As of today, two city employees — Chief Information Officer Bob Barrett and Building Commissioner Stephanie Gilman — are no longer employed by the city, according to an email Mayor Warren sent to city officials today.
No details or specifics were provided.
Wow, I wonder who else may be ready to leave?
The TAB has a brief story about this but not much more than this…
Anybody remember Maria Plati’s sudden
disappearancedeparture from David Cohen’s office?What the ??
Let me start a new paragraph here because it makes no sense at all to have those words in the same paragraph as Bob Barrett’s good name. As I wrote when he arrived,
I know that Stephanie Gilman is better qualified to than the working conditions and expectations put on her! We were lucky she stayed as long as she did. Newton was lucky to have her as long as we did.
Bruce – I’d first want to know what questions the reporter asked before coming to any conclusions about the quote. If the Mayor offered the information without prompting, that’s one scenario. If on the other hand, the reporter was not getting information about a confidential personnel matter that s/he sought, and asked whether there had been legal or ethical issues involved, that’s another scenario. To leave that question unanswered would have left a cloud over the reputation of these two people.
The other quote in the story that raises more questions than it answers is:
A responsible journalist, when learning that two upper management public officials had been fired, should ask whether any unethical or illegal activity had been involved. I would assume that’s what happened here.
@Gail Using journalistic “ethics” to define your unsympathetic public attacks in our community knows no bounds. Who entreats you to be so “ethical” these days? When you were a paid editor conjuring prolific trash at Gatehouse Media there was at least advertising revenue tied to it! Why the need to reopen someone’s professional history (that obviously you took issue with) after 10+ years. Where is your sense of enlightenment and civility? Did you ever have any?
Dan – Exactly.
Janet – You don’t know what you’re talking about.
Journalists are paid to ask probing questions; respondents retain control on how/whether they answer,
Janet, don’t worry about Gail. I’m pretty sure that what she just said to you was exactly what she said to other people when they expressed concern for the Newton North High School issue.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/newton/opinion/opinion_columnists/x1007222125/Globe-writer-responds-to-three-year-vendetta?zc_p=0#axzz2NiVvITdb
I think I should have been explaining further when I was talking about getting an expected return of 11%-12% on a portfolio of stocks a while back. When I was talking about that level of expected return, I was not including Gatehouse Media as part of that hypothetical portfolio.
And reporters retain control how they write about the information they obtain. Which is why so many people choose not to respond to requests for interviews.
Personnel information is confidential.
Jane – You are correct, but reporters can ask for confidential information. A public official should know what he can or cannot answer.
In this case, a better way to write this might have been:
Warren would not comment further on the matter, citing the confidentiality of personnel matters, but said that Barrett and Kane-Gilman had not been involved in any illegal or unethical activity.
Gail – Now that’s good journalistic writing! However, it assumes that the information was offered without prompting which may or may not be the case. If the information came after a probing question, then certainly there’s a way that an excellent journalist can indicate that in the story so there was no implication whatsoever about the character of the people involved.
As an aside, I’ll never understand why reporters ask questions they know can’t be answered. Is that really a probing question or is it an easy way to fill space, given that the reporter already knows the answer? In this case, questions about changes/new directions that the mayor might have in mind in these two departments could have provided more relevant information.
This story brings to mind the case of Stanley Dobies. While the Dobies case got a thread or two on the Tab blog, I don’t remember so much as his name being brought up on Village 14. To me, even the charges against Mr. Dobies seemed like a miscarriage of justice. Of course I long ago divorced myself from the notion that there is anything resembling “justice” in the American justice system. Nevertheless, I’m wondering why the charges against Mr. Dobies have gone so “under the radar,” and not received much [if any] attention here on Village 14.
A Globe story briefly touched on the two staff exits as well.
Off Topic: Instead of charging people for more modulars, why didn’t we just build zervas, cabot and angier a little bit bigger then redistrict enough kids to make sure that we dont need modulars and to handle the extra kids coming into the system within the next few years. OR did we do that and we just need the temporary space?