(Part II)
Part II
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Don,
I would like to provide you with information you may not be aware of concerning the Sunstate investigation. I am very concerned that City Council may not have receive all the facts and in my opinion Mr. Kelton’s report may be bias. As you will see in my email below to HR and the 4 page document I attached with facts about the investigation it is self evident Mr. Kelton had no intention of gathering all the facts. Also, I have an email to the Assistant City Manager with my concern with the Finance Director when he instructed me to change my initial summary of what happened with Sunstate before the DF went to council. The reason I brought it to the Assistant City Manger attention is because the Finance Director instructed me to remove language where I referenced a policy violation by Public Utilities and I felt it was wrong. The Finance Director informed me he did not want to place blame on a department and he was only concerned if purchasing followed policy or not. From and ethics standpoint it bothers me that only bits and pieces are provided Council when there is additional information that is available from middle managers like me, who actually perform the work. I will also send you and email from me to the Finance Director showing how the purchasing division has been half staffed for a year now and is completely overloaded with projects. I asked for guidance from the Finance Director and received no reply. Also, the Finance Director would not approve any temporary assistance so the burden was on me to handle 6 months of additional work with no assistance. I highly suggest Council inquire to the City Manager about the new Buyer the Finance Director hired as she has no purchasing experience. The City of Port Orange does have caring and dedicated employees like myself who want to do the right thing and take pride in what we do for the City. I was asked to come back to work for the City of Port Orange over a year ago which says a lot about my work ethic. Port Orange, it’s where my kids go to school, where my entire family lives, it’s where I volunteered 4 years giving countless hours with the Port Orange Police VIP program and where I worked and took pride in what I accomplished. What is heart braking is that it became obvious to me that doing the right thing, especially if it uncovers actions of upper management and a investigator who may be bias caused a good employee with a wealth of knowledge and dedication to the community to leave. I hope in the future staff and middle managers will be applauded to uncover issues in order to prevent them form happening again and not shown the exit door.
Thank you for your time. If I can be of any assistance please feel free to contact me.
Tom Cinefro
On Tuesday, June 10, 2014 2:18 PM, “Cinefro, Tom” <tcinefro@port-orange.org> wrote:
From: Cinefro, Tom
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 2:18 PM
To: Steinebach, Donna
Subject: Sunstate interview
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2014 2:18 PM
To: Steinebach, Donna
Subject: Sunstate interview
Donna,
During my interview last Friday concerning the Sunstate investigation I tried submitting a 4 page memo and supporting documents directly to Mr. Kelton, the lead investigator. Mr. Kelton immediately refused and continued to refuse my documented 4 page memo of facts and large volume of supporting documents regarding the Sunstate investigation. It was only after I pressed the issue, that Mr. Kelton agreed to accept only the 4 page memo. Mr. Kelton did not accept the supporting documents.
Regardless if I submitted 4 or 500 pages the investigator should accept and review any and all documents provided. By refusing documents, Mr. Kelton’s actions make it appear his investigation could be bias. This certainly questions the City’s ability to facilitate a fair, well documented and thorough investigation. A qualified investigator considers all facts, written or verbal as part of the interview process in order to make a proper determination.
Thankfully, you (the City’s HR Department) believed the supporting documents were important to the investigation and accepted my copies. Otherwise, there would be no record of the documents as part of the investigation. HR did not receive a copy of the 4 page memo, only the supporting documents so I attached a copy for your records as part of the investigation.
The City should require Mr. Kelton to accept and review all documents submitted by City staff interviewed as part of his investigation.
Thank you,
Tom Cinefro
Purchasing Manager
City of Port Orange
1000 City Center Circle
Port Orange, FL 32129
[gview file=”Tom Cinefro sunstate facts.pdf”]
This is beyond my comprehension and so very, very disturbing. Here is a guy who lives in the city, works for the city, has kids in school in the city, volunteers for the city and was rehired by the city, being railroaded out of a jpb which he obviously needs to support his family by the lies and deceitful activity of two interlopers who obviously couldn’t care less what happens to loyal employees. If Don Burnette has any aspirations of being the Mayor one day he should stand up and be counted and not let Kisela and Saunders get away with this kind of stuff. Not to mention that from what I can see this fellow Tom has pretty credible grounds for a lawsuit.
They say the truth will set you free. I guess in this case it set Tom free from his job. Telling the truth got me in trouble When I worked there. If you don’t lie and play their game they don’t need you. I can relate to this situation and I feel bad for Tom. My boss used to threaten to fire me when I spoke the truth. He was just waiting for me to screw up so he could make good on his threats. They got tired of waiting for me to screw up so they changed the plan. Knowing that I had health problems they turned up the pressure and made my life a living hell until my health failed. So I had to resign.
Management does not want the truth and they damn sure don’t care if they ruin lives and careers. It looks like the city is being run by manipulative narcissistic liars. Is this BS acceptable to council?
Now Kisela is running Public Utilities. Hundreds of emails pass through Public Utilities each and every day. Has he instructed Public Utilities Management Staff to NOT communicate or include him in email chains. ABSOLUTELY! The transparency of a block wall. What is there to hide? If the CM’S read file had a working spam filter it would be empty. Council you are not only embarrassing yourselves but also the dedicated employees and taxpayers. It’s time for a motion and a VOTE! Who cares what Green thinks. 4-1 would work just fine.
Yes, Rodent Reporter you are correct! He has specifically directed them under duress and coercion (similarly to what he did back in May of 2013 with his threats to sign settlement stipulations without legal advice and due process back then), to presently not send any official business communication to him but send it to Shannon Lewis or Robyn Fenwick. One particularly butt kissing public utilities middle manager who has expressed disdain for Jason Yarborough while courting him for an assistants position, and has also expressed disdain for Kisela suggested that utilities staff avoid the managers read file to help cool down the blogs. This individual was obviously courting Kisela to show his allegiance in non-transparency seeing an opportunity to fill Jason Yarborough’s void. This is the same guy that called maintenance to his work place to block the threshold gap at the bottom of his office door to keep the little people from slipping under the door and getting into the mainframe of his work computer and messing with his files. How sad it is that there is always some ass kisser ready to sell out and exploit a situation at the expense of transparency and doing what is in the best interest of the citizens of Port Orange.
I feel very bad for Tom Cinefro and his being used as another one of Kisela’s scapegoats. The insidious thing about this is that there is a code of silence with these FCCMA hacks like Yarborough and Saunders. They will drop like rooks and bishops in a chess game gone south but they won’t give up Kisela because they know inevitably Dick Kelton will find them another job with some other lifesaver in another politically ripe municipality that is primed for another invasion of retread interlopers. Kisela will be the last to go and I predict it is imminent but if council moves fast they can mitigate any more collateral damage that Kisela will cause before he is pried away. Kisela will then take a nice long vacation with his golden parachute before being recycled by a Range Rider as a retread city manager in another unfortunate municipality.
Who knows he just might be reunited with Saunders and Yarborough in their next assignment. What is really sad is that numerous scapegoats have been left behind with their lives seriously derailed. Just to name a few, Tom Cinefro, Richard Woodman, and Rob Zicker. Think about all the employees Kisela has coerced in Public Utilities and manipulated into signing agreements without the chance of due process. He is not finished yet unless council stops him in his tracks and I predict more scapegoats will be sacrificed in the next two to three weeks until it becomes abundantly clear that there is something seriously psychologically distorted with the Lifesaver. There will be numerous employees that survive but will have sustained untols damage. There will then need to be a healing process, and hopefully the city council will help to heal the damaged work force Kisela leaves behind.