March 10th, 2008 P. Jeffrey Black
As of March 10th, 2008 Ms. Hallstrom has not received a final decision from the EEOC Administrative Judge nor has she heard a final decision from Federal Division of Occupational Worker’s Compensation. Ms. Hallstrom is on medical leave without pay.
There have been additional EEO complaints filed against the managers in Ms. Hallstrom’s office by other Federal employees recently. You can read more of her story below.
December 9th, 2007,
To: Department of Labor, Federal OWCP Division
From: Tracy Hallstrom, Claim # 132183400
To whom it may concern;
My nameTracy Hallstrom. I have been employed with the Department of Interior-Bureau of Land Management, Redding, California Field office since December 1999. I work in Administration and Public Contact.
On May 9, 2005 as Class Agent representing 100% females in our office, filed an EEO Class complaint against our Field office manager case #LLM-05-030 alleging Gender Discrimination and Hostile Harassment work environment.
On May 31, 2005 myself and another employee filed individual complaints with the basis of reprisal and discrimination, case #BLM-05-0440.
On September 21, 2005 the Class complaint became individual consolidated complaints where as my case# was BLM-05-0390.
On June 2, 2005 myself and others filed individual whistleblower disclosures with the Office of Special Counsel and the Department of Interior-Office of Inspector General in Washington DC disclosing waste, fraud, abuse, Contract fraud, misappropriations of the French fire monies including other allegations as well as prohibited personnel practices.
Since filing protected activity, I have been reprized against and bullied by managers and supervisors in my office on a regular basis. I have had to seek counseling from a therapist to help me deal with the hostile work environment and the undue stress that has been placed upon me since filing. I have had to use all of my annual and sick leave due to declining health from my work environment and have used hundreds of hours of leave without pay.
My EEOC Hearing was April 24, 2007 and the AJ had 180 days to reach a final decision on my case.
It is now December 9, 2007 and still no decision which has increased the hostile work environment and my stress. I have been taken off work numerous of times for work stress related illnesses and even at the advice of my treating doctors and therapist advising me to quit. I was reprised against two weeks ago on November 26th and again on the 27th.
In the early hours of the 28th, I woke up with severe chest pains and found myself in the Emergency room being admitted for having a possible mild heart attack. I was fortunate that I had passed a stress test the next day and there were no signs of damage to my heart.
It was at that point I decided to take the advice of all the doctors, nursing staff and apply for Occupational Stress because I can no longer handle the stress working in a hostile work environment. It has affected my health in the negative.
I am the sole caregiver for my elderly parents as well. They are 80 and 90 years old and my stress from my work environment has affected the care that I give my parents because I have been ill as well because of my work situation.
Had the BLM State Director Mike Pool and his Associate State Director Jim Abbott stepped in when I emailed them on numerous occasions to put a stop to the harassment, retaliation, and made reasonable accommodations for me several months ago, I wouldn’t be ill as I am now.
My hearing transcripts will prove that I have been reprised against and that because the BLM didn’t take my allegations of depression and stress from my work environment seriously it has caused me to become ill and that I can no longer work in the BLM Redding field office.
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Posted in Equal Employment Opportunity, Federal Government Whistleblower, Government Accountability Project, Government Corruption, OSC, Office of Personnel Management, PEER, Project on Government Oversight, Scott Bloch | 1 Comment »
March 9th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Pick your crisis: real estate, the economy, the Mideast, the Democrats’ supply of Rolaids, or figuring out how the women in “10000 B.C.” managed to score all that Maybelline. Uncle Jay explains it all!
Posted in Uncle Jay Explains the News | No Comments »
March 7th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
Office of Special Counsel “Pre Closure Letter” on Dr. Richard von Sternberg.
Another Federal employee who was a protected Federal Whistleblower and was let down by the Office of Special Counsel, even though the OSC found retaliation in his complaints.
Posted in Government Corruption, OSC, Scott Bloch | No Comments »
February 19th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
It’s President’s Day, in a presidential election year! Now more than ever, every American should know exactly what a president’s responsibilities are. Uncle Jay hopes that you learn about it somewhere, because this episode only helps a little.
Posted in Federal Government Whistleblower, Government Corruption, Uncle Jay Explains the News | No Comments »
February 18th, 2008 Joe Carson
February 18, 2008
Editorial
I recently filed a motion with the US Court of Appeals for DC Circuit, the Court cited in the NY TIMES editorial below, requesting it refer OSC attorneys responsible for OSC’s lawbreaking failure to protect me to their licensing board for misconduct investigations. This is based on OSC’s now uncontested failure to comply with aspects of its statutory duty to protect me, as determined by a decision of Federal District Court, which OSC is neither appealing nor taking action to correct. If OSC attorneys complied with their duties to protect concerned federal employees in EPA, perhaps EPA would not write such contrary to law regulations.
