A bid to influence a controversial annexation by the Town of Fishers might land a Hamilton County employee in the unemployment line, or worse. Email messages, traced back through information contained in the header to the Hamilton County Surveyors Office, were sent last month promoting a benefit golf tournament to be held June 19th at Ironwood Golf Course. The emails were signed by county employee Robert Thompson and if the investigation shows he sent them through his county office he might be guilty of a class D felony. Indiana's "ghost employment" law states "IC 35-44-2-4(d) A person employed by a governmental entity who knowingly or intentionally accepts property from the entity for the performance of duties not related to the operation of the entity commits ghost employment, a Class D felony.". Subsection (f) describes circumstances under which using county computers, email addresses and internet access is acceptable but since the purpose of gUO IS intended "to influence legislation or governmental policy" and gUO IS NOT a 501(c)(3) then he would have had to been given permission IN WRITING from the County Surveyor (his boss) to use government owned property to solicit participants and donations for the gUO's fund-raiser golf event. Someone needs to ask him whether or not he can produce this written permission. Thompson also ran an unsuccessful campaign for Fall Creek Township Board with opposition to the geist annexation as his platform.
I hope all of the news media whom I have alerted to this discovery will pursue an investigation. It's a shame when emotions get the best of people. Yet it is only the first example here of that which my hero Ben Franklin predicted, "Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame". It's ironic that this is the same guy who claimed to be "checking on" the identity of an individual interviewed by TV stations after the gUO pep rally at HSE High School last February. At the time of his posting on atgeist.joke, putting your cursor on his name provided an email link to his address at the Surveyors office. So we can assume he might also have been using county resources to do his "checking on". You can read the full story I posted back in March under the headline "Things That Make You Go Hmmmm..." (be sure to read the comments too!). Btw Rich, the poor soul who was the subject of Bob's government-sponsored, private investigation has been allowed to debate the gUO losers on atfishersblog.crap and has done a great job. http://atfishers.com/viewpost.php?post_id=136
What goes around, comes around.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
JQFR-
Why did you include me in this with your private email crusade? As you may now know, I was on WXNT's "Abdul in the Morning" show this morning to answer the allegations sent to Abdul in an email signed "JQFR" that I was fired for ghost employment.
I most certainly was not fired for ghost employment. I left the Surveyor's Office on the best possible terms. I even gave my boss the courtesy of an 8-week notice period (rather than the customary 2-week period) so that he could find a replacement and not have that person completely buried when they started.
So, I invite anyone to investigate my record as a county employee. Talk to HR. Talk to my boss. You will find a sterling record.
In fact, while we're at it, I think we should investigate everybody at the county, and at the Town of Fishers, to see if any elected officials send political emails from their government computers, because as you point out, ghost employment is a felony. I can stand up to the scrutiny. I'm not so sure about a great many others. I was very careful when I worked for the government. I know that cannot be said for some, very comfortable in their party's majority to the extent that they break the rules.
So, I'll give you the opportunity to retract your statements as involves me. If the retraction does not happen in five days, I will look into a lawsuit for defamation of character.
Post a Comment