Burn, Paula

From:
Sent: Monday, July 16, 2018 12:00 AM
To: Jackson, Cassandra
Subject: Request for Protection Under the COT Whisteblower's Protection Act

Importance: High

Tallahassee City Attorney Jackson,

In the absence of a Consolidated Dispatch Agency (CDA) Policy and pursuant to the CDA's lnterlocal Agreement that
defaults our protections under policy to the City of Tallahassee, I am requesting Whistleblower Protection in my role as
Interim Director of the Consolidated Dispatch Agency. This is necessary due to recent and numerous actions taken by
members of the CDA's Management Committee, the CDA's Board of Governance, and officials with the City of
Tallahassee. The following is a brief summary of events that I am reporting to you as alleged violations of state statute
and local policy thereby requiring my protection under the Whistleblower's Act.

1. As stated by Tallahassee Fire Department Chief Jerome Gaines in his 7/12/18 email to Emergency Medical Services
Chief Chad Abrams, as CDA Management Committee members, the two of them held a private meeting to discuss taking
action in regard to the CDA. This appears to be a clear violation of the Memorandum of Agreement No. 999155, Section
4. A. Management Committee " ... shall govern itself wholly within the purview of the Government-in-the-Sunshine-Act."
Chief Gaines' and Chief Abrams' questionable actions regarding the Sunshine Act and their role on the Management
Committee should have been called out by any other member of the Management Committee, CDA Board members,
COT officials, or the COT Legal Office before it was allowed to escalate into what has caused a distraction among the
CDA's employees working in the operations center and ultimately creating a risk to public safety in an environment that
requires our team to be 100% focused at all times.

Due to the violation described above, the COT Human Resources personnel, including Director Ellen Blair, should not
have been placed in the Public Safety Complex for four hour shifts (4:00PM- 8:00 PM with our shift change at 6:00PM)
from Friday, July 13 through Sunday, July 15 for the following reasons:

I. The same two shifts of CDA personnel work Friday through Sunday. Only half of our team was at work during this
"opportunity to share any concerns about their employment." It appears that a select group of employees from Days 2
and Nights 2 were being targeted . This format does not follow your recommendation which involved all employees.

II. A small sample of employees was not recommended but the Management Committee will develop a plan or make
recommendations to address any issues which impede the CDA carrying out its mission from speaking to less than half of
our team.

Ill. I was not contacted in advance by Chief Gaines of his pending actions but was informed by an email disseminated to
my attention . I was at the home of a CDA employee whose son had tragically died. The CDA employees were copied to
the email at 3:16 on Friday, July 13, 2018, only forty-four minutes before the arrival of HR personal. No further
explanation was given to our team. There wasn't an effort to reach all employees.

IV. Chief Gaines' plan of action does not follow your recommendation on how the interviews should have taken place
according your email on July 13th in response to my request for your advice and counsel.

2. Chief Gaines indicates that he has information on CDA personnel who have reported a list of allegations against me
and the agency, including, but not limited to, a hostile work environment and the threat of retaliation . Supposedly,
these allegations were reported to him by CDA Agency Liaisons, Lt. Judi Davison, TFD, and Lt. David Odom, TPD, and
others unnamed. Chief Gaines had no prior contact with me regarding these issues. I was at the Mayo Clinic in
Jacksonville when he revealed his issues to my interim assistant directors, Jeanine Gauding and Christine Faircloth. Both
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assistant directors reported being "blindsided" by Chief Gaines. I immediately called him and left a message. When he
returned my call, he said he was made aware of the complaints that morning and had to take immediate action. He had
spoken with his supervisor Assistant City Manager, Cynthia Barber, and stated an emergency Management Meeting had
to be called for the employees to express their concerns and complaints at the public meeting and for me to "face my
accusers." When I asked Chief Gaines if all of the employee information had come to light that morning- between 8:00
AM and 10:00 AM, he said that the Liaisons had been collecting it over time, but the liaisons had just come to him that
morning. I asked him for CDA employee names and complaint specifics, but he refused to comply. Chief Gaines actions
are in direct contradiction to CDA Policies 141, 380, and 351. These are policies that he approved as a member of the
CDA Management Committee. By his admission, Lt. Davison, Lt. Odom, and others had been withholding important
employee information from me as interim director and the CDA that prevented the agency from following its policies
and addressing the urgent and immediate needs of my employees. Chief Gaines' actions compounded the potential
harm to the affected employees because no one was addressing their needs even after he was made aware of them. He
was set on holding an emergency public meeting the following week instead of allowing me to take proper action. Chief
Gaines interfered with my ability as interim Director to follow and enforce my agency's policies, and more importantly,
to do the right thing for my employees.

An emergency meeting was tentatively scheduled for Monday, July 16th at 10:30 AM to receive the report from the HR
personnel stationed at the PSC. However, the meeting was cancelled late Friday afternoon on July 13th via an email
from Chief Abrams. The decision was made to wait until the regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday, July 19th. Had I
been provided any sort of details I would have taken immediate action to serve my employees as I have done as the
interim Director for the past 5.5 months. Instead, the decisions made by Chief Gaines, and supported by others, have
intentionally kept me at arm's length. If any of the allegations are true, the actions led by Chief Gaines have caused the
unnecessary and unacceptable extension of distress to my employees.

As recently as March of 2018, a team of international accreditation assessors were onsite in the CDA from morning
through the night. In addition to reviewing 212 standards for communication centers that focused on our employees
and our agency as well as our operations, there were numerous interviews with members of the Management
Committee, the CDA liaisons, and CDA personnel. We achieved 100% compliance and because of our rapid response to
any concerns raised by the assessors during their exit interview and the report. We are scheduled to be fully accredited
on July 28, 2018. The serious threats to employees alleged by Chief Gaines do not appear in our CALEA Report issued
just a few weeks ago and distributed to the Board, the Management Committee, the Liaisons, and to all of our
employees. If these issues had existed we would not be eligible for accreditation regardless of our operations. For this
reason I am challenging your interpretation of Chief Gaines' allegations as being representative of "persistent personnel
concerns" at the CDA. If given proper information, I would have taken immediate action, but I was denied access to
names and specifics that I requested from Chief Gaines. No one has offered this information to me. Chief Abrams
described Chief Gaines actions as "inappropriate." Leon County Sheriff's Office Deputy Chief and Management
Committee member David Folsom stated, "We have a meeting on the 19th, I don't know what the urgency is. I'm sure I
just don't understand."

Please note, this is the second issue regarding violation of the Sunshine Act, the first coming a few weeks ago when I
contacted you about an email from a Board Member who cc'd another Board member's second in command about a
comment he made about my actions. You confirmed that it was a case of the Board member circumventing the Sunshine
Act via a third party and that Board members should know better and that you would need to address it with them. You
suggested to me to email Board members individually from now on and I immediately put your directive into action with
all of my outgoing correspondence to them. You did not ask for the email, it is available upon request.

I am requesting that we meet to discuss these issues further. Thank you in advance .