*******************************************************************
NY TIMES
Editorial, Feb 18, 2008
Judicial Rebukes on Clean Air
The federal courts have been a bulwark against
the Bush administration’s relentless efforts to
weaken 40 years’ worth of environmental law,
including statutes protecting the nation’s
forests, wetlands and endangered species. The
courts have been especially important in
resisting the administration’s assault on the
1970 Clean Air Act, which began with Vice
President Dick Cheney’s 2001 energy report and continues to this day.
In 2006 and 2007, the United States Court of
Appeals for the District of Columbia and the
Supreme Court ordered the Environmental
Protection Agency to follow the law and require
utilities to install pollution controls when
upgrading power plants. Another Supreme Court
decision last year held that the Clean Air Act
required the E.P.A. to regulate greenhouse gas
emissions from automobiles, an obligation the agency continues to duck.
This month, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the
E.P.A. had once again ignored the law by failing
to require deep and timely reductions in mercury
emissions from coal-fired power plants. Like most
clean air cases, this one was mind-numbingly
complex. The gist of it was that the E.P.A.
seeking as usual to please industry had
approved a weak set of regulations that would let
many plants off the hook for emissions reductions
that would be required under any honest reading of the law.
The D.C. Circuit, by no means a radical group of
judges, has become so exasperated that it has
taken to quoting Lewis Carroll. In 2006, in a
reference to “Through the Looking Glass,” the
court said that the E.P.A.’s reading of the law
would make sense “only in a Humpty Dumpty world.”
This month, invoking “Alice in Wonderland,” the
court said the agency’s reasoning recalled “the
logic of the Queen of Hearts, substituting the
E.P.A.’s desires for the plain text” of the law.
Desire still burns bright at the E.P.A., which
reportedly intends to make one last-ditch effort
to weaken the rules requiring new pollution
controls on upgraded plants. Our advice to the
agency would be to take a dispassionate look at
its losing streak in the federal courts and, for once, leave the law alone.
Posted in Federal Government Whistleblower, Government Corruption, OSC, Scott Bloch | No Comments »
February 16th, 2008 P. Jeffrey Black
By Beth Daley
February 15, 2008
Two weeks ago, U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch accused the Department of Justice (DOJ) of blocking his supposed investigations into the U.S. attorney firings when DOJ’s Inspector General asked Bloch to defer his review until they had completed their own investigation. At the time, the dueling investigations argument didn’t pass muster with Bloch’s office. But that same defense was good enough for Bloch to use in his own defense last week in a letter to House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman and Ranking Member Tom Davis.
The Committee wants to question Bloch about his seven-level wipe of computers at his office. That may have been an effort to cover up wrongdoing or obstruct an investigation into Bloch himself, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Bloch has canceled scheduled interviews with the Committee twice.
According to Bloch’s letter last week:
This letter is in response to your letter of January 16, 2008 regarding the Committee’s request for a transcribed interview of me. I continue to have substantial concerns about the Committee’s request because any such interview may touch on a matter that remains under investigation by the Office of Personnel Management (”OPM”).
That sounds familiar. According to the Washington Post a few weeks back:
[DOJ Inspector General Glenn] Fine’s office generally does not comment on investigations, but Cynthia Schnedar, a spokeswoman for the inspector general, rejected Bloch’s letter as “both factually inaccurate and misleading.”
She added: “We agree with the Department of Justice that the more responsible course would be for Mr. Bloch to postpone his limited review–as OSC has stated that it has done in other instances–so that it does not interfere with the Office of the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility’s comprehensive joint investigation into the U.S. Attorney firings.”
James P. Mitchell, a spokesman for Bloch, challenged Fine’s office to explain the alleged inaccuracies in detail. “We have our jurisdiction,” he said. “We have always said we will not be interfering with this investigation.”
Looming in the background are questions as well about whether Bloch perjured himself when he testified before the Committee’s Subcommittee on Federal Workforce, Postal Service, and the District of Columbia. Members of Congress questioned Mr. Bloch at the hearing about the circumstances surrounding the leak of an Office of Special Counsel report chastising GSA Administrator Lurita Doan. Sources say Bloch lied when he claimed he knew nothing about the leak of the report, and that he, in fact, may have directed that it be leaked in order to bask in the media spotlight.
Sources also raise questions about whether Bloch’s supposed investigation of the U.S. attorney firings at DOJ is even within OSC’s jurisdiction, whether he is being disingenuous in claiming to be actively investigating Karl Rove, or whether Bloch is simply using every last trick in the book, from seven level security wipes to phony high profile investigations, to save his own hide.
http://pogoblog.typepad.com/pogo/2008/02/blochs-double-s.html
Posted in Equal Employment Opportunity, Government Accountability Project, Government Corruption, OSC, OSC Watch, Office of Personnel Management, PEER, Project on Government Oversight, Scott Bloch | No Comments »
February 15th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Friday, February 15, 2008
A U.S. appeals court ordered a federal merit board yesterday to consider whether former Park Police chief Teresa C. Chambers was unfairly targeted as a whistleblower when she was fired in 2004.
