The first employee, several months back, had some major, serious charges leveled against him. Some were felonies. Eventually, his case was disposed of, and all the serious charges were dropped to two misdemeanors. He is continuing his career elsewhere.
Now, today, comes news that two more of the former EMS employees that had a laundry-list of allegations leveled against them by our former medical director--have now had their cases resolved in circuit court today. These two cases from today were concluded with neither employee admitting guilt to any of the charges, and both of these former employees were given a pre-trial diversion option--which allows all the charges leveled against them to eventually be expunged from the record--so long as the terms of the pre-trial deal are adheared to by these two former employees. And if they so choose, both of these employees can continue their respective careers in EMS. NO ramifications on their licenses.
Many of us have been watching these events closely, waiting for this day.
For many of us, this is vindication.
I am quite pleased that these former employees can now move forward with their lives and get past this terrible situation they found themselves in with one employee who could take no criticism, and lashed out at junior employees once multiple harrassment complaints were filed against her.
Many believe, based upon what we're now seeing, that much if not all of these accusations and allegations of wrongdoing was simply comprised of cooked up, trumped up allegations that have now evanesced under the scrutiny of a court proceeding.
I plan on really digging into this in more depth in the next couple of days.
In the meantime---I'm very glad we have new leadership in Public Safety, EMS, and in the role of Medical Director. Because what happened over the last three years did not have to happen, and a lot of good people were disparaged, disrespected, and run out of their jobs.
And some were charged with serious infractions which it appears, now, never happened.
The damage one rogue employee can inflict on fellow employees, junior employees, and an entire organization, are immense. That's why mature, effective, and strong leadership is mandatory.
For several years in public safety we didn't have this.
Now, with our new org chart, I believe we do.
Good news indeed.
ReplyDeleteIt does my heart glad to see you speak in such resolute terms about this issue. The attacks that happened on these people were personal, strategic, and were given cover by several county administrators, HR and even the PS director. It’s great that the whole story is starting to come together. It doesn’t give these people their careers back. All 3 were long serving career EMS veterans with retirements approaching. All gone. The damage to the organization can’t even be quantified. You see it from a fully staffed before this started department to the shell it is now, but it goes beyond just numbers on a paper. The culture has shifted and it will take a long while to bring it back. Thank you for your words for these honorable people, and your stand against the dishonorable.
ReplyDeleteI have been following what has gone on surrounding the debacle since early 2019.
ReplyDeleteI am mostly just trying to be informed and I have a lot of time to watch. It's a hobby, I have no "skin in the game" really -- do not know the people personally involved but I want to message something here to Melisso Pino and I hope she sees it.
You are brave and tenacious. It takes a lot of moxie to go up against the county administrator, commissioner, States attn, medical director making two salaries and backed by the big gossip propaganda warfare machine.
I'm sure this is very satisfying to you also.
Commissioner Bergosh, you also do the right thing even if it seems to go against the grain.
Those are admirable qualities.
I won't get long winded and certainly am one who likes to let things settle down and be at peace.
But I realize this ordeal had a lot to do with Ms Gilley leaving. too.
I like to find the best in people and hope they have redeeming qualities.
I think it best to have simple policies in place and things taken care and nipped in the bud, as drama free as possible.
Sending it to the news, the facebook, and even reporting to the FDOH when one is a part of the organization to make it better was not the way to go.
Getting lawyers and lawsuits and police involved isn't best practice either.
Some good may have come out of this to make the county have a more professional working environment.
If an employee needs correction it can be a simple policy like a week suspension or something.
Leaders are not there to crush people's spirit and livlihoods and to try to embarrass and scorn them yet it works both ways.
Once it is stirred up, it has to be settled.
Hopefully this is coming to a conclusion.
So yes you two and three paramedics..we've been rooting for you.
But yeah don't pass out a card there JB.. (innocent until proven guilty) that also caused a lot of problems..
That might have needed some attention also. That put the MD in a precarious position also. Perhaps she didn't get heard either.
Put yeah MD, don't sue citizens that Doug wants to shut up either.
Because..."Discovery's a bitch, Babe"
Can the county reinstate them at their jobs so they can get their retirement?
