Check out those bold letters at the end. Yeah, needless to say TV stations didn’t look to kindly on that one. You can see the result on Channel 7 tonight if anyone reads this in the next ten minutes.
Personally, it struck me as though the whole situation was handled very poorly. But Immel mentioned that the City of Wausau really doesn’t have a game plan in place if something like this ever happens, which is something they need to look into.
I want to commend the Channel 7 crew tonight. I got a chance to see the news for the first time in a while.
Some dude named Erik got all up in their business journalistically.
I commend Jeff Thelen for taking a stand, and calling the mayor.
I find this process to be a further example of how this was botched. It absolutely calls into question everything that was said.
A man that was chosen without City Council approval or involvement, refuses to make his report on camera, but apparently is willing to answer questions on camera.
Again, Mr. Morrissey was back at work, BEFORE this report was submited to the city staff.
I say again, Mr. Morrissey was back at work BEFORE this report was submitted to the city.
I have no issue with Morrissey or Kristen, but the fact is this process is rife with issues.
I will point out one, Mr. Morrissey is a senior staff member. He is directly supervised by the HR Supervisor/City Attorney.
If there is a finding of fault, it reflects badly Mr. Morrisseys supervisor.
Then, Mr. Nagle apparently selected Mr. Immel to do the investigation. Mr Immel is also not the issue.
The HR Committee was not involved in the decision that directly involved HR Matters at the level of city government.
With all this hoopla, for me it’s sort of like going to a World Cup soccer game (not that I ever have) … but you don’t know jack (that is, I don’t) about the players without a program. Is there anywhere a handy-dandy civic organizational chart that clearly shows who reports to whom, who was elected vs who was appointed, who is in charge of what elements of governance, management and policy, whose permission is needed to do this and that, etc.? Because I am woefully ill-informed on this structure, sometimes I’m not sure if I should be mad about something or if so, at whom.
Thanks for the props, Dino. I’d like to think that since Sue took over as the news director at the station that the kid gloves have come off and real journalism is making a come back.
My primary problem with this whole thing is the way it was handled. Not the issue. I could care less if Mike and Kristen are in love. Is that the issue?
Not for me.
The issue is the selection of a investigator who was not tasked to look at the Jasurda claim. You can read what he said in the Wausau Daily Herald. His task was to investigate if the relationship betweeon Mike and Kristen was innappropriate.
Well, the claim is not about that! Jasurda is not accusing him of dating.
So we are here then…
1. Mr. Rosenberg and Mr Nagle have both stated that the insurance company is performing its own investigation in regards to the claim regarding Jasurda. That seems right suddenly after it was explained to me.
2. Immel is brought in, without HR approval (well wait there is the Nagle HR thing), the HR Committee. He is tasked with an investigation that was not given to the city council. His results were not made public. He was paid 100 bucks and hour, for a bunch of hours (though no bill has been submitted) to NOT INVESTIGATE the claim against the city.
I hate to cry foul, as I like Mayor Tipple, and I think Mr Nagle is a brilliant man.
But, how was anything accomplished here? Mr. Morrissey has not been cleared in the Jasurda incident. Was that not what he was suspended for?
I am the first to say that this is a city in the middle of growing pains. But I find this sort of accidental deception to be such a negative force that we have nothing else to talk about.
Over and over again.
Citizen Wausau has asked for a public departmental flow chart for city employees. I emailed the mayor this evening.
It is fair to assume that this is a public document, and should be readily available to anyone who asks for it.
I seriously want to get back to writing about anything other than this.
I seem to recall that when the Mayor announced the suspension, he was asked why, and he said something along the lines of “for many reasons.” He did not explain further. Now, those reasons have come down to this one which has been officially deemed no problem. I expect there are many reasons that the “many reasons” weren’t that important to begin with. Or they were ironed out by other means. But we may not need to know what they were.
I agree with Dino in that I don’t much care about the personal lives of public officials … cripes, look at France. But, it’s dismaying to know official processes can be so murky at times. The recent Detroit mayor / aide ethics investigation was certainly sensational and cheesy, but it was conducted above-board and in the open. They even allowed cameras.
