By now we all are aware of the controversy down at the Clark County Department of Environmental Services, the trumped up outrage over the lawful hiring of Republican State Senator Don Benton to be the director, the dozens of articles by the Lazy C blasting that hire and now, the tort claim filed on behalf of the woman who was chosen as the interim director, seeking $300,000 from the county.
In spite of what you have read or heard, the hiring of Don Benton was completely legal and well within the scope of the County Commissioners. It also was not a case of two Commissioners directing the County Administrator to hire Benton, as shown previously in the second portion of the post The Great Clark County Collusion Caper Debunked, where you will find an audio clip of the hiring as well as a written transcript.
In spite of what the Lazy C and the regular detractors commenting under articles say, it was well within the Commissioners scope to do so.
But, the woman behind the tort claim, Sustainability and Outreach Division Manager Anita Largent is claiming she was overlooked for the position because she is a female, since she was chosen to sit in as interim director and was not appointed.
While I hear nothing to sustain that allegation in the audio of the meeting that day, that is a matter best left between her attorney, the County Legal staff and the courts, should it go that far.
I am confident a fair and equitable agreement of some sort will be reached in due time.
What does concern me in this is why is Ms. Largent sitting down the at the County Department of Environmental Services reading political blogs on county time and using a county computer and email address to report this blog to McAfee Anti-virus?
Is perusing political blogs part of the job description for a Sustainability and Outreach Division Manager at the county?
And, just how long and how often has she spent county time, sitting at her desk and using county resources for such activity?
I discovered this when looking over the stats and noticed a link from McAfee appearing under the referrers section. (NOTE: The McAfee link at times goes back to the blog post and not the McAfee site. A true representation of the page is linked below)
Clicking the link, curious as to why McAfee was listing my blog I discovered a page stating “THIS WEBSITE HAS BEEN SCANNED FOR THREATS AND APPEARS TO BE SAFE.”
No surprise to me as I know the site is safe, hosted by Word Press, a reliable provider. I also know that I am nowhere near intelligent enough in computers to write code, malicious or otherwise.
Scrolling down the page, what I was surprised to find was;
The web address originated in this email:
Sender: anita.largent@clark.wa.gov
Date: Tue, 29 Oct 13 08:34:59 -0600
Subject: FW: Conflicts with Waste Connections..
Message ID: 297cf625.0.3669668.00-691.5158925.p01c11m115.mxlogic.net
I’m unsure what she found displeasing about that post, since she has never contacted me, but it appears she emailed it to McAfee at 8:35 AM. Isn’t that about a half hour after her work day for the county begins?
And, I am led to believe that she was on a county computer, using her county assigned email.
I am pleased that she takes the time to read my blog, but shouldn’t she be attending to the county’s work at that time?
As a division manager, isn’t it part of her job to ensure those people in her department are performing their jobs and not goofing off on their computers?
A screen shot copy of the McAfee page and the link has been sent to the county to do with as they deem appropriate, if at all.
But it would seem to me that someone filing a tort claim against the county, seeking $300K and claiming they are better suited for a top position that who was appointed, would be careful to actually be doing their assigned job and not be wasting county time reading blogs.
UPDATE: Outcome of this is mentioned here
Clark County Conservative 