ReplyDeleteSo they weren't found innocent and records are only cleared once the meet requirements set forth. I'm no legal scholar but typically if one is innocent there is no requirement to having anything taken off the record.
ReplyDeletePerhaps your are unfamiliar with a fundamental legal standard in these United States. You are innocent until proven guilty. None of these case has proven guilt, resulted in a plea leading to a conviction. The SAO has said on the record there will not be a criminal record. So yes the three are innocent because they always were and were never found by the judicial system to be otherwise. Taking a deal to avoid the costly and uncertainty of a trial does not indicate guilt. I hope you never find yourself with false evidence and bad law enforcement coming to arrest you. If they do though you will be innocent until proven guilty.
DeleteTry being falsely accused of something that is highly publicized and becomes political (when your not a politician). Going to court will cost you a lot more money when your after loosing the only career you know. And now you have a chance at loosing the little bit that’s left of your retirement benefit.
DeleteYes innocent people plea. Don’t think an evil person couldn’t do this to you or your family.
1.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words, Anon 12:59. I'm not sure "satisfying" is one of the things I'm feeling about this. Yesterday I experienced many competing emotions--thrilled, overjoyed, and overcome for Kate Kenney and Leon Salter and their loved ones and family, and a huge personal release from everything that has happened the last couple of years.
But there was also profound sadness at the senselessness of all of it. It is a scenario born of nothing more than some of the worst traits that can drive human beings to do things like this to other people: the overwhelming malice, a sociopathic indifference to the truth, the lack any human empathy, and--this is perhaps the worst--the absolute blind faith and resolve that a system could be worked in such a corrupt fashion to such implausible ends, and despite the fact that what was happening should have been obvious to anyone with eyes in their heads and a willingness to look at the facts.
The truth was there, the entire time, for anyone who cared to consider the black and white documents and to consult good old common sense. Jacqueline Rogers's and Doug Underhill's social media disinformation machine of course played a huge part in the public perception aspect, as did County Administration and CMR's manipulation of the media and the leaks--because it wasn't just Doug leaking things to the press. CMR was in on that, as well, which would have come at the direction of administration.
But none of that should have mattered, if decision makers who sat above all that hadn't been so easily manipulated by a handful of very bad actors in high places who were pulling the wool over their eyes. How easily the worst in human hearts can neutralize the best in them, not to mention the intelligence of some very smart people, is something you really can't unsee. It impacted me on a profound level, so I really can't imagine how it has affected the people who had this hostility and gross injustice visited on them directly.
Because as Anon 9:43 stated so well, the attacks on these people were personal; they were placated and condoned; and they were indeed strategic--so much the latter that a deep and wide-reaching material conspiracy was necessary to achieve the ends that everyone participating in it desired. And many of the actions that culminated in these criminal charges were in themselves criminal. You cannot game the combined agencies of the DOH, FDLE, and the State's Attorney’s office without a continual and sustained practice of cherry-picked documents, bad faith, and false statements and testimony--and, especially taken in the aggregate, those are crimes. Big ones.
2.
ReplyDeleteThank God that a small but determined number of good people have been willing to leave everything on the field to impact this situation--because nothing short of that could have stopped this juggernaut of malign intent and convinced the State's Attorney's Office to have an open ear to what the criminal defense attorneys were saying and take a fresh look. I mean, it was so implausible that something like this could have been happening, right? It was so bad it just sounds absurd on the face of it. And yet it actually happened. It's not often that prosecutors get so far down the line and pull up in that fashion, so their office is to be commended for apparently recognizing that the fix was indeed in, and acting ethically to stop the madness.
Concerning "don't pass that card JB," I can go down honestly on record as saying I have never heard any comments or seen evidence that anything of that nature happened with intent concerning the four people arrested (not so with the people Underhill put under his protection who were knowingly operating on bad certs). I simply and honestly have no knowledge of that person's circumstances, but hope from the bottom of my heart that he receives justice in his case, whatever true justice might be, and that he receives the same open minds and ears. As I have learned from multiple people who have been the supervisors of certifications, not just on a local but a regional area, these sorts of issues NEVER rise to the level of criminality. It blows the minds of anyone familiar with the cycles of certs getting lax--which is not uncommon--that it ever led to these charges. I put that on the bad actors at the County, and not on the agencies charged with sorting out the mess they intentionally made. At the very least, maybe this imbroglio has shined a light on how such things could occur, and help make certain it never, ever happens to anyone again in Escambia County.