Maybe in our city, the scope of any future dealings of this sort will be more clearly defined and the process more visible. But, perhaps most important, the “rules of the game” here need to be formalized and communicated to all city staff to reflect the realities of a town growing out of its insular, small-town past and into its growing stature as one of the state’s major communities. We need to be as sophisticated as possible to compete in the marketplace.
Dino: I can’t cry foul or not on a public forum because of my employer, I can only give the facts and give an opinion similar to what we present on air. Believe me, this has made my life terribly vanilla on-line since I’m huge political junkie.
I can give what I uncovered as a process of my job, although I won’t reveal one of my sources because I want them to keep giving me information. They told me that Mr. Immel was hired to look into some of the allegations made by Ms. Jasurda: the hostile work environment, the promotion of Ms. Fish, abuse of city credit cards and abuse of cell phones.
And Mr. Immel did do that. He found no wrong doing on those four issues according to his investigation. It is important to realize a coupe of things about Mr. Immel: he has a big government background working in a similar capacity in the militar for years, he is good friends with one of the cit council members and lastly he never attempted to contact Ms. Jasurda or her defense teams.
Dino: You are correct, he looked into the relationship so far as to see when it existed and how it effected the claims of a hostile work environment and the promotion of Ms. Fish. He found that neither were effected and that the two did nothing wrong according to the current rules in place at the city.
I’m glad Katie gets to trumpet her opinions out and about. But I can’t have the integrity of my work compromised by a known public bias. When I covered the mayoral election I tried to cover both candidates equally and the last thing the station needs is cries from one camp that a known supporter of their opponent is at the station and skewing the coverage in that direction. This is not a new thing in journalism. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I’ll tell you sometime in person what I think, off the record.
What you must understand is that while Mr. Morrisey has been cleared of all wrong doing by Mr. Immel’s account, the city has not. The crux of Ms. Jarsuda’s argument is that Mr. Morrisey was allowed to pay back the city for a clerical error, the credit card charges on his trip to Washington D.C. Ms. Jarsurda is claiming sexual discrimination came in when she was not allowed to pay back the city for her personal use of a credit card because she is a woman, while Mr. Morrisey, obviously a man, was.
In a sense there are almost two entirely different investigations.
Then why was Mir Morrissey allowed to come back to work if he has not been cleared of the wrong doing?
He was, I suppose, the person that did not allow Jasurda to payback the CC issue.
Who made this decision to allow Morrissey to repay the CC issue, and who said Jasurda should be fired for hers?
Why is this being handled SO BADLY by the city?
Even for a small town, this is going really wrong.
I mean we have friend media in this city, and even Jeff Thelen is clearly upset about this.
Way to go Channel 7 for taking this on.
I challenge Channel 9 to raise there game. You have one of the great voices in town in Katie Rosenberg blogging for you. Let her write about this. Let that voice free.
“Who made this decision to allow Morrissey to repay the CC issue, and who said Jasurda should be fired for hers?”
This is by far one of the biggest question. As far as we know, unless my memory is failing me on this, it was Mr. Morrissey that fired Ms. Jasurda, but I do not know who reprimanded Mr. Morrissey.
But we won’t know a lot of this if the council keeps calling closed meetings to discuss it and then sending man out to talk to the public that refuses to be recorded.
And as far as “Why is this being handled SO BADLY by the city?” I would say it is because they (the city) have no policy for it. Not a single game plan. It’s like it’s never happened in the history of city (someone who has been here longer can maybe correct me on that one). Mr. Immel said that was a huge part of the problem with this whole ordeal.
-Phone calls from legislators about the Newsline 9 Political Blog… Check
-Interesting comments from around the county on the Newsline 9 Political Blog… Check
-Even more interesting emails about the Newsline 9 Political Blog…Check
-New blogger friends… Check
-Pseudo-insulting innuendo from the competition down the street about the Newsline 9 Political Blog… Check
As for skewing newscasts, please. Erik, you know as well as I do the dynamic of a newsroom. The Newsline 9 Political Blog is one thing and I wasn’t handpicked for that job for being vanilla. But acting as if we don’t have integrity down the street? Please. We have content-driven blogs, rather than personality-driven blogs.
