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September 24, 2009 Opinions |
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—Letters To The Editor—
Chamber Music Alive!
To The Record-Courier:
Chamber music in Baker City is alive and well. As I perused Farmer's Market at Geiser Park on Saturday, I was greeted with strains of music in the air, as a group of instrumentalists entertained shoppers.
The musicians placed their music stands directly on the grass and provided an open air presentation.
Strings vibrated from a cello played by Pam Gale Murphy. Music was brought forth by violinists Jane Suessy, Annie Cahill, and Roxanne Swann. Guitar accompaniment was presented by Kelly Cahill.
What a pleasant background these volunteer musicians provided. The Saturday event was enhanced by their performance. Thank you!
Phyllis Badgley
Baker City
Power Lines Not Healthy
To The Record-Courier:
It seems apparent that more conservation should be practiced with High Voltage Power Transmission by the Electric Energy Transmission Industry itself, which should not be a shock to anyone. Such as preference placed on the development of more local distribution generation rather than long high voltage power lines to eliminate the well known large amounts of energy loss along these long lines every second of every day. Which amounts to billions of dollars of waste by those who demand that the consumer cut waste and conserve energy, along with our government officials and energy agency officials.
Even if they down play the now reported energy loss to 7.5 % it amounts to billions of dollars of waste resulting in higher costs to the consumer everyday. By ignoring energy Conservation practices, it has all the appearances that electric energy transmission is the most lucrative and preferred by the power companies over development of local generation power to serve their local communities, and at lower consumer energy rates.
As Consumers, we are all continually demanded to conserve energy, why not the Electric Power Companies? They waste more Energy than the consumer in Energy loss during the transmission of electric energy alone in order to make big bucks at the expense of the consumer while telling the little guys (the consumers) to conserve energy. Then our Government is always taxing our consumption in the name of Forced Conservation and even currently threatens more new consumption taxes on us. Does Anyone REALLY CARE, as long as they are making billions of dollars?
The people and their elected officials need to stand together and force big government and big energy giants such as both the Electric Power Energy Industry and the Oil Industry to Practice Conservation, and produce according to most Efficiency and Need, not Greed. This energy thing is not a luxury, but a necessity of life!
Now, with the threat that the government will choose their own route and push it through if the people do not select a route suitable to them and most favorable to the electric company is more of the same fear tactics by this Administration in order to push their liberal agendas and regulations and more new taxes on the American people, as we have seen played out in the media; on health care, stimulus money, auto industry, housing and financial industry bailouts and take over’s, new taxes and cap and trade and etc... It is time they are held accountable and consider the people who elect them to represent us and our concerns, not trample on us. Who, by all evidence are witness to at the meetings that they consider lower than the Sage Grouse, and by their assumptions we, being mere humans, are entitled to less rights and concerns for our lives, health, property and/or livelihoods, not to mention the devaluation of property values, a man's assets. If these High Voltage Power Transmission lines are bad for the sage grouse then they are equally bad for humans, if not more so regardless of government so called studies to refute such health affects. We all witnessed the effects and affects of the Spotted Owl and public lands verses logging, the sage grouse is now the spotted owl of the 21st century to again save government lands, which I thought were public lands. If it is a government forced public project then put it on Public Lands.
Something that has been on my mind and felt led to share with you.
Don Beck
Baker City
Brocato Career Critic Was Misinformed
To The Record-Courier:
I refer to a recent letter in The Record-Courier from Mr Dielman raising questions about Steve Brocato, ex-manager of Baker City. I recall Mark Twain saying once, "if you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed; if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed." I fear that Mr Dielman has inadvertently confirmed this quote with his letter.
I cannot make any comment on Steve Brocato's record as manager of Baker City but I worked with Steve from 1985 to 1997 and was president of the leasing division of Cronos Containers from 1991 to 1997, when I resigned and Steve took over from me. I know well what happened at Cronos and his involvement in the company. Cronos was a successful and well respected leasing company built up by its Chairman/CEO and majority shareholder Stefan Palatin. Unfortunately, having built up and floated the company on NASDAQ in 1995, for reasons that remain a mystery today, he started illegally taking money out of the company. This precipitated the resignation of the auditors, an investigation by the SEC and the termination of the company's banking lines. Until he was eventually arrested in Austria on related charges in 1999, the rest of the senior management lived through what was probably the worst period of their working lives, trying to enable a successful company to escape from the control of an inspirational CEO, who had gone off the rails. A number of senior managers including myself resigned whilst others including Steve, stayed on and tried to steer the company out of this impossible situation. With banks calling in their lending lines, lawyers having to be consulted at every step and the SEC pursuing its investigation, it was a wonder that the company survived and unsurprising that the financial results were poor. However, the company did survive and prospers today thanks to the commitment and determination of the senior managers who stayed on, including Steve Brocato who ran the leasing division during the worse period between 1997 and 1999. No accusations or charges of wrong doing were made against Steve and he was not even interviewed by the SEC. I don't know the source of Mr Dielman's information on Steve Brocato's career at Cronos but I fear that he may have been misled by someone who, unbeknown to him, had an axe of his own to grind.
