ANNAPOLIS -- Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., administration officials ... released documents from and about Michelle Lane, a former executive planning director at the Department of Human Resources, who was fired in June. The documents accuse the Ehrlich administration of mishandling the child welfare system and link efforts by Joseph F. Steffen and Craig Chesek to target state workers for termination.
[...]
Lane's message includes a copy of her exchange with the now-fired Steffen, in which he wrote of discussions with Chesek about firings and hirings. Chesek, a onetime Ehrlich congressional aide, was assigned to the Public Service Commission and has been linked to Steffen as someone sent to the agency to fire people. Steffen noted in one message to Lane that he would be staying away from Annapolis for a while in order to establish "plausible deniability" about his actions.
The other document released Thursday is a letter from Gil Genn, a former Montgomery County Democratic delegate, to the governor. The letter, dated July 13, complains about Lane's termination and includes three pages of problems within the child welfare system that Lane claims to have tried to alert the administration about, only to be ignored.
Genn said Thursday that he stands by his letter and has never engaged in any effort to undermine the administration. He said he met Lane at a Republican fund-raiser in Towson in early 2004, where she told him of her concerns about the child welfare system. In his letter, Genn charges that the Department of Human Resources was failing to provide adequate health care for foster children in Baltimore. The letter assails an arrangement between the Ehrlich administration and a health care contractor as improper, inadequate and apparently political.
"This does not meet the smell test," Genn wrote, adding later that Lane "was terminated because she knew too much about the systemic problems" in the department and spoke out to correct them.
Ehrlich said he read the letter because it came from a former legislator, but did not act on Genn's complaints. "I just passed it on."
[...]
Lane, who moved to a director's position at the Office of Children, Youth and Families before being fired in mid-2004, had worked in Ehrlich's congressional office as a health care policy fellow for several months before joining the governor's transition team. She is a registered nurse and teaches nursing at a public university.
"The governor doesn't understand the legal definition of blackmail," said Lane's attorney, Daniel M. Clements, to whom she directed questions on Thursday. "He's violated a lot of employees' legal rights without caring. She sent that e-mail because the administration was attempting to have her fired from her present position -- but it was not blackmail."
[...]
Ehrlich has vehemently denied having close ties to Steffen.
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"Michelle has had zero involvement with anybody in the Democratic Party or any Democratic elected official for the purpose of having a concerted effort to disclose this information," Clements said. "But who cares why the public now knows that the administration has treated employees despicably? The governor's only defense is to say, 'Oh, she did it.' Well, she didn't fire anyone. ...
"The truth was, as she described it, the state was not acting appropriately to protect the children under their care," he said. "When she brought that to the attention to the administration, their response was, 'We don't want to hear the truth. You're fired.'"
The administration is trying to find excuses by talking of orchestration by Democrats, said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis. "Please, look, this is a question where somebody was caught in an act and they are trying to blame everybody else for their own shortcomings," he said. Instead, the memos reinforce concerns about Ehrlich systematically firing of state workers, Busch said.
"I think it gives more credence to the fact that there was an orchestrated move by Joe Steffen, directed by the governor's office, to infiltrate agencies to identify people who are not loyal for termination," he said. Busch charged several Ehrlich staffers, including Steffen, Chesek and ice dancer Greg Maddalone, with being self-described "trenchcoat guys" who forwarded names of people to fire to the governor's office. The idea that Ehrlich did not know Lane, a former intern in his congressional office and a member of his transition team, is laughable, he said.
Ehrlich aides allege smear campaign by Catherine Dolinski and Thomas Dennison, Gazette.net Mar. 25, 2005 [Complete Article]
[...]
Lane's message includes a copy of her exchange with the now-fired Steffen, in which he wrote of discussions with Chesek about firings and hirings. Chesek, a onetime Ehrlich congressional aide, was assigned to the Public Service Commission and has been linked to Steffen as someone sent to the agency to fire people. Steffen noted in one message to Lane that he would be staying away from Annapolis for a while in order to establish "plausible deniability" about his actions.
The other document released Thursday is a letter from Gil Genn, a former Montgomery County Democratic delegate, to the governor. The letter, dated July 13, complains about Lane's termination and includes three pages of problems within the child welfare system that Lane claims to have tried to alert the administration about, only to be ignored.
Genn said Thursday that he stands by his letter and has never engaged in any effort to undermine the administration. He said he met Lane at a Republican fund-raiser in Towson in early 2004, where she told him of her concerns about the child welfare system. In his letter, Genn charges that the Department of Human Resources was failing to provide adequate health care for foster children in Baltimore. The letter assails an arrangement between the Ehrlich administration and a health care contractor as improper, inadequate and apparently political.
"This does not meet the smell test," Genn wrote, adding later that Lane "was terminated because she knew too much about the systemic problems" in the department and spoke out to correct them.
Ehrlich said he read the letter because it came from a former legislator, but did not act on Genn's complaints. "I just passed it on."
[...]
Lane, who moved to a director's position at the Office of Children, Youth and Families before being fired in mid-2004, had worked in Ehrlich's congressional office as a health care policy fellow for several months before joining the governor's transition team. She is a registered nurse and teaches nursing at a public university.
"The governor doesn't understand the legal definition of blackmail," said Lane's attorney, Daniel M. Clements, to whom she directed questions on Thursday. "He's violated a lot of employees' legal rights without caring. She sent that e-mail because the administration was attempting to have her fired from her present position -- but it was not blackmail."
[...]
Ehrlich has vehemently denied having close ties to Steffen.
[...]
"Michelle has had zero involvement with anybody in the Democratic Party or any Democratic elected official for the purpose of having a concerted effort to disclose this information," Clements said. "But who cares why the public now knows that the administration has treated employees despicably? The governor's only defense is to say, 'Oh, she did it.' Well, she didn't fire anyone. ...
"The truth was, as she described it, the state was not acting appropriately to protect the children under their care," he said. "When she brought that to the attention to the administration, their response was, 'We don't want to hear the truth. You're fired.'"
The administration is trying to find excuses by talking of orchestration by Democrats, said House Speaker Michael E. Busch (D-Dist. 30) of Annapolis. "Please, look, this is a question where somebody was caught in an act and they are trying to blame everybody else for their own shortcomings," he said. Instead, the memos reinforce concerns about Ehrlich systematically firing of state workers, Busch said.
"I think it gives more credence to the fact that there was an orchestrated move by Joe Steffen, directed by the governor's office, to infiltrate agencies to identify people who are not loyal for termination," he said. Busch charged several Ehrlich staffers, including Steffen, Chesek and ice dancer Greg Maddalone, with being self-described "trenchcoat guys" who forwarded names of people to fire to the governor's office. The idea that Ehrlich did not know Lane, a former intern in his congressional office and a member of his transition team, is laughable, he said.
Ehrlich aides allege smear campaign by Catherine Dolinski and Thomas Dennison, Gazette.net Mar. 25, 2005 [Complete Article]
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