Here is what I would have done:
1) Not suspended John at all. Why? Because suspending him with pay
sends mixed messages.
If he is presumed innocent then why suspend, if he is presumed guilty
then why with pay?
2) Keeping John working says.."we are not going to make a big deal
out of this unless there is a big deal".
What is the big deal? :
A) A formal complaint
B) Some sort of formal reprimand from the State of PA
C) Money changed hands as a payment to John or UCD from Knox or
Blackwell with proof
D) Someone was injured and a legal case was opened.
3) If none of the above happened then here is the press release I
would have issued and posted to
the UCD web-site:
"On behalf of UCD and its Board, we are now aware of news reports
containing a statement from a community
service volunteer who felt his community service hours were somehow
mismanaged by UCD after being
assigned to what he termed "a political rally". To date, UCD has been
assured by our Councilwoman
Jannie Blackwell, the community related event, while serving to provide
community exposure to a potential
Mayoral candidate, was simply a "community event" and not specifically a
political rally.
On behalf of UCD and it's Board I personally contacted the person who
complained in the interview and offered
our sincere apology for any discomfort he may have experienced being in
the same public park as Tom Knox.
On behalf of it's Board, UCD will conduct an investigation based on any
formal complaints received. For now,
we feel it is totally appropriate to support our Supervisor Mr. John
Fenton who was mentioned in reports as the
supervisor on duty.
Please forward any inquiries to our 73K a year PR department
professional, attn: Whoever
Lewis Wendell. Executive Director UCD
(with minor edits of course)
4) If there are any formal complaints, UCD should make them known
in a statement or let us know on advise
of legal based on a complaint or legal filing, they can not issue a
statement but will keep the "public" and UCD
supporters up-dated.
5) If for whatever reason some evidence surfaced connecting John
to some illegal or unethical behavior, then, I would suspend
pending the outcome of any full investigation or legal proceedings.
The way the whole thing is being handled is an insult to an employee of
an obviously ungrateful organization.
Clearly a mockery of public trust and interest.
S
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2007 11:30 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [UC] Tom Fenton on ABC News
I read your questions regarding the logic behind the UCD's responses to
the Fenton debacle. I see the whole event differently and I'll need a
bit of a far reaching analogy to get my point across:
Imagine the mountains of Afghanistan and a group of our Special Forces
is trying to get certain things accomplished (find Bin Laden or
something like that). They have a Commander that has gotten accustomed
to operating in that world. He has learned to make friends with the
Warlords and thieves and smugglers and hookers of the area. He gets his
best information by befriending and often paying these various seedy
characters. Sometimes he even smuggles them guns and/or drugs to get
the information. He is the most effective operator that we have there.
One day some rouge reporter discovers some paper trail of payments from
this US commander to a Warlord who also happens to have ties to Bin
Laden. It gets out into the mainstream press and the US government ends
up court-martialing the Commander and publicly humiliating him as they
insist that they will have nothing to do with this kind of dealing.
This is how I see John Fenton.... in a much less dramatic situation.
He has always been able to get things done. He always seems to have
those direct contacts to people who seem to owe him reciprocal favors.
I figure that he was just doing what he does: washing Janies hands
without knowing what the ultimate return would be.
If this is the correct depiction of the events then it's always a shame
when the "Dirty Harry" character has to be sacrificed in order to
protect the image of the establishment.
If this is not what happened then I hope all the readers enjoyed my
little fictional story.
_____
See what's free at AOL.com
<http://www.aol.com?ncid=AOLAOF00020000000503> .