Why did Steve not stay in the marine container leasing industry? Well, as the top 10 companies make up 90% of the market, there were few openings for him and I think he wanted to spend more time with his wife and young family rather than flying round the globe. I worked with Steve for 12 years and disagreed with him frequently but I would never question his integrity, commitment and honesty. I am not qualified to say what qualities are required as a city manager but I reckon these would be a pretty good start.
I can understand why Mr Dielman raises the questions he does. I am concerned that on the incomplete information that he has been given, he has reached the wrong conclusions.
Nigel Stribley
United Kingdom
Brocato Was Not Vetted Properly
To The Record-Courier:
Here I go again wanting more information about fired City Manager Steve Brocato’s employment history. Why is it important to pursue the full story? The answer is that if the recall of Dennis Dorrah and Beverly Calder is successful replacements could be appointed who would vote to rehire Brocato as city manager.
Last week both local newspapers printed articles—an interview of fired City Manager Steve Brocato in The Record-Courier and an article by a former colleague of Brocato, Laurance Sargent, in the Baker City Herald—in which Brocato and Sargent attempted to counter what I wrote about Brocato’s employment history in a letter to the editors a couple of weeks ago.
Both articles told the reader a lot about Brocato’s and Sargent’s former employer Cronos Group, but very little about Brocato.
Brocato corrected information I had written. He resigned from Cronos about eight months after his former boss was fired, not the next week.
But the most interesting thing Brocato had to say was that before hiring him Baker City had thoroughly checked his employment history. I believe that is incorrect.
Here’s what I’ve uncovered about the vetting process Baker City used. (Better would be to say the vetting process Baker City did not use.) Incredible as it may sound, Baker City did not contact one of Brocato’s former employers, former colleagues, or former employees regarding the eight years after he left Cronos.
For the period 1999 to 2007—after leaving Cronos and being hired by Baker City—the City relied on Brocato’s résumé, which was completely devoid of any check-able information about his employment history for those eight years. When he was interviewed by The Record-Courier last week, he refused to divulge any information about those eight years. By not following standard hiring procedures, the City, in effect, hired a dark horse.
And Brocato began showing his true colors right out of the starting gate in 2007, about which much has been written in the pages of this newspaper the past two-and-one-half years.
In his interview, Brocato implies that he resigned from his employment at Cronos voluntarily to retire to a ranch in Eastern Oregon. I’ll believe that when it is confirmed after Brocato supplies the City a statement authorizing former employers to release information about him.
Brocato hired Portland attorney Anne Denecke to demand severance pay and threaten to sue Baker City for firing him, alleging that he’s a “whistle-blower” for having city personnel investigate city councilors for minor property code violations, ignoring the fact that there is no proof whatsoever that property code violations entered into the decision to terminate Brocato.
The whistle-blower claim is especially ludicrous, since in a recent lawsuit neither Denecke nor local attorney Milo Pope seemed to recognize what it takes to be a whistle-blower.
Pope is chairman of the Mountain Valley Mental Health board of directors, and Denecke is the lawyer who represented MVMH in much of its dealings with fired employees Gail Lemberger and Suzanne Moses, who blew the whistle on former Director Tim Mahoney. Two years ago, MVMH fired Lemberger and Moses. A year later, Lemberger and Moses sued MVMH for wrongful discharge, shortly after an Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industry investigator found that MVMH had retaliated against Lemberger for her whistle-blowing activity.
In June 2009, the case was settled out of court. No doubt part of the settlement order, which is sealed, included a requirement satisfied recently when a legal notice appeared in both local newspapers in which MVMH completely exonerated Lemberger and Moses, stating they had “acted in the best interest of the agency and their clients.”
Pope demanded the newspapers print a retraction or correction of the “lies” Dielman told about Brocato in his letter to the editor that questioned Brocato’s employment history. Both newspapers rebuffed the demand. (Editor’s Note — The Record-Courier did interview Brocato and printed his response to Dielman’s letter.)
The City allowed Brocato to get away with a huge eight-year hole in his most recent employment history, which both above-mentioned news articles shed no light on.
I hope our City Council, which is presently vetting prospective city manager applicants, rejects all applicants with holes in their employment histories, and that City Council, before conducting any interviews, talks with persons at the applicants’ places of present and former employment.
Gary Dielman
Baker City
City Conducted In-Depth Interview With Cronos Officer Before Hiring Brocato As City Manager
To The Record-Courier
A question has been raised as to what background check, if any, Baker City conducted prior to hiring Steve Brocato as City Manager. I have reviewed the file and can inform you that the City, acting through an experienced investigator, conducted an in-depth interview with a high ranking Cronos (Mr. Brocato’s former employer) officer. The interview covered much more than simply a verification of employment.
In addition, since Mr. Brocato had lived in Baker County for eight years prior to applying for the City Manager position, the City investigator spoke with at least seven other persons in and around the Baker County area who had had direct dealings with Mr. Brocato either as business association or neighbor.
Finally, all statements on Mr. Brocato’s resume with regard to his business and education background were independently verified.
The City Council was privy to at least a summary of the background investigation and chose to offer him the position.
Tim Collins
Baker City Manager, Pro-Tem
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