her reports (to reflect thousands of previously unreported dollars)
at the same time that she announced that she had hired Hardin
& Householder, don’t you agree?
April 12th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
And here I thought the stench I was smelling was coming from the Sewage treatment plant, now it appears that the stench is actually coming from city hall….
Ngharrah, those allegations (I’m not disputing your facts mind you) if made public would seriously blow the lid off this. WHY in HELL hasn’t the news media picked up on this?
Is there any connection between Tony Lindsay and Jon Lindsay? That linkage if there is one would put yet another spin on the situation….
April 12th, 2006 at 4:10 pm
I sent an e-mail to Matt Stiles about this.
April 12th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
BTW, yes, Jon and Tony are married…. Hmmmm…. Interesting….
April 12th, 2006 at 5:56 pm
Jeeezus. I am SO heading to the fallout shelter. Here’s hoping I have a job in a few weeks!
Just kidding. Don’t sweat it Ngharrah — the only reason I haven’t taken your comments and headlined them in an article is that, as yet, I have no confirmation and can’t take off work to go obtain it. Not because I have doubts, but because I am exercising due caution. After all I don’t have the vaunted layers of editors, researchers and fact checkers like the MSM.
I have something a lot more powerful in the end…. the public.
BTW, I’m not familar with the term. What is “dead week?”
April 12th, 2006 at 7:18 pm
“Dead Week” is an “annual event” at courthouses…
Dead Week usually lasts one week (5 working days)
and it is a time set aside for judges and court staff
to “catch up”, to tie loose ends on issues/matters/cases
which the court has allowed to lay dormant need to be
addressed, ruled upon, etc., in order to conform to the
time deadlines within civil procedures.
Usually, the courthouse is “closed” to the public for hearings,
trials, etc.
Does that adequately answer your question?
By the way, in case 97-22132, the trial took place in October
of 1998; and the judge in the case did not sign the final order
(based on the outcome of the trial) until Dead Week, 1999,
which took place around September 30th, 1999–In other words,
it took her nearly a year to sign that order and by the time that
she got around to it, she admitted (in hand-written form), that
she was “hazy” on the matters associated with the case.
April 12th, 2006 at 9:06 pm
Hm. So it’s an 8-9 year old case. Digging to be done…..
Allow me to summarize the whole thing in chronological order, and please correct me where I’m in error; there’s a few places where I have to infer you mean something that you didn’t quite state it clearly and I am going to be understandably (I hope) cautious about assuming anything or leaping to conclusions. (In short, I am assuming I’m playing with nitroglycerin, so there’s some CYA here.)
If I understand all this correctly, nine years ago, a city employee reported to the DA (Note 1) that a COH department director had rigged a way to funnel city funds into a political campaign by giving a Division Manager a raise, whereupon the money was forwarded by the employee into the campaign? And that, as part of the investigation, the DA contacted the director in question. The employee then filed a grievance regarding the misappropriation (Note 2) after the report became “public.”
Departmental management (Note 3) ignored the grievance request and the employee reported this to the Civil Service Commission. Just under three months later, the employee was fired, still without the grievance being heard (Note 4) and the candidate amended their campaign finance report at about the same time. Subsequently, a civil lawsuit resulted (re: the firing I assume?), filed in 1997, and which went to trial in the court of Tony Lindsey in October 1998. This judge was formerly employed by the City of Houston’s Legal Department. During the interim, the city ignored several trial subpoenas, yet wasn’t held in contempt.
Despite the city’s behavior and several damaging admissions, Judge Lindsey examined the employee’s bank records in camera (Note 5), then sat on the decision for almost a full year, then requested unspecified assistance from the attorneys in the case to make her decision against the employee (Note 6) and finally released it at an unusual time. The presumption here seems to be that the timing was deliberate in order to make the release unlikely to be noticed in time for an appeal.
