I have filed a Right-to-Know for all emails exchanged between the County and cost control consultant C3, relating to the health plan being offered to employees. The County has refused to produce any of the 141 emails, claiming they are all exempt. At my request, the Office of Open Records ordered the County to produce them all for an in camera inspection by the hearing officer. What this means is that the hearing officer will examine them in private, and then rule.
Though the County initially considered refusing to obey this order, it finally decided to do so on Friday. Accompanying the emails is an index, describing each one. That index was sent to me.
Her July emails show her discussing "strategy" on the changes being made, which I translate to mean how best to break the bad news to the County employees.
There are no discussions concerning gap insurance at all until October 14. By this time, it had become very clear that the health plan reductions were universally unpopular among employees, and they were appearing at meetings in large numbers. Allen did not work herself, merely serving as a pass through. She provided C3 with an employee roster so that the cost consultant could get quotes for gap insurance. She got an answer from C3 on October 30, and that's when brown made his announcement to Council.
It is also pretty clear that neither Brown nor Allen was very familiar with gap insurance. C3 had to send an instructional video on November 3, after Brown had described it to Council.
So when Brown told Council that Allen had been working on gap insurance since July, he misled them. She had been working on the matter for only two weeks. I'll assume that he was trying to be honest and did not intentionally mislead Council, but he did mislead them. Also, he explained gap insurance without a real understanding of it.
"It is also pretty clear that neither Brown nor Allen was very familiar with gap insurance"
ReplyDeleteNot covered at the Notre Dame leadership courses??
I certainly hope the county employees find someone besides Lamont to be an advocate.
ReplyDeleteAllen is a fraud and a cheat. And Brown must be delusional if he wants 10 more of her around.She is an anchor dragging him down. If he wants to turn around his first year of failure and bad will, his first order of business should be to show her the door.
ReplyDeleteSo what is the recourse? He lied- shocker. He lied to council about now it worked, leading council to believe the oop for all employees would be $2500/5000 and that's simply not true. And they gave private employee data to a third party needlessly and without permission. What can we do about this? I'm afraid to open this blog each day and find out what the next great thing this idiot has done to screw the county workforce.
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ReplyDeleteI agree with 5:26. What are we to do? This guy is a liar. He heard about gap insurance at the DHS brown bag lunch. And to 5:44 I THINK YOU SHOULD BE GLAD YOU HAVE A JOB. For me I am looking and am sure I can find one with better benefits and money. Beside all the good people who are retiring those who remain will be searching and hope to be gone by next year. You can only push someone so far. No one who works for the county trust any of the current admin.
ReplyDeletethese people wouldn't know the truth if it hit them in the face!
ReplyDeleteWe should be surpised by this??
ReplyDeleteTheir lack of ethics knows no bounds..evidently.
ReplyDeleteSo the old phrase allies: "elections have consequences". Northampton County spoke and they said they want Tea Party government. They want austerity and no new taxes. Brown is just delivering what he promised he would do. Until the populace suffers through years of this self-serving and frankly repulsive form of government will they ever realize the error of their ways. Tea Party nonsense sounds great if you are one of those people that thinks about themselves and no one else. It takes a special form of dimwit to embrace it. A person that is either unintelligent and can only think in the binary (taxes or no taxes) or the intelligent but wealthy person that thirsts for ever increasing wealth while insisting the troubles around him are someone else's problem.
ReplyDeleteTypo: So the old phrase APPLIES.
ReplyDeleteCentral, I realize you have a desire to put a square peg in a round hole, but it simply ain't so. These things transcend ideology.
ReplyDeleteThe tea party members you deride championed a tax hike that was needed and that will prevent layoffs. As for Brown, he's no tea party type. His God is money. he comes from the corporate world and his allegiance is to the almighty dollar, not any ideology. He will swear fealty to J.B. Reilly and Joe Topper and the other bluebloods, just as Democrat Edwin Pawlowski has done.
elections do have consequence's but there are bad apples every now and then no matter the political affiliation john brown is one of them I don't believe he has a clue what he's doing and should be removed from his job before he does any more damage then he has already he has managed to destroy county morale along with any trust couldn't even put together a budget and has hurt every county employee and their families included along with every taxpayer shame on them! he should be removed from this office period!
ReplyDeletekeep up the good work, John - ridding the county of the parasites
ReplyDeleteThe Tea Party is the party of money and no tax increases and the slashing of social safety nets. That is exactly what John Brown is for, as you describe. Brown is the poster child for the real Tea Party movement - before it got taken over by the religious right and 2nd amendment proponents.
ReplyDelete9:14 you must be joking. The parasite of parasites has an office next to Brown.
ReplyDeletethis bunch not truthful!? what a shock!
ReplyDelete"he comes from the corporate world "
ReplyDeletereally? Evidence? Cause I get what you're saying, but how come no one can point to the guy's actual employment history?
You've heard of the information cloud..right? Well..maybe that's where he was employed.
ReplyDeleteBernie who is the agent for the Aegis policy and what is the commission? That should be public information.
ReplyDeleteI will find out.
ReplyDeletedoes any thing true pass his lips
ReplyDeleteGo get 'em Bernie. Liar, liar, pants on fire.
ReplyDelete