Commissioner Bergosh, the debt of gratitude this community owes you for shouldering a great deal of the burden on this--whether some will ever recognize or admit it--is enormous. It scares me to death to think what might have happened if there wasn't a single elected official willing to look this thing in the eye and get it squared. Thank you.
Now if you would just stop drawing cartoons back at Marlette... :)
Anon 11:07, thanks for posting and providing a very clear example of the type of malice, biased slant, and disinformation about how the system works that helped make this work.
ReplyDeleteYou're more adept than some of the others, as well. I wonder if you were one of the principle architects? You seem pretty well-oiled in the art of propaganda.
To dispel any clouds: the racketeering charge was dropped altogether. Is that innocent enough for you on that particular charge--which was the worst of them, and which necessitated the most formidable efforts in the conspiracy to railroad these people?
WEAR reported on this in an insufficient and inaccurate manner tonight on their website. This is separate from their TV coverage; this post just concerns their careless "print" coverage on their website, apart from what got aired tonight:
ReplyDeletehttps://weartv.com/news/local/charges-reduced-for-3-former-escambia-county-paramedics-for-falsifying-records
Clarifications to this sloppy handling inline.
-------
**ESCAMBIA COUNTY, Fla. -- As of Friday, charges against three former Escambia County Paramedics have been reduced.
-"As of Friday." No, as of Thursday, when Kate Kenney and Leon Salter appeared before the a judge on the agreement set with the SAO. WEAR failed to report on Steve White's case when it was settled back in June.
-"Have been reduced." No clear statement on which charges were dropped in any of the cases, even though Jim Little had already been clear that all of the felonies had been dropped against Steve White in June.
----
**James Bonoyer, Katherine Kenney, Lawrence Salter Junior and Stephen White were arrested on a series of charges surrounding falsified training records last March.
Stephen White plead no contest to two charges.
-"two charges." No mention that the charges were misdemeanors.
----
**More than a dozen others, including the most serious, racketeering, were dropped in June.
-WEAR here conflates all of the cases and is not specific about which charges dropped and when. They should have been specific about the huge amount of felonies dropped on Steve White. They also should have been clear that the racketeering charges against Kate Kenney and Leon Salter happened yesterday, and been very clear about which charges were handled how. This sloppiness is unconscionable by any responsible news organization.
----
**White was sentenced to 12 months supervised probation and community service.
--Which WEAR never reported on.
------
**Katherine Kenney and Leon Salter have both been referred to the pre-trial intervention program.
The state attorney told that Kenny and Salter had limited involvement with the falsification of records.
Salter and Kenney are expected to resolve their cases in court within the next week.
--Typo on "Kenney" (really, you can't even get their last names spelled correctly WEAR?)
-Total slop of "told that" aside, which should throw everything into question about WEAR's understanding of this scenario, there is no public record to indicate that Kate Kenney and Leon Salter had ANYTHING to do with falsified records, and WEAR's slanted reporting leads people to believe they might have had "limited" involvement.
-Unless the State's Attorney's Office and the court system in general is completely faithless, which I don't believe to be true, the idea that Kenney and Salter's cases will be "resolved" in the next week is a total misrepresentation by WEAR. Anyone who knows how to read a docket would understand that Salter and Kenney must have written agreements.
----------------
Poorly done, WEAR. Please get this straight and correct it, unless you don't care that people who know better recognize how badly you fumbled this and how little you understand about the process and the facts.
The entire story was sloppy. It made it sound like Steve White had plead no contest and was convicted, when it was a settlement for adjudication withheld and not a conviction. He was not sentenced to probation because there was no court ruling. Kate and Leon are having their charges dropped. Sloppy work! It also makes you wonder why nobody questions this case. The FDLE brought up trumped up charges that the SAO couldn’t even possibly justify from corrupted evidence. That’s the story. A massive conspiracy starting with the improper hiring of a medical director or a more qualified military veteran by a county administrator who had become a compete autocrat and then when White tried to expose it he looked the other way while the medical director made it a personal mission to do whatever possible to destroy a group of people who dared challenge her. Subsequent administrators looked the other way until the permanent county administrator decided to jump in feet first and provide complete cover and in the process started her own unethical behavior chain of events. There are your stories WEAR.