Furthermore, the Division Manager in question was a co-worker of Rosie Hernandez; it is easy to assume she would be influenced heavily by the negative outcome of this case, and that amendments to Alvarado’s campaign finance reports may represent an effort to conceal a similar scheme?
Edit: I see that our current county attorney was elected in 2002. Based on the timing of the complaints and suits, this probably was in reference to the 1996 campaign? Golly, look who was the Democratic candidate that year: The City of Houston’s Chief of Municipal Courts Sylvia Garcia. You know, the whole campaign kinda played out funny when you get down to it.
Is all this (including the below) correct to the best of your knowledge ngharrah?
1. DA Holmes at the time. This would also be pre-OIG, I think. What year did Brown form it? I vaguely recall it was in the 1999-2001 timeframe. If the earlier end of that range, note the proximity to this case.
2. This was before the council severely restricted grievances. There are now only six valid reasons acceptable; any others will be summarily dismissed.
3. The first two Stages of the process are held within the Division/Department. The Civil Service Commission is not involved until Stage III, or if procedure is violated in Stage I or II — which is what’s alledged here; further Ngharrah seems to be saying that the “appeal for violation of process” (my term) was aborted by firing the employee. I am unclear on this point though.
4. From my own experience in the grievance system a few years prior to this, there was (IIRC) a 30 day deadline to hold the Stage I hearing, and tight deadlines for the II and III hearings (appeals). The entire matter should have been resolved within 90 days or so.
5. If I understand how that works, no one else saw the bank records; not even the plantiff’s attorney, and they are not part of the public record. So no one can follow up by seeing whether or not there is a pattern of transfers from the Division Manager to the Director/candidate for County Attorney that closely matches the amount of the raise.
6. It is not clear from the information given here whether Lindsey was claiming to be hazy on the law, or her memory of the facts, or something else.
April 13th, 2006 at 6:28 am
Hello, Mr. Ubu–
Here is my response to the questions which you posed to me
concerning Case Number 97-22132–and I will try my best to answer
your questions in an adequate manner.
Before I go any further, though–
Despite all the City (and County) officials’ efforts to put the
lid on that case–(97-22132)–let me advise you that there is a spin-
off case which resulted from the events surrounding Lindsay finally
signing off on the case in 1999.
The spin-off case concerning the attempt to conceal the appeal-filing deadline from the employee/Plaintiff in the matter may possibly be headed to the Texas Supreme Court and it is Cause Number 04-03-00772-CV.
That case is currently at the Fourth Court of Appeals in San Antonio.
(Yes, it was mysteriously transferred out of the eyes and ears of
Houstonians and Harris County residents on October 15th, 2003
by order of the Texas Supreme Court)!
In answer to your question concerning your careful reconstruction
of the timeline and events with regard to the first case, (97-22132)
you are right.
Yep–! Alvarado seems to be following the pattern of the Department
Director (whom you correctly named).
And there is a slight correction to your version of the bank records
which Tony Lindsay examined “in camera”–Those were the bank
records of the Department Director’s campaign accounts, and not
the bank records of the terminated employee. Lindsay admitted,
in writing, that the records had been sitting in her office for months
prior to her finally being reminded by the City of Houston to conduct
the “in camera” inspection. What is unusual about that, is that when
she finallydecided to conduct the in-camera inspection, (which she was
supposed to conduct by herself), she ASKED the attorneys to assist
her (?!!?) So what type of “in camera” inspection could that have been? Could there be such a thing as “in camera with the aid of the attorneys
in the matter?
During the discovery phase of the case, it was discovered that
about $76,000 had inexplicably “appeared” in the Department Director’s
campaign account–and according to an audit conducted on the campaign
account information, there were no loans nor contributions to account for the money ($76,000) in question.
And the $76,000 of unexplained funds in the Department Director’s
campaign account was based on campaign account information which
had been provided by the City of Houston’s own Legal Department.
And yes–Rosie Hernandez, having personally known, been
acquainted with and worked in the same office as the Plaintiff/Appellant
in the cases mentioned above, would have been negatively influenced by the outcome of the case of which we now blog!
