A Heads-up On a Developing Political Firestorm

Recently-fired Emerald City Human Resources Manager Dean Martinez was a vocal Boss Godfrey supporter in the autumn of 2003, as Boss Godfrey's re-election campaign was winding to a crescendo, according to this morning's Scott Schwebke story story. Nothing unusual about that we think. Mr. Martinez had been apparently jockeying for a Emerald City staff position in the new administration, a position which Mr. Martinez attained in 2004, when he was hired as Emerald City's Human Resources Manager. Buttering up your prospective boss is good politics, we believe, especially when the future Boss is a guy like Boss Godfrey, an insecure man who demands unyielding (and unflinching) loyalty from his underlings.

There's evidently been lots of water under the bridge since 2004, however. Mr. Martinez of course has now been summarily "terminated." Boss Godfrey and Mr. Martinez are now trading allegations in the press. Both Emerald City and Mr. Martinez are "lawyered up" too. This story has the makings of a good old-fashioned Emerald City street-corner political brawl, we think. We're certainly keeping our trusty barcalounger and popcorn readily at hand.

The first salvo in what we believe to be a developing public battle-royal was launched pre-emptively on December 9, 2006, with this Charles Trentelman story, in which Boss Godfrey and his minions took the public relations offensive. They announced that Mr. Martinez had been fired, and were quick to paint Mr. Martinez into a public relations corner, accusing him of all manner of terrible mis-deeds:

John Patterson, the city's chief administrative officer, said Friday, "As of Monday, Dean's employment with the city was terminated. He was terminated for cause, and generally for dishonesty, for misappropriation of public documents and for other missteps, other misconduct, I guess is the best word."

Aside from vague references to a "discrimination complaint," and the obtaining of "...some documents from the city to use to amend his initial complaint...," the Trentleman story was somewhat factually thin, with little information pertaining to substantive issues -- except for attorney Retallick's denial of his client's misconduct, and the general statement that the events revolved around the mysterious discrimination complaint .

Today's story however fleshes out the facts a bit more, we think. From today's story we learn this, among other things:

1) Mr. Martinez had apparently been pursuing a course of reviewing city personnel files, assembling evidence to establish allegations of preferential treatment for certain other department heads, in order to "prove up" his complaint.

2) The allegedly "misappropriated" materials were actually personnel files, documents that would be presumably accessible by Mr. Martinez in the course and scope of his job. The gravamen of the administration's allegations, aparently, is that he took these files home for copying, and "leaked" them to a "third party."

3) At least one of these files reportedly included information related to a "sexual harrassment complaint" which we can reasonably infer to have been internally "hushed up."

4) Mr. Martinez pending discrimination claim included allegations that he had himself suffered pay discrimination, allegedly on account of "race."

Our own confidential sources disclose that the facts heretofore reported are "just the tip of the iceberg," and that there still remains much to be revealed in connection with this story. In the same connection we're hoping to interview Mr. Martinez, who has a standing invitation to bring forth his side of the story here, assuming he can clear some kind of statement through his own attorney. Among other things, we've also learned from independant sources that Mr. Martinez had been a little too cozy with local union reps for Boss Godfrey's comfort, a circumstance which would have caused "job security" problems, even in the absense of a formal discrimination complaint. Mr. Martinez had reportedly been actively working to build up a relationship of trust between his own Human Resources Department and Emerald City employees, a situation which administration officials simply would not tolerate. As we all know, Boss Godfrey rules the Emerald City Republic with a fist of iron. From his lofty perch on the Emerald City Hall ninth floor, Emerald City employees appear no more significance than ants.

We post this article today as a heads-up to our readers. You can be assurred we'll be closely following this story as it develops -- which we believe it will.

In the meantime... the floor is open. Feel free to discuss this. or any other topic.

Update 12/13/06 7:05 a.m. MT: Yesterday's Scott Schwebke story refers to a Dean Martinez email in which Mr. Martinez "change[s] his tune about supporting a possible re-election bid by Godfrey in 2007. " Today's Std-Ex editorial page presents, in guest commentary form, what we surmise to be the full text of that earlier email message, in which Mr. Martinez expands his percipient complaints in further detail. It seems that Mr. Martinez believes that Boss Godfrey's "tight" government leadership culture presents a primary obstacle to achieving the diversity hiring goals which were announced upon Mr. Martinez's original hiring. Mr. Martinez is not the first, of course, to remark about Godfrey's apparent all-male, all white leadership hiring bias. Nor is he the first to take note of the vast dissonance between the public Godfrey "talk," and the objectively observable Godfrey "walk."