DeleteThe headline could have read:
ReplyDelete"Years after the Destructive Hurricane Rayme Wreaked Havoc on Escambia County, the Recovery Continues"
Maybe if Andy understood Escambia Politics at all, he could draw a cartoon....
Another headline could be
ReplyDelete"Clean up on aisle six"
I am trying to understand how WEAR could be getting important stories so wrong these days.
ReplyDeleteFirst it was showcasing Alex Arduini--a known and avowed QAnon and white supremacist three percenter, who has spread divisive hate speech all over social media not just locally but nationally--as the voice of reason at the school board meeting. Doing his "I'm a miracle cross between a lamb and a dove" act, while charging the people there to advocate for masks as "the most political people in town." Guess he forgot about releasing Steven Barry's social security number publicly, taking pictures of private text messages in BOCC chambers and posting them on Studio 850 and other public sites, and going downtown with a bullhorn during covid to threaten businesses asking people to mask with lawsuits.
Seeing WEAR's horrible reporting on the EMS on its heels, it has me really down about the coverage at their station. :(
7:51, while in my opinion Steve White, Kate Kenney, and Leon Salter should have just had all of these charges dropped long ago, as far as I understand the docket Kate and Leon had their racketeering charge dropped. The rest they didn't have to enter a plea on, and the whole thing can later be expunged.
Anon 7:56, these people have been considered guilty since the moment they were arrested. The previous administrator crowed about that to PNJ when she announced she had summarily terminated one of them with zero due process. Edler, Doug Underhill, Jacqueline Rogers, and a whole host of flying monkeys over on ECW were happy to pretend that charges in their criminal proceedings and probable cause hearings in their administrative hearings are tantamount to guilt. Jacqueline smeared these non-political people worse than I have ever seen her smear somebody in the political realm.
Jacqueline's harassment and malicious libel of them has been vicious, relentless, and fraudulent. And anybody paying close attention will have noted that, while Doug stoked the flames plenty, he did so in his typical fashion, spewing biased generalities and horrible but safe lies while standing back at a safe distance, while he whipped Jacqueline down into the mud to gnaw on them trying to draw blood.
She did the same to me, of course. But while her constant criminal libel of me during the Edler suit was reprehensible, politically it wasn't even a case of biting off more than she could chew. What she didn't get through that entire process was that she wasn't even puncturing the surface.
It's different with what she did to the EMS she brutalized day in and day out, whom she well knew to be under a gag order imposed by the SAO. These first responders were not in the political arena, nor did they ever want or ask to be. She did it to them anyway, gladly, at Edler and Underhill's bidding.
Getting back to WEAR's reporting the other night, the worst part is that the docs are right there on the clerk's website. Not only was the bond dropped the day of the hearing, it was nolle prosequi. Which was the prosecutor's official statement he had no plans in pursuing prosecution. Their deal was also up in writing on the clerk's docket.
I'm hopeful we will get some better coverage yet from Jim Little. Whatever else people may dislike about his reporting, his coverage of this debacle on the back end has been objective, thorough, and spot-on.
Don't forget Underhill is completely part of the organized conspiracy. Why?
ReplyDeleteMelissa
ReplyDeleteI tried to post a comment about the school board and Arduini on a Rick's blog comment but he wouldn't post it for some reason. Maybe because he is for Rebekah Jones and didn't like what I had to say about her also. That was a showdown and I didn't see the WEAR story on the school board but watched the two meetings.
Perhaps responsible reporting all around would be helpful. I've made quite a few observations about that. One thing to watch is the quick links on the school board site. I tried to post that on William Reynold's story and he wouldn't post it either.
I don't like that Jones posted on her page that the "Old Man" at the school board meeting wouldn't let her read the names of the people who had passed, while she actually had three minutes and her time was up. She also said they would go after any licenses that they may have. We don't like her immaturity and disrespect. That could all be under a different topic. The anti mask people were out of order rude and basically wrong also also. Arduini was the pot calling the kettle black.
Back to this topic.
Yes Jacqueline Rogers was used gladly by these people and that tells one a lot about her also.