You’re right about the trial subpoenas and the City not
having been held in contempt for not providing the witnesses
who had been subpoenaed. A notable one who did not show
despite having been subpoenaed was the head of the City’s
Internal Fraud Division.
Here’s a timeline that might answer some questions for
you about the accuracy of your timeline/version of what I described
in my previous postings.
The employee filed the first grievance on July 30th, 1996.
The employee filed a second grievance on September 6th,
1996.
Neither the Department Director nor the Division Manager
responded to either of the employee’s grievances through
which the employee complained about, among other things,
misappropriation of City funds and for being forced to perform
work in a higher classification WITHOUT THE PAY to “punish”
the employee for choosing not to work on the Department Director’s
campaign for county attorney.
Because of the lack of response to the grievance, the employee
filed a document titled “Supervisors’ Serious Delinquency in
Responding to Grievances Filed” on December 16th, 1996.
After that document was filed, the first or Step 1 meeting
was held with the employee on December 23rd, 1996–
a whopping 147 days after the grievance had been filed.
A Step 2 meeting was never held. The Department Director
(per the Civil Service Grievance procedure rules) was
supposed to hold the meeting and simply did not.
Instead, the Division Manager (who had resigned from the
City the month before) held the meeting instead.
A federal magistrate ordered the characteristically apolitical
(yes–as in lacking intert in politics) and characteristically
frugal Division Manager to turn over any checks which she had
written to the Department Director, and when she finally turned
in the checks, the backs of the two $500 unreported checks were
illegible–which information would customarily disclose what bank
and to what account the money was being routed to; the account
numbers were distorted, out of focus and could simply not
be read.
Those payments/contributions to the Department Director
coincided with the Director’s time off the City clock, which
at the time, she had announced to her staff, she was working
2 1/2 days at the City and the other 2 1/2 days she was spending
on her political campaign.
The Division Manager’s pay raise, according to court
records took place in November, 1995; and the $500
check (which was unreported) was written by the
Division Manager to the Department Director’s
campaign in January, 1996. Another unreported check
for another $500 was issued by the Division Manager
in August, 1996.
I know that it sounds bizarre to you–but that is the way
that it happened–and there are tape recordings and
transcripts exist which prove that the events indeed took
place in the manner described to you here.
In addition, the City contested the employee’s right to
collect unemployment–and when a tribunal with the
Texas Employment Commission ruled in favor of the
employee, the City of Houston sued the employee
AND THE GREAT STATE OF TEXAS!
(To think that they did that at taxpayer expense?)
The City later withdrew or non-suited the action against
the employee and the great state of Texas.
And the documentation for that suit also exists.
That Cause Number is 97-50800 and the documentation
should also be available in the closed case section of the
Harris County Civil Courthouse.
The employee was accompanied by an AFSCME (union)
representative when it was time for the employee to
meet with the Department Director concerning her plan
to recommend to the Mayor (Lanier at the time) that the
employee be terminated.
At the meeting, the AFSCME representative (Diane Gutierrez)
told the Department Director, “You know that this employee
has a grievance that has not been heard–and you’re still
going to recommend to Mayor Lanier that this employee
be terminated?”
And the Department Director’s response was “Yes.”
(As in affirmative that she would be recommending
that the Mayor terminate the employee).
The employee was terminated on March 10th, 1997–
84 days following the employee’s report to the Civil
Service Commission (the appropriate authority) that
the Department Director and the Division Manager
were not responding to the grievances which had been
filed the year before (July 30th and September 6th, 1996).
So, in summary the employee made two good faith reports to
the appropriate authorities that the Department Director and
the Division Manager were breaking the law–one to the Harris
County DA–about the unreported campaign contributions and
the second one to the Civil Service Commission–concerning
the Supervisors’ Serious Delinquency in Responding to
Grievances Filed.
