2007-07-11 Board of Ethics Minutes Regular Session

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Chair: This is what I am looking at here. Strauss: It is not that exhibit. Chair: It's not. Strauss: It is not here, let me go back here for the record. Hale: Yes, that is part of Exhibit 19. Chair: Thank you for clarifying that. Now, to continue with the questioning. I don't think you answered my original question, in that how people were doing her personal work for her in the office, but allow me to get back to that. You said in April, because of the tax deadline, there was a lot of scurrying going on in the office, and you had already fallen out of favor. But that is hard for me to comprehend when on April 23'd, your boss gave you a letter with glowing remarks and saying that you get a pay raise. So how did you feel you were falling out of favor? Hale: Well, that came up —was exactly April 23'd when Emily called. Actually, we were in her office with Gwen, in her particular office, and she brought up the fact that we worked so hard. And I was a bit disturbed that day, because there was a lot of additional granting favors, whispering. It was going on for weeks. On that particular day when she asked, told us actually, she didn't ask us, she told that she was going to ask for a step -up raise, I responded with why? Because we haven't done anything terrific, we were learning the process. Her answer was that she was going to give both Gwen and I a raise. I distinctly said, why Gwen? She's not able to type more than ten words, and that's okay, but when we need to type, we need to type, we need to make deadlines. She's not able to compose a letter, she does a lot of other things but work. Emily's reply was, "Well how many people do all these things for me, my personal things for me ?" I looked at her and I said it really looks like a Mancho case to me. I said, Emily, we don't deserve a raise. We haven't learned the process yet and we have a community that is waiting for us to do something. We can't be asking for a raise. We already, I thought, were paid pretty nice. We have a situation here that people depend on us, we cannot be getting raises for jobs we cannot do. I was surprised when the letter arrived, and it arrived on time as far as I was concerned. I didn't know that I was going to be let go from the job after I was praised. I was praised in the letter, but I never was praised in the workplace. It was a difficult thing. The first thing I thought was to give, as a good way to give Gwen a raise. Then the blog comes out that they both was dissatisfied with my work. Now, how would they know what my work is? I carried both of their work. I have the experience in the office, I was fine. But to have learned this from the blog, from Hunter Bishop, very early in the morning, was very difficult to take. But coming back, the morning that he told me, this was May 71h, the one thing that saved me from embarrassment was the letter that I was not expecting. That letter I learned was typed by Maxine Pacheco, who works in the Legislature Auditor Office. I called her to find out who might be writing this 17