Assistant City Manager Garry Brumback is suspended without pay after sending a message, termed vulgar, to a Web site connected to several dissident city firefighters.
By JENNIFER FARRELL
Published March 10, 2004
CLEARWATER - The city's No. 2 administrator was suspended for a week without pay Tuesday for sending a vulgar e-mail attacking the anonymous writers of a profane Web site that denigrates city officials.
On Jan. 31, Assistant City Manager Garry Brumback sent an e-mail from home using his personal Hotmail account. In it, he named three city firefighters he suspects of being involved in the site and included graphic and crude descriptions of two.
Brumback also made a veiled threat to the authors of the Draconian Times, a site representing disaffected firefighters.
"Amazing how you worthless scumbags think you can hide," wrote Brumback, who finished the e-mail with, "You're going down. Vengeance."
The e-mail came to light last week, when a lawyer representing Mark Anyon, one of the firefighters Brumback named, sent a copy to the city.
"Clearly the city, at its highest levels is retaliating against Mr. Anyon because he expressed opinions on matters of public concern," attorney Mark Herdman wrote.
On Monday, Brumback wrote a letter to City Manager Bill Horne apologizing to the firefighters he named, and to city leaders.
"As a professional, I should have better managed my anger and frustration in what I read and not responded in the way I did," Brumback wrote.
A day later, Horne suspended his top deputy, effective March 15. Brumback also will be required to attend sessions with a professional coach to help him manage decisions.
"We don't stoop to the level of the Draconian Times," Horne said Tuesday. "Just because he's an assistant city manager doesn't mean he gets a break."
It is the second time Brumback has been disciplined by Horne for sending inappropriate e-mails. In October 2000, he was reprimanded for swapping e-mails at work containing off-color jokes and conversations about a private storage business with another top administrator.
On Tuesday, city commissioners were universally disappointed in Brumback's behavior and said the suspension, which will cost him $2,150, is appropriate.
"I was appalled at the language," Commissioner Bill Jonson said. "I think it was inappropriate."
Mayor Brian Aungst said he, too, has had similar feelings, but as a public official has a duty not to react inappropriately.
"Garry's better than that," he said. "He knows it. I know it."
Commissioner Frank Hibbard described Brumback as an important part of the administration who does a "tremendous" job.
"It's an unfortunate situation," Hibbard said. "It's emotionally charged."
Brumback's suspension is the latest development in a tangled and bitter standoff between the city and its firefighters.
Working without a contract since October 2002, union members overwhelmingly rejected a labor deal in February for the second time in seven months. During agonizing negotiations, which resumed last week, firefighters have staged pickets and demonstrations at city-sponsored events.
But the angry rhetoric has ratcheted up at times to include political theater and personal attacks.
Last year, Anyon burst into a City Commission meeting holding a giant roll of toilet paper with a hand-lettered sign that said, "City's labor offer to firefighters is not worth the paper it's written on." Weeks earlier, he had marched outside City Hall carrying an effigy of Horne that had a black pumpkin head and red wooden horns.
On Tuesday, Brumback said he was angry and frustrated by ugly attacks in the Draconian Times on Horne, who is his close friend, and other city employees. He said he sent the e-mail after seeing a female Fire Department employee described as a "cow." The woman is also depicted on the site by an overweight caricature with a "Feed Me" sign.
The Web site - www.pinellas.com/draconian - contains crude references to Horne and dubs him "Donkey." It also includes innuendo suggesting an affair between a Fire Department administrator and another city employee.
Anyon has filed a complaint with the city alleging an inappropriate relationship between the fire supervisor and another city employee, according to Horne and Joe Roseto, city personnel director.
On his own, Anyon conducted an investigation, requesting cell phone and other public records of both employees. He has alleged they conducted an improper relationship on city time.
Meanwhile, another city employee photographed the supervisor's city vehicle at Sand Key park and submitted it to police as evidence, Horne said.
In his complaint, Anyon alleged that police ordered the photograph destroyed, according to city officials.
Horne has asked police to investigate each of Anyon's allegations.
On Tuesday Brumback said he regretted sending the e-mail.
"I lost my temper," he said. "I should have known better."
The Draconian Times has no official ties to the firefighters union, but it is hosted by a Web domain registered to Stan Loveday, a lieutenant with the Fire Department. He could not be reached late Tuesday.
Through his attorney, Anyon declined to comment this week.
In addition to Anyon, Brumback named firefighters Craig Cramer and Steve Coward in his e-mail.
Cramer, who was suspended recently for 11.2 hours, also for sending an inappropriate e-mail, said Brumback's punishment is too light, considering his history.
"How many times is this guy going to get a break?" Cramer said. "I know if I had done that, I'd have been out the door."
Brumback conceded Tuesday he has run out of room for mistakes.
"I don't deserve any more chances," he said. "I'm grateful for the one I have."
