Others’ Whistleblowing Experiences (Part 1)

Others’ Whistleblowing Experiences (Part 1)

Popular media accounts of whistleblowers tend to involve public enterprises where federal laws are violated, and the National Whistleblower Appreciation Day praises federal whistleblowers, not small-time players like me.  Stories of big-time whistleblowers can seem striking, but they are also uncommon. 

When disclosing suspected wrongs is seen as a fundamentally banal project, the experiences of whistleblowers become unexceptional and they fall into familiar narratives.  The tales of small-time whistleblowers are difficult to locate, but they can be found.  Over the past week, several stories echoed my experiences in dealing with the wrongs that I alleged HomeFirst committed.

As I found at HomeFirst, wrongs are not isolated incidents but they generally extend over long periods.  Multiple wrongdoings often build on each other until a whistle is blown:

1.       Patrick Leonard was a City administrator who was paid less than he had been promised.  His complaints about that led to more promises that were not kept and more discontent.  Then he began to identify legal violations.  He is not a retiring man, and he was warned not to speak out at a public meeting.  He did anyway and was fired.

2.       Mark Nelson continued his internal complaints about operations for two years before he was finally fired.

3.       Timothy Prescott & Troy Whitney were fired after they testified that a fellow employee had been injured by unsafe equipment 2½ years earlier.

4.       When wrongdoing continues in a variety of forms, it can indicate an amoral culture.  George Moore recommended that a man under investigation for sexual harassment not be promoted as the State Attorney General’s Chief of Staff.  The Attorney General, who is fighting criminal charges on other matters and whose law license was suspended, fired Moore shortly afterward and promoted the accused man as planned.

5.       Kenneth Bouchard, a city planner, investigated possible wrongdoing at the request of a councilmember and found himself the object of ostracism and disciplinary actions because he didn’t behave in the way “we do things around here.”

6.       On the other hand, Richard Patton was abruptly suspended and investigated days after he reported two complaints, five years after he was first hired.

The whistleblowers’ stories usually strike me as compelling and believable, but when you accept that whistleblowers are ordinary individuals who are fallible, you can sometimes have your doubts.

7.       Michael Hollett had been a university police officer for five years when a new chief was hired.  His new boss, who is black, wanted to shake up the underperforming unit – “out with the old and in with the new,” he said.  Hollett, who is white and Mormon, was eventually fired, and he sued, claiming that he was fired for racial, religious, and age reasons.  Another employee, who is black, claimed that she was fired based on age, gender, and disability.  I can imagine arguments on all sides of this situation.

8.       Police Officer Steven Blakeney cooperated with the FBI’s investigation of corruption charges against the city’s mayor.  He suffered retaliations and was eventually fired.  The city claimed that he was fired for criminal violations – two women he’d met in a bar were in his home the next morning and he asked another police officer to transport them away.  Blakeney was convicted on federal charges.

The whistleblower’s effectiveness is determined not by absolute morality but by the legal enforcement authorities.

9.       Sharee Santorineos complained that employees at the hog and pig farm where she worked beat the animals.  Her complaint led to an investigation that found no problem.  The Chicago Tribune reported that the result was typical: a 50% reduction in the number of State Bureau of Animal Health and Welfare inspectors coincided with a drop in identified animal welfare violations from 200 in 2005 to 29 in 2015, only one of which in 2015 resulted in a prosecution.

10.   A village claimed that police officer Wade Proctor did not qualify for protection as a whistleblower under New Mexico’s laws (specific public disclosure & proof of punishment for the disclosure he made).

11.   The U.S. Office of Special Counsel, an independent federal investigative unit, supported Anthony Salazar in his suit saying that evidentiary standards on whistleblowers are too high.

Some whistleblowers escape the usual pattern of staying put until retaliations result in their terminations and lawsuits.

12.   Helen Dragas waited until she was off the Board before she spoke out publicly on the problem.

13.   Martha Fitzwater Pigott apparently avoided a lawsuit and achieved an amicable separation agreement.

Sometimes wrongs occur by accident.  At HomeFirst, the County overbilling and the California licensing requirement incidents happened largely by accident (although perhaps an indifference to whether actions were right came into play).  A reading of the experiences of other whistleblowers (and other incidents at HomeFirst) tell a different story: there is just a lot of wrongdoing that goes on – first, the wrong that is initially alleged and then the retaliations.

Reports of whistleblowing activities 

Whistleblower (Date of recent report)	Alleged Wrongdoing	Retaliation	Employer contentions	Status
Blakeney (8/3/16)	Extortion & other corrupt acts	Picture of rat on office door, computer clearance removed, banned from city property	Criminal violations were the reason for termination	Fled suit; convicted of federal violations
Bouchard (8/6/16)	Improper use of government funds	Ostracism, disciplinary actions, constructive termination	Talked to people he should not have	Filed suit
Dragas (8/7/16)	Concealment of university investment fund		She miscategorized the fund	Left Board and went public
Hollett (8/4/16)	Racial, religious & age discrimination	Denied training & overtime, threatened in front of peers, fired	Performance deficiencies, “get rid of old & bring in new”	Filed suit
Leonard (8/5/16)	Illegal health benefits paid, conflicts of interest, kick-back payments	Denied raises, office moved to remote abandoned trailer (2 mi from main building, w/o bathroom)	Used profanity on job	Filed suit
Moore (8/6/16)	Promotion of person accused of sexual misconduct	Fired	Fired for cause	Filed suit
Nelson (8/4/16)	Order to falsify water test results	Write-ups, suspension, reduced pay, unsafe job assignments, fired	Lack of responsibility, job performance deficiencies	Settled suit for $300,000
Patton (8/5/16)	Illegal contract splitting, improper residency of Board member	Suspension, investigation, diminished duties, failed to renew contract	Misconduct & other performance concerns, disrespectful & threatening tone	Filed suit
Pigott (8/5/16)	Violation of federal contracting rules	Fired		Negotiated six months emergency pay
Prescott & Whitney (8/4/16)	Unsafe work conditions	Fired	Failed to report use of defective equipment	Filed suits
Proctor (8/4/16)	Ordered to change investigation report	Fired	Made threatening comment, does not qualify as whistleblower	Filed suit
Salazar (8/5/16)	Missing vehicles, misused fleet cards	Set new performance standards, fired	Failed to satisfy performance improvement plan	Filed suit
Santorineos (8/7/16)	Abuse of animals			State investigator found no abuse