If anyone has a topic they’d like to see on the Newsline 9 Political Blog, please, drop me a line. Lots of people do and they help me drive content. krosenberg at waow dot com or give me a call 842-9293
Whoa, whoa, I don’t believe I ever said there was no integrity down the street. I’ve had nothing but fun with the WOAW folks I’ve hung out with and I respect virtually all of you.
I think you’re reading something in my comments that was either unintended or ambiguous. I really do think it’s great that you can trumpet your opinions, that wasn’t sarcasm. As a blogger, I’m sure you’ve seen the contextless internet rear it’s ugly head.
And you guys have a great blog set-up over at your web-site. The WBA recognized you guys for that, and it was well deserved. I’m not one of those “my workplace is the best ever” type people. We’re all journalists and I’ve nothing but professional respect for all of you guys.
I think I might have started this. The night of the news conference my television was on Channel 7. Typically I flip back and forth, because I really like the work Katie does, and I just met Erik.
I am sorry.
I just happened to miss what Channel 9 did that night.
Alex said:
Quote:
“…both mayoral candidates mentioned that they enjoy Citizen Wausau and read it often. What does this mean for you?”
Jack shit it looks like.
April 29th, 2008 at 7:16 pm #
erik said:
Check out those bold letters at the end. Yeah, needless to say TV stations didn’t look to kindly on that one. You can see the result on Channel 7 tonight if anyone reads this in the next ten minutes.
Personally, it struck me as though the whole situation was handled very poorly. But Immel mentioned that the City of Wausau really doesn’t have a game plan in place if something like this ever happens, which is something they need to look into.
April 29th, 2008 at 8:53 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
I want to commend the Channel 7 crew tonight. I got a chance to see the news for the first time in a while.
Some dude named Erik got all up in their business journalistically.
I commend Jeff Thelen for taking a stand, and calling the mayor.
I find this process to be a further example of how this was botched. It absolutely calls into question everything that was said.
A man that was chosen without City Council approval or involvement, refuses to make his report on camera, but apparently is willing to answer questions on camera.
Again, Mr. Morrissey was back at work, BEFORE this report was submited to the city staff.
I say again, Mr. Morrissey was back at work BEFORE this report was submitted to the city.
I have no issue with Morrissey or Kristen, but the fact is this process is rife with issues.
I will point out one, Mr. Morrissey is a senior staff member. He is directly supervised by the HR Supervisor/City Attorney.
If there is a finding of fault, it reflects badly Mr. Morrisseys supervisor.
Then, Mr. Nagle apparently selected Mr. Immel to do the investigation. Mr Immel is also not the issue.
The HR Committee was not involved in the decision that directly involved HR Matters at the level of city government.
How is that possible?
April 29th, 2008 at 9:29 pm #
Tom Neal said:
With all this hoopla, for me it’s sort of like going to a World Cup soccer game (not that I ever have) … but you don’t know jack (that is, I don’t) about the players without a program. Is there anywhere a handy-dandy civic organizational chart that clearly shows who reports to whom, who was elected vs who was appointed, who is in charge of what elements of governance, management and policy, whose permission is needed to do this and that, etc.? Because I am woefully ill-informed on this structure, sometimes I’m not sure if I should be mad about something or if so, at whom.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:24 am #
erik said:
Thanks for the props, Dino. I’d like to think that since Sue took over as the news director at the station that the kid gloves have come off and real journalism is making a come back.
April 30th, 2008 at 5:42 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
Erik,
My primary problem with this whole thing is the way it was handled. Not the issue. I could care less if Mike and Kristen are in love. Is that the issue?
Not for me.
The issue is the selection of a investigator who was not tasked to look at the Jasurda claim. You can read what he said in the Wausau Daily Herald. His task was to investigate if the relationship betweeon Mike and Kristen was innappropriate.
Well, the claim is not about that! Jasurda is not accusing him of dating.