When the matter got to Lindsay’s court, Lindsay asked the
jury to rule on the first report (which had happened months
more than 90 days prior to the firing) and Lindsay did not
ask the jury to rule on the second report which the employee
had made on December 16th, 1996, which placed the employee
within the 90-day time frame, which as a matter of law declared
that it should be presumed that the employee had indeed been
fired for having made the good faith report to authorities.
______
Mr. Ubu–I tried my best to respond to your questions–
and I trust that some of the information which I have
relayed to you here is bound to result in more questions!
And I’ll be happy to provide you with my reply!
April 13th, 2006 at 10:43 am
An excellent and detailed accouting of the situation, Ngharrah! Thank you.
It’s time to take this from the comments to the front page, but this is far too much for me to summarize/post/comment on at lunch time. I expect it will be late tonight or tomorrow sometime before it goes up.
Who knows where it will go? A lot depends on the local media, and how willing they are to play ball with the big boys. It’s unfortunate, but as yet, the Houston Blogsphere doesn’t have the mass reach of the traditional media. If Pajamas Media were anything other than a toy of the big bloggers that founded it, we could go nationwide and focus serious heat on the administration(s) that have permitted this pattern of abuse. Sadly not to be I think. Still, I’ll send them an e-mail. Being on their extended blogroll should be worth something.
April 13th, 2006 at 11:31 am
Wow, just F-ing WOW.
Ngharrah I’m going to breech ettiquite here with a question, if you decline to answer publically for fear of retribution etc., I understand. I won’t hold it against you or anything, but I feel I really need to at least ask, if for no other reason than to get a feel for motivations. Feel free to contact me or Ubu via e-mail if there is information you don’t want to make public.
What is your connection to this case? You have a heluva lot of very detailed information. Are you the fired employee in question? A lawyer in the case? A Union Rep? A family member? A co-worker? A concerned citizen with a lot of time to research stuff?
Ubu, please e-mail me when you have your post up, I’m going give it some exposure over at LST at least. Matt Stiles tells me he has been following this thread as well, but I don’t know if he is following it up or not.
April 13th, 2006 at 11:39 am
[...] Commenter ngharrah wrote: Well it’s case number 97-22132 and it involves a former co-worker of Rosie Hernandez’s who like Rosie became aware that misappropriation of City funds were being funneled into a City Department Director’s campaign fund by way of an employee’s raise (not Rosie) and the contributions that were making their way into the Department Director’s campaign for a County office were being left unreported on [1996] campaign finance reports. [...]
April 13th, 2006 at 5:26 pm
K, Rorschach. I have made a mention and quoted ngharrah in an article posted earlier today. Sort of a teaser. I have some errands to run tonight and may not get to this as soon as I’d like. I have been making one assumption: that ngharrah was the employee (or spouse of the employee) in question.
At this point, I don’t know
I probably should have asked, at least privately (and would appreciate a response, either public or private.) After all, bringing all this back up (or rather, just providing the forum to do so) could very well land my rear end in the soup too.
ngharrah, I think you are a cut above most of the employees, as the detail and delivery have been excellent. Thank you for bringing this case back into the light, and especially thank you for trusting me not to bury it.
Edit:
Sigh, and I really need the name/position of the employee to write a straight news article.I’ll do what I can without it but there’s no hope it will be picked up by Pajamas Media if I write it in my usual inflammatory fashion.Oops. Got it, looked up the appeal online and then hit myself twice.Edit 2: Wait, are the AFSMCE rep and the fired employee related? Dangit, we need to take this to emails… too many questions! Send me one at ubu at houblog dot com (sorry about the anti-spam). Be aware I can’t access that email during the day so responses will be slow.
Drat, drat, drat… I’m thinking I won’t have this ready before monday…. Probably better anyway. It would get buried by the weekend….
May 12th, 2006 at 8:46 am
[...] Especially given the already shaky history of city hall politcs in this regard. Alvarado denied any wrongdoing and said she did not mean for the fundraising e-mails to upset anyone. [...]