They used that forum to libel you when you first came on line.
Just remember the common thread in all this is Underhill.
I will not be surprised if these paramedics also sue the county, but they may just be ready to move on.
During the interview Steve White warned them that Edler was trouble.
But Weaver and Brown et al hired her anyway. Why have a team if he wouldn't heed advice.
Did Jack Brown also leave because of this?
Really should he have fired the other medical director just because an inmate died?
Even further back..should the BOCC have taken the jail..and merged two positions for medical director together?
The reporters come and go. I don't think they even put this blurb on the WEAR facebook about the paramedics.
It's probably hard for them to understand the David and Goliath theme..Plus doesn't law enforcement SAO office hold some sway over them?
Either way this is unwinding but as you can see some have been paying attention.
Nolle prosequi
ReplyDeletelook it up
PNJ is reporting also did't use that term. Hey Andy, can you figure out Escambia Politics yes are or you still waiting for Underhill and Rogers to feed you a line of hooey?
It was shared to ECW by Granny
idiots commenting on facebook
SOSDD
Begs the question, Why did they arrest them to begin with if the prosecution doesn't have the evidence?
False arrest?
Bat the eyelashes and tug on sugerdaddy's sleeves?
Doesn't pass the smell test. At least they didn't drink antifreeze and end up under a house but this is still not a good look for Escambia Politics.
Perhaps it is a new day.
I'm not going to take my chances...
1.
ReplyDelete"Don't forget Underhill is completely part of the organized conspiracy. Why?"
Anon 11:27, in many ways the answer to "why" could be put simply that Doug is a sadist who doesn't think he has had a good day unless he has destroyed something.
Whether it's someone's reputation; a business he wants to crush; a park he wants to gift to one of the developers funding him; public access to a shoreline (with destruction of that shoreline being an added bonus); an infrastructure plan he didn't dream up; an individual's ego, or better yet their vision and hope; or his own damn yard and the environment around his plat: Doug lives to destroy.
It's not his fault; he can't help it. Just all part of his sickness, which isn't limited to the destructive facets of his mental problems.
But even somebody whose megalomania results in such delusions about how big an extent he can destroy, Doug still had to pick and choose what he was going to try to blow up on his daily, weekly, monthly, yearly, 2 year, 5 year, and 10 year plan.
So I'll try to shed some light on, Why EMS?
Underhill was the original agent of blowing up Public Safety at the County, and came out of the gate of his commissionership with that goal as one of his "BIG ROCK" plans. The first visible sign of it was his disingenuous bid to get the Perdido helipad shut down for a variety of reasons (my favorite was that the copters were going to blow the roofs off the adjacent houses). When the Public Safety director at the time pushed back on him, that was one of the first lessons people at the County got that anything but absolute and immediate--absolute and immediate-- groveling at Doug's feet was the only response that would spare his wrath.
Whatever individuals' opinions on the Public Safety Director's performance, whatever their personal relationships, he was stuck under an Administrator who couldn't have cared less about anything more than his High Five. This administrator was not just a master appeaser looking out for his own ass, he was also very adept in working bureaucracies to his benefit (as was clear when he was allowed to submit an application to the County after the RFP had already closed on the position, at another commissioner's insistence). This Admin spent his time silo'ing, cock blocking, top downing, and isolating the commissioners from information while his salary grew astronomically in a very short time. He was such a nice guy, right? Really cared about everybody. Protected staff (ha). Just a gentleman and a balm, and boy wasn't the County lucky to have him. But isn't it funny that after he retired from the County for stated reasons, he is now working with Downtown and sitting various backdoor, non-transparent boards for some very powerful pockets of interest there. Interests that have been on an all-out campaign to destroy the County to the City's benefit, which has been a plan of YEARS in the making.
Since about the time the last initiative failed to get a consolidated, regional-style government for Pensacola, on the model of Jacksonville. Consolidate the government, put Downtown players in charge, and have more ready access to State funding that doesn't have to get funneled through the County commission. That has been the plan of some very savvy and worldly brokers for a long time now. And, sadly, the BOCC was apparently either clueless to what Doug's designs were, or underestimated what he could actually get done with an Administrator as his water carrier against the rest of the Board.
2.
