Tax collector's ex-employee files ethics complaint

By ALISA ULFERTS

© St. Petersburg Times, published August 11, 2000

At least one former employee with Tax Collector Mike Olson's office filed an ethics complaint Thursday, accusing her old boss of emotional abuse and of spending too much time running campaigns from his office.

Cynthia Devlin, who worked in the office from 1987 to 1993, said Olson required his employees to raise their hands before they could go to the restroom, locked them in the office once during a fire drill and routinely spent hours during the day helping other candidates with their campaigns. She faxed a copy of her complaint with the state ethics commission to the Times.

Other former employees, Kelly Lawlor, Susan Dwyer and Frances K. Vanderwater, echoed Devlin's tales of Olson's intimidation and politicking, but did not forward copies of their complaints to the Times. All said they planned to do so in the next few days.

Olson denied the accusations and called the complaint "dirty politics" orchestrated by his election opponent, County Commissioner David "Hap" Clark, and former Commissioner Ed Collins, a Clark supporter.

"I'm ashamed of Hap for being part of it," Olson said Thursday evening.

Although Clark was not present at a meeting Wednesday night where Devlin and the three other former employees discussed Olson with the local media, his wife showed up briefly and passed out blank copies of the form used to file complaints with the state, according to the workers. Clark could not be reached for comment.

Collins had helped arrange the informal press conference at the request of the former employees, but he was not there and said he otherwise had nothing to do with the matter.

The women said what bothered them most was the amount of time they said Olson spent advising other candidates in their campaigns. Often those people would come in through Olson's private entrance in the back and use a secret knock to identify themselves, they said.

"I saw those people in the office frequently and for hours at a time," Vanderwater said.

When asked why they waited until election season to come forward, the women said it was partly because they didn't know they could file an ethics complaint, and partly because they thought Olson would not run again after 1996.

Olson said Thursday that he did have some management problems in the New Port Richey office while the women were there, but said he replaced two of the three managers. As Pasco's senior elected Democrat, Olson said he is consulted on political matters, but said that does not interfere with his duties as tax collector. He said he may complain against the women for filing what he called a malicious complaint.

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