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| The County saved potentially $600K or more (according to attorneys working the case on behalf of the County's insurance carrier) due to our settlement with wronged first responder Matt Selover. PNJ did not report that; instead, their article on the front page of this morning's paper essentially blames everything about this case on Jeff Bergosh...... |
Fake news PNJ cherry pick a 35 page document from January of this year to find a couple of paragraphs they believe to be unflattering to yours truly, and they make a story of that only and exclusively.
And, they conveniently do not link their source docuement--a 35 page memo from the Lydecker-Diaz law firm delineating all the multiple problems with the defense and urging a settlement in the case to reduce financial exposure to their real client---not the BCC---the insurance company that ultimately paid the settlement.
PNJ didn't show the document, but I did.
And PNJ's subsequent post on their facebook page was panned by readers unanimously and universally---including by Matt Selover himself, you know, the first responder at the center of the matter. He went in and made some very apropos comments correcting the PNJ's flawed narrative on their own facebook page.
But setting that wreckage aside--there was a follow-on memo from the same firm sent over to the BCC's deputy county attorney Charlie Peppler in early May---and that memo apparently didn't get leaked to the PNJ as the previous one did. I wonder why? (I know why, and so will those who read it!)
Actually--none of the board members knew about it so far as I can tell--which is problematic as we should have been given it ahead of our last shade meeting in early June. It might have influenced decisionmaking. But it was withheld from the board, we did what we did, and it is all over now.
But that memo, linked here, did describe our potential liablility as potentially exceeding $800K--and again urged a settlement for a myriad of good reasons---the same ones and more from their first memo---yet none of these valid reasons made it into the fake news PNJ article. Nope. Just "Jeff Bergosh's fault" (I wonder why?). No, I don't wonder why, I know why. PNJ are biased, weak, lazy, owned by the powerful, and fake to their rotten core. That's why.
From the memo the PNJ didn't show you:
"individuals
at the County thought restricting his [Selover's] privileges may be discipline and trigger
due process. This prompted John Dosh (Dosh), former Interim Public Safety
Director, and Matthew Coughlin, former Interim County Administrator) to seek a
legal opinion regarding Dr. Edler’s authority to demote Selover. As such, Deputy County
Attorney Charles Peppler, drafted same and concluded that Dr. Edler lacked the
authority to demote Selover. Critically,
this is a weakness in our case as our defense is that the actions taken by the
County do not amount to a disciplinary action."
"Should a jury find that the
County is liable, but believe Plaintiff’s expert’s economic loss findings, we
estimate Plaintiff’s recoverable damages in a range between
$788,162.00-$820,162, not taking into account attorney fees."
"Overall,
we have concerns regarding the atmosphere at the County at the time of
Selover’s complaint, the turnover occurring with the administration and having
things fall through the cracks, the differences in opinions evidenced in
emails, and the County failing to follow their harassment policy. For example, the County failed to follow
their harassment policy timeline, but did not let Selover appeal again despite
the County taking six months to issue their opinion on Selover’s complaint.
Moreover, at the time Selover’s privileges were restricted, there was a
disagreement over whether restricting Plaintiff’s clinical privileges or any
paramedic’s clinical privileges was considered “discipline” thereby triggering
due process. We have two county attorney’s opinions stating that it was
discipline."
"Critically, she [former HR Director Jana Still] testified that after rendering the final opinion, Selover asked to appeal, but
since the complaint was a harassment complaint, and subject to the unlawful
harassment policy only, it only provided for 5 days to appeal—which Selover and
Dr. Edler had at the time the findings were presented to them in November
2019. Therefore, after conferring with
the County Attorney, she advised Selover he already had the opportunity to
appeal and he could not appeal again."
Lots of major issues with the case, and the only thing I did was testify, truthfully, to what I knew. I did this to help a first responder that was left hanging out to dry by inept county leadership that failed to follow our own policies and disciplined this employee without providing proper due process.
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| Fake, Feckless, Dishonest, Conscripted, Biased, Lazy and Weak--at least the PNJ are consistent... |
Fake, dishonest, feckless, weak, biased, owned, conscripted and partisan hacks at PNJ ignore those facts to score what they believe will be a salacious, juicy headline.
That's the PNJ. You can count on them to at least be consistent.
PNJ AND ECW. After reading through the case and having some first hand knowledge, I think the county got off easy paying him 200k. I personally wouldn’t of settled for that small of an amount if it happened to me.
ReplyDeleteWe interrupt this regulary scheduled broadcast of:
ReplyDelete1) Yes we know Underhill and Rogers have the ear of Marlette and PNJ and Jim Little and apparently Studer is ok with that, as even Rick's blog is demonstrating by noting Marlette's bias crap piece ignoring Gray's contributions to Might Underdog "here I came to save the day..not" and with the opinion piece about downtown development, which probably no one read to the end-- not to mention the Federal government making a horrible showing on the World stage..and yes Fred made it over the same path as Michael --- to this.
WHONK
WHONK
WHOCK
Alert!
Interrupt!
Did you look on my Escambia dashboard at the hospitals increasing and that they put out the other day 94% were unvaccinated?
Did you see the story in Houston where the gunshot victim lay there all weekend because of staff shortages?
Did you see where they have to life flight people to other states because they have no beds?
Not to be rude but..
NOBODY CARES what rogers and under- the- hill pass to marlette..unless they are also idiots also..
