Photo: Archuleta County’s interim County Manager, Jack Harper II, second from right, at a recent County Commissioners work session.
Life at the Archuleta Board of County Commissioners’ office has never been easy, what with so many pressing problems to address.
Failing roads. A serious housing crisis. A fledgling public health department. A constant shortage of employees, at the County and elsewhere. Citizen groups begging for money.
It doesn’t help, of course, if the Commissioners are themselves creating additional problems.
One of the more dramatic employee shortages seems to be at the County Dispatch Center, the department that handles emergency 911 calls, 24/7. At Tuesday’s BOCC work session, the Center’s supervisor, Devin Moffat, reported that the office needs 14 employees to be fully staffed, but currently has only seven dispatchers. (Or perhaps, only six? The number seemed a bit unclear during the presentation.)
Mr. Moffat shared a plan to provide hiring and retention bonuses in an attempt to fill the vacant jobs — using money the department had not spent, due to vacant job positions.
We can’t say who, exactly, is responsible for an understaffed Dispatch Center. Maybe the 1,000 STR owners who’ve converted residential homes in Pagosa into mini-motels, and drove up the housing prices in Pagosa?
Ultimately, however, the responsibility falls on our elected leaders to deal with the situation.
Meanwhile, the Commissioners have other problems to consider, as well… some of which they created for themselves.
One issue concerns the decision, back in May, by two of our three County commissioners, Veronica Medina and Ronnie Maez, to hire a gentleman named Jack Harper II as the interim County Manager. Commissioner Warren Brown voted in opposition to that hiring decision.
I understand Mr. Harper has now applied for the permanent County Manager position.
We shared a story about Mr. Harper here in the Daily Post, when Commissioners Medina and Maez suddenly voted to hire him as interim Manager without officially announcing the job opening and without conducting an interview process.
I have been told that the contract signed with Mr. Harper allowed him to be absent on paid leave during his first three weeks on the job, during which time he was getting married and taking a honeymoon. That information was supplied by a County employee, who questioned why the BOCC didn’t simply wait three weeks before hiring him.
But as we know, it’s only taxpayers’ money.
The story gets a bit more interesting when you read the letter received by local activist Ashley Springer, explaining that — while we know that Mr. Harper was fired in February from his City Manager job in Fulshear, Texas, by a unanimous vote of the City Council — we don’t know exactly why he was fired.
Ms. Springer is the Public Information Officer for Archuleta County.
The letter from the law firm of Olsen & Olsen explains that certain information about the firing decision is currently protected from public release. The letter explains that “Exhibit 2” — a document that lists the allegations brought against Mr. Harper — cannot be shared at this point, pending an ongoing investigation.
You can download the letter here.
The City Council in Fulshear did not reveal why Mr. Harper was fired, but merely said he was terminated “for good cause.” The letter from Olsen & Olsen hints at a possible reason, in a couple of innocent-sounding sentences…
“The records in Exhibit 2 include reports of sexual harassment in the workplace.”
“The responsive information contains a report of an alleged violation of [Texas] state law. The law carries with it a penalty of a criminal nature. The report reveals the identity of this informant.”
We can understand that the City’s law firm might want to protect the identity of a whistleblower. So we are left without a clear explanation of Mr. Harper’s termination. But we do know one thing. The Fulshear City Council’s decision was unanimous.
When I was growing up in the 1960s, and women were leaving their positions as ‘housewives’ and moving into the workplace in growing numbers, it was pretty well understood that — in certain organizations — a woman employee could be required to provide sexual favors for their boss, in order to retain their position.
In the 1970, feminists began to openly discuss the objectification of women and expose the true extent of sexual violence in America. 24-hour crisis lines were initiated, along with prevention education, training programs and self-defense classes. Volunteers stepped up and devoted thousands of hours to helping victims heal.
In recent polls, Americans have exhibited mixed feelings about sexual harassment. For example, in a 2016 CBS/New York Times poll, 59% of voters said Donald Trump’s “alleged activities involving unwanted sexual advances against women” made no difference to their vote. 38% said it made them less likely to vote for him… and 2% said it made them more likely.
We don’t know, at this point, whether our current interim County Manager, Jack Harper II, was terminated in Texas as a result of sexual harassment allegations. I assume our two County commissioners either 1) didn’t know about the allegations when they voted to hire Mr. Harper, or 2) they didn’t consider sexual harassment anything to be concerned about.
I spoke with Commissioner Maez on Wednesday, to get a better understanding of how he viewed the alleged sexual harassment violation(s), and he provided me with the following quote:
“Yes, I am concerned about Mr. Harper’s previous employment, and I will be taking that under due consideration, as I do with anything that I make a decision on, in Archuleta County. As a commissioner, that’s my job. As to knowing the details of it, I’m not sure. ‘Sexual harassment’ can mean any number of things, from an off-color joke, to misconduct or anything else.
“But I do weigh it, and have it under deep consideration. I look at the abilities to perform as the County Manager as a high priority too.
“Part of the question is, why was Derek Woodman hired from Summit County without a thorough background check? That’s part of the equation, and now questions are being raised about this [hiring decision]. But until actual [legal] action has been taken, we can’t make assumptions. The BOCC can only make a decision on an assumption that it could be the worst, or it may not be the worst.
“On Tuesday, we heard Commissioner Brown say a lot about forgiveness at the end of the meeting. Once a person is forgiven, they’ve got to learn from their actions, too, and that’s what we need to do. In life, people do get better when they’re corrected, and they learn from their mistakes.
“But I will definitely weigh it out, as a Commissioner, and use my best judgment to see what we can do to get the best for Archuleta County.”
I wonder, if Mr. Harper had been accused of mismanagement of government funds, whether Commissioners Medina and Maez would have rushed to hire him as interim Manager based partly on a recommendation from one of Mr. Harper’s friends… but without a thorough background check or interview process?