| UPDATE: ORIGINAL SOURCE POSTED: (WARNING-4MB) Here's the PDF of the Shiawassee County documents, discussed below, which I had to edit and upload over at Zarko Research.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ I always hesitate when I see an envelope with no return in my physical mail. I know no one's suing me when there's no address but it harkens to my days at MCRI when occasionally we'd receive a piece of stupid mail. On the other hand, sometimes it means I have a tidbit from an anonymous source. Today I had two. They contained the same document, although one had a cover letter and contained a good reproduction, and the other no letter and a poor photocopy that compressed the size of the original. I don't know whether that means I had two separate sources, or just one agressive one, but it means there was anonymous source in today's mail. What was the document? A May 4, 2007 letter from outside counsel John McGlinchey to Shiawassee County Administrator Margaret McAvoy about an incident of physical harassment between the elected County Sheriff Jon Wilson and one Lieutenant Michael Ash. Newspaper accounts in Shiawassee County have the Sheriff retaliating against the paper for publishing parts of the story. The Sheriff was upset at the blog origins of the story without regard to whether the accusation of whether he was running the office poorly was true. The incident involves a personnel dispute where the Sheriff fired Ash for allegedly "insubordinate" type of behavior after allegedly grabbing Ash's arm and pulling him into an office. Neither party is talking about the incident now, but others believe it represents a deeper morale problem in the office. You'll recall OutsideLansing.com reported on this briefly when another blogger Christine Barry (www.ChristineBarry.com) retained my investigative writing services and had us do an effective "ghost" FOIA. To further that point, since Zarko Research was retained on that matter, this story is being written with an obvious bias, which, as is our policy, we fully disclose right here in an up front way (we've never been against bias in writing, as long as it is open and known to the reader). While that is true, the reader can analyze the original documents and subject our conclusions to scrutiny in this case. And it should be noted - the client this time is unusual, a person with a reputation as "liberal" (in the modern sense, I hate that label since it fails to capture American history or values well) is our client and the subject of the FOIA an elected Republican sheriff (Republicans should embrace transparency and accountability though, and I do not find transparency to be a partisan issue at all, so while I will not work for "liberal" CAUSES, I will take non-partisan causes). The efficient operation of a police department, and whether its police officers are motivated or at odds with each other, is just such a cause. Our first FOIA request turned up a number of interesting documents, which Ms. Barry turned loose to the papers. But she was still unable, through her own FOIA follow-up, to get the "investigation" by an attorney the County Administrator had write a report on the incident. Attorney-Client Privelege was cited as an exemption, although we now believe it to be an improper denial (because most of the letter does not contain legal advice but is rather a summary of facts). This is a common technique of public bodies - to subcontract tasks to outside counsel and claim the product to be exempt - but it does not automatically render it so. Regardless, what does this legal memo show? First, it shows that by his own admission, Lt. Ash was being somewhat disrespectful to the Sheriff after the Sheriff sought to break up a "coffee clatch" type of discussion that was occurring between shift-changes. Lt. Ash was telling a story to several other officers who were just coming on duty, and the Sheriff told them that he wouldn't give them a "half-hour" morning break and an hour-lunch break. After Ash defended the discussion, the Sheriff directed him back to his specific area of work. Ash admitted and others verified that Ash told the Sheriff he (Ash) 'had been at work since 5:00 am when "you were home in bed, sleeping.' " The impartial investigator then concludes that Ash and several witnesses recall the Sheriff insisting that "I want you in my office, now," and that the Sheriff grabbed him by the upper right arm and started pushing Ash towards the office. Ash "pulled away from the Sheriff and told" him not to grab him like that and asked the other officers if they had seen the Sheriff's actions. The Sheriff then immediately told Ash he was terminated, in front of everyone, and told Ash to clean out his office. The Sheriff's version of the story differed from Ash's and the four witnesses only in degree - he admits to "light" contact, and claims that Ash used an obscenity, which no one else verifies. Just as the attorney-investigator (whose work is competent, but contains very little legal advice) concludes, Outsidelansing agrees. The mild point of contention - whether profanity was used and mild insubordination occurred - is not the relevant point. There is no question that Ash was disrespectful to a superior - and no question that the superior should not have used even mild physical force. Here's where the attorney answers the one question that could be called legal advice and might have been priveleged - the attorney notes that the Sheriff did not violate "Shiawassee County's Sexual and Other Unlawful Harassment Policy" because the policy only prohibits harassment "prohibited by law" which only includes harassment based on "protected (by statute) classifications such as sex, race, age, etc.". The attorney concludes, wisely, that no protected classification was involved or motivated the harassment here. But here's the "money shot" as they say: "My investigation of this matter did reveal other facts, however, which should be addressed by the Sheriff, in my opinion. It was apparent to me in speaking with the employees, the Sheriff and the Undersheriff that there is a great deal of tension and mistrust within the Sheriff's Office on the part of both the administration and the command officers. This, in turn, has caused a break down in communication. What has emerged is an "us/them" mentality, rather than a team attitude where the Sheriff and command staff work in close cooperation. The confrontation between Sheriff Wilson and Lt. Ash appears to be a manifestation of the resentment which, once more, exists on both "sides."
The investigator then concludes a paragraph where he makes recommendations for improvement "clarifying his (the Sheriff) expectations" through regular command meetings and reciprocration by the command staff by showing more "willingness to better cooperate" with the Sheriff. The concluding paragraph is sparse on other recommendations, but it makes it clear the problem is more than just "an isolated incident" or one caused by a few "bad apple" officers. That is - there is, or was, a problem in the office generally with morale. Whether that problem is caused by the employees or the Sheriff is a different question. Certainly, the Sheriff was right to request that his officers - public employees - not waste time and perform efficiently. And certainly the Sheriff is entitled to imprint upon the office some of his personality. On the other hand, the confrontational style and the pervasiveness of the "us/them" attitude suggest that there is something in Sheriff's behavior or leadership style that is causing some of the tension. Is it possible all of the tension could be caused by a group of insubordinate employees, all acting in concert in a "critical mass" to disrupt the office? I suppose. But given that a leader can't fire everyone, it is incumbent that the leader adapt somewhat to those that he leads. The best football coaches bring their system to a team, and then adapt the system somewhat to fit the individuals and team chemistry. An elected leader, no matter how much they'd like to, can't and shouldn't attempt to rigidly introduce their system. On the other hand, players must respect the authority of the new leader and also adapt, and some players will need to occasionally be let go. The bottom-line is that the Sheriff's public proclamations that everything is alright and there was never any problem are clearly undercut by this evidence. A humble leader would admit his own room for growth. Hopefully, the Sheriff will take the publicity of the problems in his office as an opportunity for precisely such growth. Note how transparency can have an effect in this case - the Sheriff could use the opportunity of this disclosure to learn and improve. Of course, I recognize that that opportunity may be ignored as well - at least temporarily, until an election intervenes. Tomorrow we'll post the entire document so you can judge for yourself. |
