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Brooksville feud takes a personal turn

By JONATHAN ABEL
Published January 12, 2007

BROOKSVILLE - In the past week, a poisonous feud has consumed Brooksville's City Hall, leading to the resignation of the city manager and the suspension of three high-level staffers, but no one has been willing to say exactly what started it.

Ron Baker, the city's suspended human resources director, says it's about sex, drugs and revenge.

In an interview with the St. Petersburg Times, his first public comments since he was arrested on a drug charge in August, Baker accused police Chief Ed Tincher of engineering the arrest in retaliation for Baker's complaints about the chief's alleged affair with a City Hall secretary.

The police chief said he didn't know what Baker was talking about; the secretary would not comment.

At a wild City Council meeting Monday night, Baker and Tincher were suspended along with police Lt. Rick Hankins so that they could not interfere with an outside investigation of the Police Department. City Manager Richard Anderson resigned before he could be fired.

But the suspensions have not quieted the feud. Not only did Baker speak about the city's problems, but two City Council members have gone on local radio to give their versions.

On Thursday night, the City Council was set to assemble in a special meeting to decide whether to go forward with an investigation and how best to do it.

* * *

Baker, a 71-year-old cancer survivor, sat on the couch in his living room, the lights low. He wore a red polo shirt and blue pants, but no socks.

He served briefly in the Marine Corps during the Korean War and then went to work for Pan American Airlines.

He has been with the city of Brooksville for six years and has worked in human resources with various cities and counties since 1979.

For the past 23 years, he has been married to his second wife, Marie, who is 50. They met while working for Duval County.

Baker said the events of the past week - the resignation of the city manager and the suspensions, along with the call for an independent investigation - emboldened him to go public with his allegations.

He had never been arrested. Never, that is, until Aug. 17, when he was called down to the Brooksville Police Department and put in an office with Tincher and Hankins to answer questions about distributing drugs.

According to police reports, a "confidential informant" had called Tincher on Aug. 11 to report that Baker had given Xanax to an employee at the Parks and Recreation Department who was having an anxiety attack.

The police report said that while he was being questioned at the Police Department, Baker would say only: "It didn't happen like that. I will tell you what happened but I am not going to waive my rights."

Because he wouldn't cooperate, he was arrested and charged with distributing a prescription drug. Baker was taken to the county jail and left there for hours after he posted bail.

The alleged offense happened "on or about" July 20, according to the police reports, but Baker wasn't arrested until Aug. 17.

The charges were trumped up, he said, and vindictive. He said the police chief was upset that Baker had complained about an affair.

As human resources director, Baker hears a lot of employee complaints, often more than he wants.

Throughout August, he said a stream of employees came to him to complain about an extramarital affair going on between Tincher, who is married, and a City Hall secretary, whom the Times is not naming.

Baker decided to take the matter to Karen Phillips, then the acting city manager.

"I asked Karen, 'Aren't you aware of this?' " Baker recalled. "She said, 'I'm not saying I didn't know about it,' which means she was aware of something going on."

"Shortly after that," Baker went on, "I was called to Mr. Tincher's office and he said, 'What do you got to say about (the drug allegations)?' He said, 'I'm telling you now that I'm going to put you in jail for a felony.' "

On Thursday, after attending a morning meeting at City Hall, Tincher said: "I have no idea what he's talking about. I have no idea what he's talking about as far as his time frame."

Phillips said: "I'm not going to comment about that. It doesn't deserve a comment."

The secretary Baker implicated just shook her head and walked by.

Rumors abound

Despite the denials, Baker's allegations are something of an open secret at City Hall, with many staffers and even some council members confirming they've heard them.

Council member Lara Bradburn, who made the motion Monday night for an outside investigation of the Police Department, said she had heard the same rumors.

"I think that's one more thing that the investigators need to look at," she said. "Yes, I had heard about the claims, certainly, but it's up to investigators to sort facts from fiction."

Mayor David Pugh Jr. said he had heard the same rumors. "I'm hoping it's just allegations," he said.

And council member Joe Bernardini, a longtime critic of the Police Department, said he'd heard about the affair, too. He even mentioned it to Anderson and City Attorney David LaCroix.

"The city attorney said it's not against the law. And I said it's not against the law but there's got to be something - professional misconduct," Bernardini said. "He said it's not against the law."

For his part, Anderson said he doesn't believe any of it.

"That's pretty funny," he said. "That was a ridiculous rumor that I heard about. I thought it was someone making a joke at first. You hear that kind of crap and that's what it is."

Accusations

Baker said the root cause of the city's current turmoil is that Tincher has been the de facto city manager - doing whatever he wanted to do and intimidating those who objected.

He also accused Anderson of sexually harassing a secretary at City Hall. He said the secretary complained to him that Anderson stuffed cake in her mouth at an office party, grabbed her around the waist and said he liked her "equipment."

The woman, whom the Times is not naming, confirmed the allegations but said she did not want to file an official complaint.

"I didn't do any of that stuff," Anderson said.

In the 11 years that Anderson has been with Brooksville, the city's insurance carrier has settled three separate sexual harassment claims against him, though Anderson said he did nothing wrong in any of those cases.

Both Anderson and Tincher have characterized the current controversy as part of a feud dating back to the early 1990s, when Tincher was briefly fired and the Police Department was under scrutiny.

A group of residents organized a recall of two of the council members - including Bernardini - and Tincher was reinstated. But, Anderson and Tincher say, the resentments have remained.

Baker wasn't around during the recall controversy, and he said that has nothing to do with his accusations. He said he is just tired of the intimidation tactics he says the police chief has been using to control the city.

"I don't have any fears. I've been through 13 months in Korea and I've had a number of my buddies that didn't come home," he said. "I know my life in this world is limited. I have no reason to have any fear.

"I really, truly welcome an investigation of me, the city Police Department and any of its dealings."

[Last modified January 11, 2007, 22:36:04]