In an email to The World (which the paper has not released) Commissioner Kevin Stufflebean, perhaps aware his days in office are waning, levels accusations of corruption and department mismanagement at Sheriff Andy Jackson, former road master, Larry Van Elsberg and threw barbs at Commissioner Bob Main. The World followed up by calling Jackson and Van Elsberg, both candidates for commissioner positions 2 and 3 respectively, and reported on their responses to some of the charges today. According to Van Elsberg, The World reporter, Meghan Walsh, will publilsh another article specific to Stufflebean’s charges relating to the 12″ pipeline fiasco, tomorrow.
In many ways the email and subsequent article is another golden opportunity to call into question Stufflebean’s already questionable integrity and revisit, thanks to him, the less than adequately covered pipeline issue. As a campaign strategy, I suspect the email will cause more harm than good and cause Commissioner Nikki Whitty some grief as well. Unfortunately, the article misrepresents some information relating to events that occurred at the road department before Van Elsberg was road master as having occurred under his watch.
‘He had no management of his staff,” said Barry Austin, the current foreman, who has been with the department almost 15 years.
Austin said he and other workers sometimes played blackjack for hours a day. Others were known to use county materials for personal use.
‘Maybe some of this Larry didn’t know, but if he had been doing his job he would have known,” Austin said. ‘That stuff doesn’t happen anymore.”
First, why is The World printing the comments of an admitted bad public employee whom Stufflebean lifted to management status after Van Elsberg retired and remains with the road deparment, anyway? Austen applied for the foreman’s position but was passed over by Van Elsberg when he was road master. Second, according to Van Elsberg, he brought the matter to the attention of then road master Bits Klemm who brought the practice of playing blackjack to an end.
Austen is not the only questionable employee Stufflebean raised to management level. Shawn Migas was found to have defrauded worker’s compensation over an incident that occurred at a rock crusher that broke his leg. Stufflebean, acting as interim road master, created a special management position for Migas and gave him a raise. The incident became known after the statute of limitations had expired. Migas was placed on temporary leave, but retained his management position and raise. Shortly thereafter, the infamous New Year’s Eve layoffs included the employees who brought the incident to light. Migas has since left the road department.
A letter to Meghan Walsh, author of the article quoted above requesting a correction has so far gone unanswered.
