I received the above email late yesterday afternoon. I spoke to the county attorney about this and asked "Can an employee just hire a lawyer on their own and say 'you can't talk to me' anymore"...To which I was told "yes"...but to which I was also told this is very, very unusual.....
And then to not show up at the meeting where the vote was to take place on training requested by EMS....? What is up?
I've got a feeling we will get to the bottom of it real quick next week.
20 comments:
Comm. May said it well.. You don't you run across the street and ask someone else's momma to take over when you can't take care of your own kids.. Turd reference acceptable. We have an old time saying (idiom) Don't start what ya can't finish.
con·fi·den·tial
[ˌkänfəˈden(t)SHəl]
ADJECTIVE
intended to be kept secret.
entrusted with private or restricted information
Did you leak the DOH complaint also?
Anonymous 11:18- This document that I have published above is a public record, not a confidential record. With respect to the DOH complaint, I knew that was a legitimate confidential document not subject to release and that is why I didn't release it. Someone else, with an agenda, did that. Join the dots and it isn't hard to see who it was that did it.
Will this be the same law firm that has multiple plaintiffs due to this medical directors comments about people dying due to our untrained EMS staff? .....If you almost died and EMS transported you then let's sue.
Now, I will admit that I'm not an expert on administrative functionality, but it seems to me that refusing communication from one's employers might be an obstacle to the proper execution of one's job, not to mention to the operation of the entire place of employment.
BOCC hasn't gotten to the bottom of anything "real quick"!
Anonymous 11:21--That's what I said, but I'm told it only applies to County Legal staff; the medical director will still be supervised and controlled by her supervisor and the county administrator. But now that she has a lawyer, she can't be contacted and questioned by our in house staff. And Anonymous 11:39--you have a point but that is not for a lack of trying!
Dr. Elder has shown herself to be an inept leader and administrator in numerous capacities.
The EMS department is at increasing war with each other due to her divide and conquer tactics. She defended an illegal, single source procurement attempt even having been made aware of the seriousness, and then lied repeatedly about the expertise and credentials of the company Nail was trying to gift our tax dollars to. By her own admission she wildly exaggerated the certification issue to DOH. She tried to coerce the commission into voting for "emergent funding" for Nail's Orlando colleagues by asking the commissioner to sign "Against Medical Advice" forms, and then admitted that it wasn't emergency training but enhanced training--ridiculing the BOCC for focusing on the certification issue, when she herself is the one who raised that issue to begin with. She has filed not just the general complaint with DOH, but has targeted individual staff members with complaints, as well. She knowingly lied about the HIPPA paperwork situation. Her response to my public records request for her emails was an email to Alison Rogers and Doug Underhill that I was libelling and harrassing her. She is denying training for people who are asking for it. She hasn't gotten protocols written yet (thank God). She has been hailed as the "Queen" of EMS by staff members who proudly boast of being part of her "army." And on top of everything else, she skipped the last two meetings where her hot mess scope of work, which was little more than the language from the original unsolicited bid, was being discussed.
She needs to be terminated yesterday. Short of that, the County needs to place her on unpaid administrative leave, stop the EMS bleeding, and put somebody in charge who can start to heal the divide in that department.
Melissa Pino
Listen up. She is trying to tell you commissioners that there is a problem or problems that are worth taking a look at. It appears to a lot of the employees and general public that she has uncovered a mess. Someone should have listened or be willing to listen. She only cares about the well-being of the public. Sounds to me like the 'sign these documents and be quiet' medical director went out with the last one.
Bottom line, safety of the public.
I pray she can make it through the storm to rid this community of the good-ole boys. (They know who they are).
And, when is the Florida Department of Health coming to start their investigation? Maybe that will settle things.
........It just seems odd to me that she lobbied the board so hard and so passionately about the desperate NEED of this additional training...then when the board had it teed up she didn't show up to advocate for it. I know that our EMS personnel are certified and competent--I have confidence in them. But the medical director requested this additional training and I told her to bring it. Staff broke their collective backs to bring the recommendation in an expedited manner-----and the medical director pulls a no show. No wonder my motion to move forward with the training--as I said I would do if necessary--didn't get a second.
Commissioner Bergosh:
1)Why is it sinister that she hired an attorney with her own funds?? Please be specific.
The County approved paying $500 an hour from public funds for an attorney to represent the employees accused of falsifying public records!!! A felony?
2)Either the accused employees falsified public records or not. A simple issue. Why hasn't the County already either cleared them or fired them????
3) Isn't it really correct that your attorney can't ethically talk to her without going through her attorney...this legal ethics prohibition doesn't apply to administrative staff...why do you say otherwise?
3) Is their an internal investigator report on the matter??
