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Inappropriate e-mails subject of Tampa probe

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published February 9, 2005

TAMPA - The firing of four city of Tampa employees who sent inappropriate e-mails last year has triggered a sweeping probe into the e-mail habits of hundreds of city employees.

City officials acknowledged Wednesday they are looking into complaints made by the four fired parking division employees that the problem is widespread and involves people from departments ranging from police to the administration.

The inquiry started after the men tried to appeal their firings before a civil service board in November.

They provided hundreds of pages of e-mails sent by city employees that include everything from raunchy images and crude jokes to congratulatory pleasantries and benign lunch plans.

The city's policy states that work e-mail not be used for personal purposes and be void of all discriminatory and racist content, officials said.

The four fired men - Rick Benyo, Robert Ryan, James Dingman and Richard Pustelnik - lost their jobs in May for repeatedly sending e-mails and attachments with discriminatory references to sex, race and ethnicity, and with sexually explicit jokes and photographs.

One of the men, Benyo, had been with the city for 22 years.

"They say they have a zero-tolerance policy," Ryan said Wednesday. "If that's going to their stance, then they better be in a position to fire a whole lot of people."

Ryan said he and his former colleagues got together after their firings and decided to review city e-mails.

Ryan sent a letter to the mayor last month, along with photocopies of the e-mails. The hundreds of pages included men and women in thongs and a lewd photograph claiming to show what someone had missed at a bachelorette party.

There are also e-mails about lunch plans, vacations details and family drama updates.

Sarah Lang, the city's director of Human Resources, said her office is looking into the allegations. Her probe includes the documents, which name at least 55 employees who violated city policy, and hundreds more e-mails and downloaded images contained on a disc.

"I am in the process of getting the contents of it as part of my investigation," Lang said. "But I can't talk about any of the details of our review at all."

Darrell Smith, the mayor's chief of staff, said he did not consider it an investigation, but rather a "review to substantiate (if anyone) is not in compliance with our policies."

He said the volumes of e-mails provided to the city were taken from a time period before the mayor emphasized that she was clamping down on violators.

"They really are trying to drag up stuff that is really not the appropriate timing," Smith said.

Ryan said the men never denied their guilt but that their actions were overblown.

"We were willing to accept a form of punishment, anything less than dismissal," he said. "We're not vindictive. We never wanted to go this way."

[Last modified February 9, 2005, 19:50:02]