ReplyDeleteSo, let's flash back to Doug getting elected. Most people who pay attention to politics think that Doug was David Morgan's pick, and it was the Sheriff who visited this bane on the populace because of his long-standing grief with Gene Valentino. While that may have been what fueled Morgan, he has also always been a tool of higher powers. Morgan was just the pearly toothed and revolvered front face of the real power players in the background who put Doug in power--the same people who encouraged and allowed a grossly incompetent cartoon to have three tenures in office, because who cares if we don't have a sheriff who understands anything about being a cop, can't investigate, and puts the likes of Eric Haines in charge. The only thing the power brokers care about is total control.
So no, it was not David Morgan who put Doug in power. He just trotted in front as the pet dog of the real people in power, who really had command. The same people who helped bolster him in office while he turned ECSO into an absolute joke. (Thank goodness for Chip Simmons.)
And what would be the weak link Doug would start on? Public Safety. For two reasons:
(1) there were big time problems, for sure. Because a once first-rate EMS had been eroded by the same Downtown interests adept politicking, which included some very shady business on a survey that blew up the current power structure and allowed the same GOG who did such a worthless job of contracting for the County two years ago to clean up the mess. She had no idea what she was doing, and was a purely political animal who started the systematic unravelling (not intentionally; just through being completely inept and self-serving) of our EMS.
and
(2) because if Doug could achieve blowing up Pubic Safety, that would only help Downtown's argument for a combined charter, which they could start with arguing for consolidated services. As the next administrator shilled for in her CivicCon appearance next to the Mayor of Pensacola, where she made clear her intent to undermine her board for anyone really watching, and where Downtown's intent with her tenure was made apparent.
3. Fire.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing that pains in more in what Doug Underhill (and his Mini-Me Jonathan Owens) planned in all of this than with their securing of Fire's allegiance before Doug even got elected.
I have never been an enemy of Fire, or any entity of Public Safety. In fact, Nick Gradia and I had a very public blowup in the lobby of a BOCC meeting where I literally begged him to realize the job that District 2 office was working on Fire, and that Doug was aware of the national divide growing between professional and volunteer, and that it was him who gave Fire the playbook to start a war against Commissioner Bergosh. ALL of this, again, was years in the making.
We have all seen the results when the previous two administrators were finally gone from their seat on the dais (although both of them afterwards actively working against the County), and there is widespread understanding of what Doug was up to. The raises that happened for Fire weren't enough (and I also screwed up in my early jubilation over the EMS raises, as I didn't realize the huge compression built in, which is a fricking disaster--and just wait until SRLG raises their pay 5 bucks an hour to 23).
But that agreement was at least a good start towards mutual understanding. Nick at the podium after it happened was just such a moving moment towards everything--professionalism, understand, mutual respect, healing. That doesn't mean it's perfect. But with Doug removed from the discussions, and without an administrator who is lockstep with appeasing him for his and her own longevity and self interest, things can hopefully move forward.
4. EMS
ReplyDeleteEMS was the final phase of Doug's goal of blowing up Public safety for the reasons above, and who knows how many more festering in the crevices of his fevered mind.
The administrator at the time that Henning lost the confidence of Administration and the Board was apparently under massive pressure from a couple of commissioners to bring Edler on Board, since he went so far as to violate USERRA law to do it, on audio, tanking the application of an officer reservist with far more experience than Edler, who had zero administrative experience (which Commissioner Bergosh talked about in his interview with Rick Outzen this morning). Jacqueline Rogers had co-opted the horrible tragedy of the young men who got hit during the bachelor party and whose first responders made very poor work of the call. The nurse mother of one of the young men felt that the County's response was inadequate, so Jacqueline pressed for a meeting, where Rayme Edler accompanied her friend with her hair on fire. Wink wink, nudge nudge, why don't you apply for that open medical directorship. It is rumored that the administrator justified that decision at the time--as many people knew of Edler being a nightmare to work with--with something about how "when a person is attacking from the outside, the best way to neutralize them is to bring them inside." (Said no battlefield leader ever, and spoken like a life-long negotiator, if it's true.)
