Guidelines

I am one member of a five person board. The opinions I express on this forum are mine only, and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Escambia County Staff, Administrators, Employees, or anyone else associated with Escambia County Florida. I am interested in establishing this blog as a means of additional transparency to the public, outreach to the community, and information dissemination to all who choose to look. Feedback is welcome, but because public participation is equally encouraged, appropriate language and decorum is mandatory. Although this is not my campaign site for re-election--sometimes campaign related information will be discussed, therefore in an abundance of caution I add the following :








Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Inside the Sausage Grinder: Part IV

 

Documents linked within this blog post pertaining to a recent legal settlement with a former employee illustrate how contentious some personnel issues can become when board policy is not followed with fidelity--and the expensive outcomes.

"Alison,

I received three transcripts related to our settlement with Matt Selover late this afternoon from Kimberly Chappel.

If these are a public record and do not require redaction, I intend to release them on my blog first thing tomorrow morning.

Please advise if there are any legal or ethical prohibitions on me making these documents public unredacted, in the same form as I have just received them and in the same form the CoC has apparently received them.

Please advise soonest.

Thanks,

 Jeff Bergosh

 Vice-Chairman and District 1 Commissioner,

Escambia Board of County Commissioners"

 

FROM Alison Rogers:

 

"Jeff, pursuant to state statute, I am of the opinion that all of the transcripts are public record and we are obligated to make all of the transcripts available."

 

Some of what we do in government is not pleasant-including contentious shade meetings to deal with pending litigation.  This is why there is a term related to the work of governing--"making sausage."  Making sausage is not pretty, it is downright nasty;  stuff goes in, and sausage comes out.  Most like sausage but not the process.

 As it pertains to this issue and the transcript I am going to link below from October 1st of last year--Once the litigation with a government entity is completed, the transcripts of the shade meetings associated with the litigation become a public record.  We recently settled this particular lawsuit, and a number of individuals and media outlets have requested these transcripts already.  So they will be coming out and therefore I am posting them here also.  They are an interesting read and view into what are typically confidential discussions.

Read BCC Shade Session 10-1-2020

2 comments:

Eric said...

Interesting to see Janice Gilley blame me for a sham investigation that was completed 5-weeks after I had separated employment from the BoCC. For the record, I directed Ed Spainhower to initiate an investigation in Matt Selover's accusations per BoCC policy. That was the extent of my involvement in this matter.

Additionally, when I separated from the BoCC, all employee relations investigations without exception were reviewed with the County Attorney's office priority to findings and outcomes being determined.

Melissa Pino said...

If this is really Mr. Kleinart (you might have the same glitchy stuff I do when trying to enter your name), then I feel your pain Ms. Gilley's unfortunate tendency to throw people under the bus, in ways that should have been overtly obvious, if only people actually paid attention to facts and timelines (which she recognized full well doesn't happen).

Your wording is unfortunate, however, because it makes it sound as if Mr. Spainhower's investigation was sham, when it wasn't. He came to the proper conclusions. So perhaps you were referring to Janice Gilley and Jana Still's clumsy attempts to render it "sham."

If this really is Eric Kleinart, previous HR Director of Escambia County, however, I don't understand why you didn't speak up before this to weigh in on the side of truth? Because you were, by your own statement here, aware that Mr. Spainhower's opinion would have been vetted through the County Attorney's office and gotten the seal of approval. Why didn't you say anything, in the interest of ethics and truth?

You were one of over a dozen former or then-present higher-ups at the County who could have brought the nonsense to a screeching halt with an affidavit. Why didn't you? One in an unfortunately large category of too many people in positions of authority not willing to put their own neck on the line to do the right thing, is my guess.