So we are here then…
1. Mr. Rosenberg and Mr Nagle have both stated that the insurance company is performing its own investigation in regards to the claim regarding Jasurda. That seems right suddenly after it was explained to me.
2. Immel is brought in, without HR approval (well wait there is the Nagle HR thing), the HR Committee. He is tasked with an investigation that was not given to the city council. His results were not made public. He was paid 100 bucks and hour, for a bunch of hours (though no bill has been submitted) to NOT INVESTIGATE the claim against the city.
I hate to cry foul, as I like Mayor Tipple, and I think Mr Nagle is a brilliant man.
But, how was anything accomplished here? Mr. Morrissey has not been cleared in the Jasurda incident. Was that not what he was suspended for?
I am the first to say that this is a city in the middle of growing pains. But I find this sort of accidental deception to be such a negative force that we have nothing else to talk about.
Over and over again.
Citizen Wausau has asked for a public departmental flow chart for city employees. I emailed the mayor this evening.
It is fair to assume that this is a public document, and should be readily available to anyone who asks for it.
I seriously want to get back to writing about anything other than this.
April 30th, 2008 at 9:46 pm #
Tom Neal said:
I seem to recall that when the Mayor announced the suspension, he was asked why, and he said something along the lines of “for many reasons.” He did not explain further. Now, those reasons have come down to this one which has been officially deemed no problem. I expect there are many reasons that the “many reasons” weren’t that important to begin with. Or they were ironed out by other means. But we may not need to know what they were.
I agree with Dino in that I don’t much care about the personal lives of public officials … cripes, look at France. But, it’s dismaying to know official processes can be so murky at times. The recent Detroit mayor / aide ethics investigation was certainly sensational and cheesy, but it was conducted above-board and in the open. They even allowed cameras.
Maybe in our city, the scope of any future dealings of this sort will be more clearly defined and the process more visible. But, perhaps most important, the “rules of the game” here need to be formalized and communicated to all city staff to reflect the realities of a town growing out of its insular, small-town past and into its growing stature as one of the state’s major communities. We need to be as sophisticated as possible to compete in the marketplace.
May 1st, 2008 at 7:00 am #
erik said:
Dino: I can’t cry foul or not on a public forum because of my employer, I can only give the facts and give an opinion similar to what we present on air. Believe me, this has made my life terribly vanilla on-line since I’m huge political junkie.
I can give what I uncovered as a process of my job, although I won’t reveal one of my sources because I want them to keep giving me information. They told me that Mr. Immel was hired to look into some of the allegations made by Ms. Jasurda: the hostile work environment, the promotion of Ms. Fish, abuse of city credit cards and abuse of cell phones.
And Mr. Immel did do that. He found no wrong doing on those four issues according to his investigation. It is important to realize a coupe of things about Mr. Immel: he has a big government background working in a similar capacity in the militar for years, he is good friends with one of the cit council members and lastly he never attempted to contact Ms. Jasurda or her defense teams.
I hope that helps.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:46 am #
Dino Corvino said:
Mr Immel is quoted in the Wausau Daily Herald to have been hired to look into the realtionship. And he found nothing bad.
As far as your source goes, I agree, protect them.
As far as your job goes, I think your job is best supported by having you be as vocal and as intelligent as you can be.
Look at Channel 9, and Katie Rosenberg. She is a huge writer, and a big voice, and her news show does not suffer I do not think.
He never spoke to Jasruda. Jasurda brought the claim. So Mr. Immel never even asked the person bringing the claim.
That does not help. That makes this even more incompetent.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:24 am #
erik said:
Dino: You are correct, he looked into the relationship so far as to see when it existed and how it effected the claims of a hostile work environment and the promotion of Ms. Fish. He found that neither were effected and that the two did nothing wrong according to the current rules in place at the city.
I’m glad Katie gets to trumpet her opinions out and about. But I can’t have the integrity of my work compromised by a known public bias. When I covered the mayoral election I tried to cover both candidates equally and the last thing the station needs is cries from one camp that a known supporter of their opponent is at the station and skewing the coverage in that direction. This is not a new thing in journalism. Is it a good thing or a bad thing? I’ll tell you sometime in person what I think, off the record.