4) why does it seem that you want to be a co-conspirator with slandering the whistle blower???? Have you asked your attorney if this is a wise thing for you to do?
Did you ask the Medical Director why she wasn't there?? Was she asked to be there???
As I understand, a document is not "confidential" unless there is a specific clear law making it so..
Since you said it is, you must know the law applicable...
What law makes the DOH letter confidential???
I appreciate the board wanting to give Dr. Edler the benefit of the doubt, but it no longer can afford to do so. She has simply said too many things that have turned out not to be true.
*She insinuated to the board that there was reason to doubt the credentials of the entire EMS staff, which she then had to backtrack on.
* she told the board that a HIPAA violation had been swept under the rig- only to find out that it had been documented and put through the proper channels.
* she told the board that Rescue Company 1 could provide training that no other company in the country could provide- a claim that was ridiculous on its face at the time, and looks even more ridiculous now that it's been made public that they can't even provide some of the standard certifications.
She has made all kinds of defamatory charges against county employees, not just the EMTs who are under investigation, but never seems to substantiate any of them. She has publicly stated that you, the board, could be held legally liable for people suffering and dying. She has made all manner of wild allegations and when the board tries to ask her follow-up questions or wants to actually address her issue- she disappears, refers you to the state DoH, and lawyers up.
On top of all that, she was hired on the understanding that she was going to write a new set of EMT and Paramedic field protocols. This was the primary condition for her employment, and a year later, the protocols are nowhere to be found.
The Board relies on officers like the Medical Director for solid information in order to make some pretty serious decisions. Instead, she has given you hyperbolic half-truths by way of attempting to manipulate you into letting her have her way. I understand that, for some reason, she has support among some prominent social media posters, but this has gone on for long enough Commissioner. The legal bills are just getting started. It's time to cut your losses and at least put a limit on your legal exposure.
Annon.
You well know she prepared the protocols.. why do you lie??,
The prominent social media poster supporting D2 and now Edler seems to be on the wrong side of most everything.
Anonymous 8:08,
Are you reffering to the protocols she copied from another local EMS Agency. The ones written by another Dr.? The ones that have taken over a year to copy and paste? I heard they had people taken off ambulances to help her? Help her what??? Download a PDF? Now I have also heard she doesn't send out her own emails? She has a minion do it and his emails include all sorts of top secret eyes only meant only for sender warnings? Anything sent from county email is public btw. She has time to hold house painting parties but not to write protocols? I have heard some very interesting things coming from EMS. Her friends are her only allies. Facebook is ripe with her "army" defending her. Seems to be mostly all nurses and EMS people who don't serve in a medical capacity.
Anonymous 10:39: "There is a specific exemption for complaints filed with administrative agencies in section 119.07(2)(K), Fla. Stat. Additionally, there is a work product type exemption in section 110.071(1)(d)1., Fla. Stat. that applies to the first complaint, but not the second complaint." --from County Legal Staff
Commissioner:
1) Agency complaint exemption? No sir, that's apparently only complaints filed with an agency against an employee of the agency.. Did you read the statute???
A complaint of misconduct filed with an agency against an agency employee and all information obtained pursuant to an investigation by the agency of the complaint of misconduct is confidential and exempt from s. 119.07(1) and s. 24(a), Art. I of the State Constitution until the investigation ceases to be active, or until the agency provides written notice to the employee who is the subject of the complaint, either personally or by mail, that the agency has either
2) Seriously?? You contend that a letter sent by the County to a separate Governmental body is exempted legal work product??? That's a joke right??
That statute is meant obviously for internal documents of an attorney, not letters sent to other governmental agencies...
A public record that was prepared by an agency attorney (including an attorney employed or retained by the agency or employed or retained by another public officer or agency to protect or represent the interests of the agency having custody of the record) or prepared at the attorney’s express direction, that reflects a mental impression, conclusion, litigation strategy, or legal theory of the attorney or the agency, and that was prepared exclusively for civil or criminal litigation or for adversarial administrative proceedings, or that was prepared in anticipation of imminent civil or criminal litigation or imminent adversarial administrative proceedings, is exempt from s. 119.07(1) and s. 24(a), Art. I of the State Constitution until the conclusion of the litigation or adversarial administrative proceedings. For purposes of capital collateral litigation as set forth in s. 27.7001, the Attorney General’s office is entitled to claim this exemption for those public records prepared for direct appeal as well as for all capital collateral litigation after direct appeal until execution of sentence or imposition of a life sentence
Commissioner:
Are you absolutely sure that you spoke directly to an attorney and not someone telling you what they thought the attorney said?
What you assert seems to be completely unfounded in the law. Public records compliance is nothing to flippantly mess around with.
Its hard to believe that an attorney actually said this.
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