I hope your and Studer's ego are satiated and you will pay attention to solving a real crisis.
This vote was taken weeks ago.
Done. Well done.
Move on.
Check the dashboard. Check the vaccination rate.
We have a problem.
1.
ReplyDeleteWhy wasn't this memo shared with the BOCC before the pertinent shade meeting?
Because you guys were getting gamed all day long by administration, who ruled that roost, and was desperate to continue to CYA all the things they, their consultants, their HR, and their Public Safety and EMS leadership screwed up.
Was the County Attorney's office wrong in not providing it to the commission? Of course, IF you actually asked your attorney for copies of all the work product. If as a commission, or individually, you did not ask to be apprised at every step and with every piece of paper, then it's not surprising you didn't see it. Communicating between lawyers is NOT always shared with clients, particularly when you've got an outside counsel situation. If it ain't on the docket to view, you aren't sure you're seeing it unless you've asked to see it. And you gotta know it exists in order to ask for it. Assume from here on out that outside counsel is providing status reports of this nature...they always do.
Two things to note. First is that THE LAWYERS FOR THE BOCC WERE UNDER THE MISPERCEPTION THAT MATT SELOVER HAD A 5-DAY APPEAL TIME HE FAILED TO MEET.
No, he did NOT.
When he--finally--received the results of his harassment complaint months after he filed it, IT WAS IN HIS FAVOR. Why would he appeal it? Then admin, HR, and the County Attorney overturned (1) the previous HR opinion; and (2) the opinion of 2 County attorneys, and THAT IS WHAT THEY NEVER LET HIM APPEAL, saying he had missed his appeal date--after they changed their results!
2.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, look at the list of reasons they knew the County was screwed if this thing went to court:
--"we have concerns regarding the atmosphere at the County" (in legal terms, that would be called a "toxic workplace environment")
--"the turnover occurring with the administration," which was made worse by Ms. Gilley refusing to consult/disclose materials and documents left for her by previous administrators (in legal terms, that would be called "plausible deniability")
--"having things fall through the cracks" (a nice way of saying "destruction of evidence," "fraud," and "due process violations")
--"the differences in opinions evidenced in emails" (is there a legal term for "mutually exclusive HR-generated lies?)
--"County failing to follow their harassment policy" (in other words, a federal crime against the Civil Rights Act of 1964)
So basically, if they had only added "and a bunch of the people responsible were running around having sex with each other," the result is that after (1) months of a very close looksie by the BOCC's own expert outside counsel and (2) tens of thousands more in taxpayer legal fees, that counsel put down in writing the exact same conclusions that I had been laying out in black and white for the BOCC, publicly, since May of 2019. And even then, it doesn't seem to have mattered much. Because it doesn't exist if nobody who knows about it cares it exists, or people don't care to figure out it exists. See how that works?
The irony is that this memo is just the tiniest tip of the iceberg of the absolute debacle caused to two years of an administration who apparently thought they could just disappear paper like the old days.
So, does anybody other than the dull blades in the ECW drawer have any more doubts that the EMS who were arrested were set up by the exact same climate and machinations the BOCC's own outside counsel identified and hammered on? What do you suppose their cases would reveal if they got one fifth the attention Matt's suit has gotten?
Here's a hint: if people think what the County did to Matt Selover was bad, now apply what you've seen in that scenario to the end result of innocent people getting arrested and staring down the barrel of prison sentences. Brought to you by Escambia County leadership, folks! It's kind of like one of those crazy dystopian game show movies where people get hunted down and captured in front of a life audience. Except the horror show goes on for two years instead of two hours, and the film is always still rolling. Everybody pays for the production, whether we choose to watch it or ignore it from one side of the screen, and even if we're being persecuted by it on the other.
As you have stated many times, the County did not follow its own policies and procedures. These documents point out several concerns sine the County did not follow its own policies.
ReplyDeleteIf your hate club can’t grasp “ the County didn’t follow its own policies” they will never grasp or attempt to read an 30+ page document.
These folks just like to spew terms like conspiracy and GOBC without ever weighing all the facts.
You didn’t cherry pick the facts, you simply understood the simple course of discipline, follow the policy. If the policy wasn’t followed, the issuer should be held accountable. $250,000 doesn’t equate to what this individual lost and his attorney fees. However it does bring this to a close and he can begin to heal and move on.
Anon 5:20 ours went up together so I didn't see yours before I posted.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't agree with you more about covid. Spot-on. Thank you.
Sadly, the criminal complaints on the EMS and the bogus administrative hearings that DOH tosses off didn't get cancelled for covid. :( And I don't mean that facetiously, but with sadness. I've spent most of my advocacy time the last three weeks on covid again. Futile, as our local and regional leaders outside the city refuse to enact effective policies against the spread of the virus, pretend to believe junk science as duck and cover, cower in front of DeSantis's BS illegal executive orders, and let the hospital admins lie to them through their teeth.
So yea. We have a problem. But that huge problem doesn't negate other existing problems. It just makes them worse to have to navigate and deal with. But with every document that comes out like this, it becomes more and more clear what was going on at the County. I mean, when you're own lawyer says "The trouble with the weakness on our case is that you did everything you were accused of and more," what more needs to be said about the climate that created the perfect storm for the most pathetically obvious railroading job anyone could imagine somehow working?