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Saturday, November 15, 2008

Bingo! JanesvilleGate Is Born

What should have been an open-and-shut case surrounding a charge of nepotism against Janeville’s former City Manager is now growing legs as administration insiders appear to be scrambling to redirect the investigation towards a possible cover-up.
JG Excerpt:
Everything stems from an incident involving then-City Manager Steve Sheiffer and his teen relative. The relative worked at the ice arena and in January made unfounded accusations against her supervisors. Some city employees said the teen's relationship to the city manager made it difficult to handle the matter.
But the real chain of events began when a city employee secretly recorded conversations between herself and her supervisor in order to protect herself from charges being levied against her from the teenage relative of the former city manager.

Things began to grow more suspicious when the Janesville Gazette, in a extremely rare burst of investigative reporting of local authorities, requested public records filed from original statements surrounding the charges of nepotism and city disciplinary action. Somewhere in between all of this, the lead supervisor is overheard on an audio recording that he destroyed records related to the original charge of nepotism stemming from the ice rink matter. Bingo! JanesvilleGate is born.

But now this episode is growing additional pairs of legs as the city has hired two outside attorneys to independently investigate whether city records were illegally released and/or whether city records were illegally destroyed. To make matters worse, the city of Janesville has it’s own on-staff attorney and legal assistant, but their long-time relationship with the former city manager apparently present a strong enough conflict of interest that officials felt it best to go outside the administration.

Additionally troubling is that the city council president position held by Amy Loasching, considered by some to be the city figurehead in Janesville’s form of democracy-lite government, seems to be deliberately kept in the dark over matters concerning the investigations.
JG Excerpt:
"If she (attorney) is really doing an independent investigation, in my opinion, she should be fact-finding," Loasching said. "Based on everyone who has contacted me who she has interviewed, it seems to be more of an accusation-type of investigation."
This lack of communication between the administration and council has been a chronic problem if not emblematic of the manager/council government. Janesville has been for all practicality - a leaderless city.

In the meantime, many new questions seem to go unanswered. Who hired the attorneys? And at this stage in the investigation, if the Council President wonders out loud why they need to hire outside attorneys, who approved of the hiring? Was city council approval required? Under who’s directive are they operating? Which officials do the attorneys answer to?

One could only imagine what would have happened to the city employee if she had not recorded her conversations to defend her position against this growing conspiracy. When employees have to start wearing voice recorders in order to defend themselves while on the job - something is seriously, seriously wrong with not only the system of government, but the people running it.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Levitt, Johnson will participate in a mediation process offered by the city
By John WalshSedona Red Rock News________________
After an internal investigation regarding a complaint filed by Assistant City Manager Carol Johnson, City Manager Eric Levitt has been cleared of all accusations.On July 3, Johnson filed a complaint against Levitt, alleging that he discriminated against her based on her age, created a hostile work environment and retaliated against her because of another employee’s complaint.Lewis and Roca, a Phoenix law firm, was hired by the city to conduct the investigation.“We find all of Ms. Johnson’s claims to be unsupported by any credible evidence,” the firm stated in its re-port.More than 20 city employees were interviewed during the investigation.The City Council held an executive session on Aug. 22 to discuss the matter and voted 7-0 to accept the report from Lewis and Roca, which found that all claims against Levitt were unsupported.Levitt said he was happy with the findings of Lewis and Roca and the decision of the council.“I am pleased to have it over with,” Levitt said. He declined to comment further on the matter.The eight-page report details a “strained” relationship between the two, which caused Levitt to “lose trust in both Ms. Johnson’s judgment and information she provides to him.”Johnson is quoted in the report as saying that since Oct. 2002, her relationship with Levitt had “deteriorated.”Prior to the investigation, it was rumored that Johnson was offered a two-month severance package by Levitt.Although Levitt and City Attorney Mike Goimarac refused to comment on it specifically in a previous interview, the investigation report indicates that Johnson was offered a two-month severance package by Goimarac, at the request of Levitt, before she left for a three-week seminar at Harvard University.Johnson refused the severance package, according to the report.On July 1, Levitt issued a written reprimand to Johnson, which mentioned seven different examples of a tendency on Johnson’s behalf “to provide information in partial form that provides unreliable information and provides questions as to the reliability of other information provided.”Johnson said she believes there were problems with the report.“I don’t think it was complete and accurate,” Johnson said. “Things were left out, and I am not sure why.”Johnson said that on Aug. 19 she was offered mediation in the matter.“I have agreed to go through mediation and see if we can work this out,” she said.

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