What you must understand is that while Mr. Morrisey has been cleared of all wrong doing by Mr. Immel’s account, the city has not. The crux of Ms. Jarsuda’s argument is that Mr. Morrisey was allowed to pay back the city for a clerical error, the credit card charges on his trip to Washington D.C. Ms. Jarsurda is claiming sexual discrimination came in when she was not allowed to pay back the city for her personal use of a credit card because she is a woman, while Mr. Morrisey, obviously a man, was.
In a sense there are almost two entirely different investigations.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:07 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
Then why was Mir Morrissey allowed to come back to work if he has not been cleared of the wrong doing?
He was, I suppose, the person that did not allow Jasurda to payback the CC issue.
Who made this decision to allow Morrissey to repay the CC issue, and who said Jasurda should be fired for hers?
Why is this being handled SO BADLY by the city?
Even for a small town, this is going really wrong.
I mean we have friend media in this city, and even Jeff Thelen is clearly upset about this.
Way to go Channel 7 for taking this on.
I challenge Channel 9 to raise there game. You have one of the great voices in town in Katie Rosenberg blogging for you. Let her write about this. Let that voice free.
May 1st, 2008 at 12:20 pm #
erik said:
“Who made this decision to allow Morrissey to repay the CC issue, and who said Jasurda should be fired for hers?”
This is by far one of the biggest question. As far as we know, unless my memory is failing me on this, it was Mr. Morrissey that fired Ms. Jasurda, but I do not know who reprimanded Mr. Morrissey.
But we won’t know a lot of this if the council keeps calling closed meetings to discuss it and then sending man out to talk to the public that refuses to be recorded.
And as far as “Why is this being handled SO BADLY by the city?” I would say it is because they (the city) have no policy for it. Not a single game plan. It’s like it’s never happened in the history of city (someone who has been here longer can maybe correct me on that one). Mr. Immel said that was a huge part of the problem with this whole ordeal.
May 1st, 2008 at 2:37 pm #
Katie said:
-Phone calls from legislators about the Newsline 9 Political Blog… Check
-Interesting comments from around the county on the Newsline 9 Political Blog… Check
-Even more interesting emails about the Newsline 9 Political Blog…Check
-New blogger friends… Check
-Pseudo-insulting innuendo from the competition down the street about the Newsline 9 Political Blog… Check
Another satisfied customer.
Check it out for yourself:
http://www.waow.com/Blogs/political_blog.php
As for skewing newscasts, please. Erik, you know as well as I do the dynamic of a newsroom. The Newsline 9 Political Blog is one thing and I wasn’t handpicked for that job for being vanilla. But acting as if we don’t have integrity down the street? Please. We have content-driven blogs, rather than personality-driven blogs.
If anyone has a topic they’d like to see on the Newsline 9 Political Blog, please, drop me a line. Lots of people do and they help me drive content. krosenberg at waow dot com or give me a call 842-9293
May 1st, 2008 at 6:49 pm #
erik said:
Whoa, whoa, I don’t believe I ever said there was no integrity down the street. I’ve had nothing but fun with the WOAW folks I’ve hung out with and I respect virtually all of you.
I think you’re reading something in my comments that was either unintended or ambiguous. I really do think it’s great that you can trumpet your opinions, that wasn’t sarcasm. As a blogger, I’m sure you’ve seen the contextless internet rear it’s ugly head.
And you guys have a great blog set-up over at your web-site. The WBA recognized you guys for that, and it was well deserved. I’m not one of those “my workplace is the best ever” type people. We’re all journalists and I’ve nothing but professional respect for all of you guys.
Except Jack. Tell him to go to hell :D
May 1st, 2008 at 8:56 pm #
Dino Corvino said:
Okay then.
I think I might have started this. The night of the news conference my television was on Channel 7. Typically I flip back and forth, because I really like the work Katie does, and I just met Erik.
I am sorry.
I just happened to miss what Channel 9 did that night.
Sorry.
May 1st, 2008 at 10:54 pm #