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Casting himself as wrongly-accused whistleblower, Polk County government’s traffic engineer sent a long, angry e-mail Wednesday morning to the entire county government e-mail network.
The three-page letter, written a day after supervisors recommended Ghassan Zebdaoui’s firing, blasts County Manager Mike Herr and his administration. Zebdaoui’s most far-reaching allegation is that Herr and top administrators have gone easy on industrial development projects, downplaying their traffic impacts in the hope of building tax base for the government.
Zebdaoui said superiors had instructed him on more than one occasion to withhold comment about the potential impacts of projects on Polk roads.
Herr denied that his staff ever muzzled Zebdaoui. “There’s not a person on our staff who would do that.”
Zebdaoui also criticized the county’s use of consultants and what he considers excessive compensation for certain top level employees. And he urged other county employees to e-mail him their stories.
Zebdaoui, who says he’s been at odds with county administrators for several weeks, has been Polk’s traffic engineer for four years. In that capacity, he reviews traffic studies submitted by developers of large projects and analyzes their impacts on the county’s roads and traffic management systems. He also provides traffic studies for county building projects.
Zebdaoui’s supervisors decided to fire him Tuesday, pending a hearing process, based on alleged disruptive behavior, violations of the chain of command and alleged discrepancies in his employment application, Zebdaoui and Herr said. Zebdaoui dismisses those charges as reprisals for his ongoing criticism of management.
Herr declined to address the merits of the case against Zebdaoui, saying that he might have to make to final call on whether to fire the traffic engineer. For now, Zebdaoui is on paid administrative leave.
Zebdaoui sent his e-mail from home through the county’s system at 7:07 a.m. At 7:26 a.m., a second e-mail was sent from his account asking that the earlier e-mail be recalled. During a phone interview, Zebdaoui attributed the second e-mail to county officials, who he said have now locked him out of his e-mail account.
Herr could not confirm or deny that.
I believe him about this stuff. This is the same county that hired a consultant to assess and make recommendations on the 911 system, then hired him to implement his recommendations and maintain the resulting system. Check out Arthur Krause.
Can we say conflict of interest??
I contacted Zebdaoui yesterday and asked if he would forward his email to me, after I got wind that it was circulating. I find it interesting that you blogged about it. After reading his lengthy list of allegations, I feared touching the topic with a 10-foot pole. You did a nice job of getting to the heart of the matter, however. It will be quite interesting to see if any of the allegations pan out.
This isn’t the whole email. Can you print the entire thing?
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Posted by Jim Seymour, Polk City on 02/01 at 12:48 PM
There are many people in Polk County government that do not have the proper education for the job they have, and many employes that have more quailifactions than the people directing them. This is wrong, but with who we have overseeing the hen house what do you think will happen. Mr Herr got himself a 24% increase in pay and the rest got nothing. How about amendmet 1 It is up to the people to make the change. Stand up and be heard