Very much like a trapped animal, the beleaguered commissioner appears to be flailing around wildly at his opponents and in the process, tearing himself to shreds. While it is very entertaining for the reading electorate it is unfortunate the local newspaper is enabling Stufflebean’s self destruction. Its very unprofessional on their part.
The paper has really put their foot in it this time and unnecessarily dragged others with them on this downhill slide. Again, having only seen quotes from the email accusations Stufflebean sent to The World, one can only conjecture but based on other email rants he has produced (especially the late night ones) he does not come across as rational. Scared, bitter, angry, paranoid…yes. Rational, no.
Stufflebean talks a great deal. He uses lots of adjectives in his speech, occasionally a verb, a modifier or noun once in awhile but rarely does he assemble this collection of words into anything coherent. He likes to use the words ‘specifically’ and ‘efficient’ and ‘inefficient’ and ‘actually’. He uses these words a lot but doesn’t elaborate on what is more efficient, or how an action makes something more efficient. He assumes the listener takes it on faith that he, Stufflebean, is an expert on efficiency and by declaring an action as more efficient makes it so. The listener should not question a self avowed expert on efficiency…
Again, The World will not release Kevin’s email and the commissioner has not sent a copy, despite requests, to Andy Jackson or Larry Van Elsberg. Nevertheless, based upon other communications I have seen him produce over the last year and a half, it should have been obvious to the paper given the non-specific, sweeping nature of the accusations of corruption at the sheriff’s department, something was wrong. Yet they gave the accusations credence and published them causing the State to have to come down and do an internal investigation. As Jackson told me, they should have taken the accusations to the district attorney before ever letting the email accusations see the light of day.
Both Jackson and Van Elsberg have told me they will not grant interview requests with The World again. Never say never, but if they do speak with the paper it should always be under the condition they can vet the final article and the article note it was a conditional interview. The paper’s refusal to inform its readers that quoted road foreman Barry Austen lied calls every story the paper writes into question for accuracy and fairness.