This is Why, Part I

This email, above, is an actual email actually sent from one County Commissioner to our former County Administrator Jack Brown.  I have redacted names and other information so that readers will not know which commissioner sent this....and to whom this email refers.

In other words, the point here is not to pinpoint names, etc.  The point is to have readers look at this email and ask themselves if this is a reasonable email.  Is it rational, measured, and professional?

Or is it demeaning and threatening?

And is it overly-heavy-handed to demand an immediate meeting with the administrator with the demand that not only the administrator come, but also HR personnel and Legal Personnel?

If I was the employee on the receiving end of a "demand" email like this one---I'd feel like my job was on the line, on the spot, if I did not do exactly as I was being directed by this one commissioner.

And about the veiled threat of  "I'll start making them famous"  at the bottom of this email...What the hell does that even  mean--is that a threat?  Does that mean these employees will be publicly called out, humiliated, and/or demeaned if they do not immediately acquiesce to the whims of 1/5 of the Board??

I think we are going to have a tough time keeping any Administrator or senior staff if they are


subjected to verbal lashings like what I see in the email above---but hey, that's just my opinion.  Yours may vary.  But it sounds eerily familiar to a previous commissioner's pressures on staff....

But I will say this much:  People have asked "Why do we need your proposed ordinance banning interference by board members, Jeff?"

This email above, Here's Why!  (If someone would write this to a group of professional staff members, I wonder what that same individual would say in person to such staffers?)