Chambers was ousted after telling The Washington Post that her police force was strained by providing stepped-up protection for national monuments after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, in addition to its work patrolling parks and highways.
A federal civil service merit board upheld her removal in 2006. Chambers then took her case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
In its decision yesterday, the court upheld the merit board’s findings of several charges of misconduct against Chambers. It also said that removing her from her job was “a reasonable penalty” for such actions as failing to follow the chain of command.
But it also ruled that the merit board had erred in deciding that the Whistleblower Protection Act didn’t apply to her case and sent it back for reconsideration. The appeals court said that the merit board must consider a broader standard, reviewing the public safety issues Chambers raised with the media as well as her disagreements with Park Police budget policy. Chambers contends she was protected as a whistle-blower for flagging dangers.
“While Chambers certainly expressed a disagreement with a policy decision, she also potentially disclosed a danger to public safety that may have resulted from that decision,” the decision said.
Chambers said she was heartened by the decision, although it wasn’t a reversal of the Merit Systems Protection Board’s ruling.
“I think it’s critical for all of us that our federal employees can have some measure of protection when they speak out about issues that affect our safety,” she said.
A National Park Service spokesman, Dave Barna, declined to comment, saying the matter involved a personnel issue in litigation.
Chambers, the first woman to head the Park Police, led the force from February 2002 until she was suspended in December 2003 and subsequently fired. She recently became police chief in Riverdale Park in Prince George’s County.
A recent report by the Interior Department’s inspector general said the Park Police is still plagued by some of the problems Chambers highlighted.
Staff researcher Meg Smith contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/14/AR2008021403431_pf.html
Posted in OSC Watch | No Comments »
January 30th, 2008 Traci Hallstrom
January 29th, 2008
WASHINGTON — The head of a federal inquiry into the firings of eight U.S. attorneys claims the Justice Department has impeded his investigation.
In a letter sent to Attorney General Michael Mukasey last week, Office of Special Counsel chief Scott J. Bloch said the department has thrown up roadblocks that hindered his investigation.
Specifically, Bloch said, the department’s inspector general and office of legal counsel asked him to step aside until internal investigations are finished.
But that could take months, Bloch wrote, effectively pushing his agency’s role “into the very last months of the administration when there is little hope of any corrective measures or discipline possible.”
The Office of Special Counsel is a small, independent federal agency charged with protecting the rights of federal workers and ensuring that government whistle-blowers aren’t subject to reprisal.
Bloch also complained that his attempts to meet with White House Counsel Fred Fielding to discuss the investigation have been rebuffed. The White House did not immediately return phone and e-mail messages seeking comment Tuesday.
The firings of eight U.S. attorneys provoked a backlash on Capitol Hill last year, where lawmakers questioned whether the moves were politically motivated. That undermined the position of Alberto Gonzales, who wound up resigning as attorney general. (A ninth U.S. attorney, Todd Graves in Missouri, said he was forced out).
Bloch’s letter was first reported Tuesday by the Los Angeles Times and MinnPost.com, an online Minnesota news site.
Bloch also complains about the investigation into the performance of Rachel Paulose, who recently stepped down as U.S. attorney for Minnesota amid complaints about her management style, to take a job with the department’s Office of Legal Policy.
He referenced a letter he had sent to Mukasey on Nov. 19 — the same day that Paulose announced her resignation — in which Bloch concluded that there is a “substantial likelihood that U.S. Attorney Paulose has grossly mismanaged” the U.S. attorney’s office “and has engaged in abuses of her authority” in that job.
Bloch’s agency had referred allegations about Paulose to the inspector general’s office, but the office told him by telephone in October that it had “asked around” and wasn’t planning to do anything.
Then in December, according to Bloch, Associate Deputy Attorney General David Margolis wrote to him, demanding a retraction from Bloch’s “substantial likelihood” finding. That finding was based on allegations made by John Marti, who resigned from his management post as first assistant U.S. Attorney under Paulose.
Bloch bluntly asks Mukasey: “Are you requesting that I report to the president that you refuse to investigate disclosures of wrongdoing made by a career federal prosecutor, an employee of your agency?”
The department’s behavior, Bloch claims, “reveals a disturbing pattern of disregard for the authority of my office.”
In an e-mail, Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said, “We are reviewing the letter and will respond to Mr. Bloch as appropriate.”
Mukasey is scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, his first oversight hearing since becoming attorney general.
Bloch himself is under federal investigation for alleged misconduct.
In 2005, a group of current and former Special Counsel employees filed a complaint against him, claiming he retaliated against those who disagreed with his policies through intimidation and involuntary transfers. The Office of Personnel Management is investigating.
Posted in OSC Watch | 1 Comment »
