Bauer Firing: Personnel Records
Why was Bauer fired? That question brings up two intertwined problems. First, was it for a good reason? Second, why is it unknown?
We can begin to answer the first problem with a little conjecture. By the terms of his contract Bauer is being paid 9 months severance pay. The contract likely included provisions that he not be entitled to severance if his departure is due to something extreme (gross mismanagement or something illegal). This process of elimination only gets us so far, as the second problem prohibits us from fully answering the first.
The councilpeople who voted for the firing cited personnel record laws as the reason they couldn’t talk at length about it. It’s a relatively minor point I thought, until the JDNews, Thomas Brock and myself repeated it. At some point I thought the minor ‘glossing over’ became larger by the mere fact that it was repeated several times over. The fact is that personnel records are not absolutely protected.
There is a provision to allow the opening of personnel records when “the release is essential to maintaining public confidence in the administration of city services or to maintaining the level and quality of city services.” This is not entirely uncommon, there was a case just recently where this was done [in Brunswick County, I think?].
In fact, I think it’s pretty clear that the City of Jacksonville is suffering from a lack of public confidence. Then again, if the records indicate what I presume, releasing them may not regain the public confidence.
This whole thing has gotten stickier.
As a result, Bauer has given permission to the City to release the information regarding his firing.
The waiver was phrased peculiarly–not sure if that’s from JDNews end or Bauers. His notes, recordings, emails from Dec to June were always public record. It’s only his personnel record that had any privacy, but that was not among those listed.
@OPAdmin
According to the quotation of his letter, Bauer is waiving any right to privacy to include “all documents; minutes, notes, recordings, evaluations, e-mails, memoranda, between December 31, 2008, and June 10, 2009.”
Regardless of how the Jacksonville Daily News initially reported the phrase, it appears that Bauer wants the entire record released.
I’ve already made a request to the City Clerk’s office. Once Bauer signs the official privacy release, I’ll be getting copies of everything available.
I wonder if that includes his phone records (eg text msgs). Sometimes they use personal phones and get partial reimbursement.
Another interesting part is that Bauer references a few late night messages but only one inappropriate text is identified. That is somewhat similar to what Thomas did, where he mentioned four closed sessions but only insinuated that they were about Bauer. Were all the messages inappropriate? Were all the closed sessions about the same issue with Bauer?