I suspect Doug and Jonathan made the Rusty Nail connection on the jet ski circuit, as at least one of the Orlando Fire paramedics who was part of his posse there was a medic for the jet ski circuit. He and Edler started at the County at the same time, and however they met, public record emails between Doug and Nail clearly show they had an established relationship since before he got to Escambia. Nail's emails also show he arrived with a plan of getting a bunch of his Orlando friends over to Escambia. Wouldn't it be nice if they could settle here and cut 8 hours off their side gig? But how do we create that many open slots?
That is why Doug and Edler were so tenacious about getting some of the people from that company over here with that illegal sole source procurement (and that doesn't mean the entire company was bad--I doubt some of the respectable people involved had any idea of the nightmare they were contributing to). Around that time Edler's hour long sessions behind closed doors with her cronies (Ritter, Hopkins, Ammons et al) started in. While the County illegally let the harassment complaints rot, grossly violating the due process of the people who submitted them (two of whom were forced into resignation not long after the new administrator hit the ground running to screw things up even further, and three of whom were later arrested).
5. Where it's at.
ReplyDeleteRIGHT NOW, the people Downtown who are behind a consolidated power grab, and who, having failed to get the consolidated services they wanted as precursor to a combined charter, are working behind the scenes to continue to blow up the County. Right now, Edler is STILL working her worst through her position as an ER doc, harassing County medics who are unfortunate enough to have to deal with her when they transport to her hospital ER. And right now, there are still fools who have no idea of the big picture willing to through down nonsense and lies about it on ECW, with the people who know better scared to death to contribute, because they don't want to put themselves in Edler's sites and they saw how far Edler, Doug, and Jacqueline were willing to go in her suit against me.
This is not Eric Gilmore's fault. However, he does need to be honest with the commission about the continuing challenge, because they can't helop him fix it if they don't know the gravity of the continuing problems. And if Santa Rosa Life Guard raises its medic pay again, that could be the death blow in Doug's long-treasured plan of decimating the County's public safety for his own sick pleasure and to deliver for his handlers Downtown, who protect him because he has no shame and is a willing tool for any depth of political and moral depravity.
I know that is a really long explanation, but this thing has been going on for his entire tenure and has many moving parts. And the individuals who were arrested and the individuals who had complaints filed on them with DOH were tragic instances of wrong time, wrong place. The question that remains is how far Downtown will go to capitalize on what these bad actors have wrought for them, and whether Eric Gilmore and the BOCC can look the challenge in the eye and face it down. And that's not something any level of advocacy can have an impact on. Some issues are way above the pay grade of citizen involvement to impact.
Offering some last thoughts while wrapping up my public safety and covid advocacy. Anon 1:05, I agree the School Board thing turned into a wreck despite the best and most heartfelt intentions of the people who weren't there to politic (and got charged with politicking, natch).
ReplyDeleteIn Rebakah Jones's defense, she made some of the same mistakes I made when I first moved down here and failed to understand the culture before I started engaging. And I also agree her conduct at the meeting wasn't at all helpful...it made me wonder if she really understands the parameters of Board meetings and that there really is a limit to how far you can and should push the envelope. I think a big part of her heart is in the right place, but she's on a huge learning curve and veers off the trajectory in unhelpful ways. Time will tell, I guess.
Dianne Krumel, the physicians, and most of all the high school students really didn't deserve to be done that way in the press, and were not working in tandem with Ms. Jones, despite the best efforts of the press to make it look that way. And of course you hit the nail on the head that this town need more ethical and capable media people. Gannett and Sinclair have chased away as many of the independents as they could, With Gannett attempting to gut Rick Outzen in the process (nice try), and the owners and management of Cat Country for whatever reason allowing Andrew McKay to run amok with disinformation for Doug's program. He's the most frustrating to me, because he really does have intelligence and talent, but his fanboy inclinations so often get the better of him. And while I think really highly of William Reynolds, I am deeply disappointed that he hasn't yet reported on these EMS cases resolving. It would be one thing if he hadn't reported on the front and middle, but he did. Perhaps he is waiting for the pre trial diversion to get set this week on the docket. He has a very faithful readership, so when he gives something a miss, it really impacts the collective understanding of our citizenry.
Sorry to be so long-winded. I've been taking stock and letting go, and just felt like all of that needed to be put out there, for the handful of people who will bother to read all of it. :)
Enjoyed reading that Melissa. Thank you.
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