Misleading documents from Public Safety Division

Pacific City Council President John Jones

Normally, John Jones, the Pacific City Council president, is the picture of decorum. Jones is a man who comes with suit or jacket to city council meetings. He has served on the civil service commission, planning commission and park board. He is thoughtful, dignified and polite. 

But in a recent e-mail to Mark Klaas, editor of the Auburn Reporter, Mr. Jones looks incoherent. His message twists and rambles and stumbles through sentences that never end. This is not the message from a man who can think straight – and for good reason. Mr. Jones looks spitting mad. He has just been tag-teamed by Pacific Mayor Richard Hildreth and Public Safety Director John Calkins.

Calkins’ department seems to have produced misleading documents relating to an investigation into Mr.  Hildreth’s misuse of a city credit card. As a result of the documents, a King County prosecutor declined a Pacific City Council request to investigate. Now the mayor is off and running to Mr.  Klaas, who gullibly published Mr. Hildreth’s claim that he has been exonerated. Thoroughly flim-flammed, Mr. Jones might now be in a position to appreciate the experience of Tom Jowers.

Who is this Tom Jowers?

Mr. Jowers is a former fire fighter for the City of Pacific. Last year his lawsuit against the city for wrongful termination was dismissed. Mr. Jowers had been fighting an uphill battle long before last year. Prior to his lawsuit, an administrative hearing judge found against him when he appealed his firing.

Forgery

However, Mr. Jowers says it was only after he lost his appeal that he got his hands on documents submitted to the judge by the public safety division. He says those documents were false and forged. When you look at the documents, it looks like the judge was in a hurry, because they contain contradictions that invalidate them. This is a story that Mr. Jones should pay close attention to.

Obstructing justice accusation

Within the last two years, Public Safety Director Calkins was accused in a Sumner Police Department document of obstructing justice. The case involved a vehicular assault charge against Calkins’ son; the Sumner police learned Calkins had taken over the drafting of a witness statement. The witness was a young woman who was sitting next to his son when he slammed his truck into two vehicles virtually head-on.

 In Tom Jowers’ case, the documents submitted for his appeal contradict themselves by the order of events they describe. According to these documents, a public safety division employee followed an order a week before it was given. The document is signed with Jowers’ name. Jowers said he never saw the document. Summary: you have  documents that can’t possibly be accurate, with one of them signed by a man who says he wasn’t there.

Here are the documents:

• A memorandum, dated September 21, 2006 and signed by a fire marshal stating that  on September 7, 2006, “the Chief” ordered him to write up Jowers for exceeding his cell phone use. The memo says Jowers was written up that evening and that Jowers signed the write-up.

• The write-up, which contains the alleged forgery, is dated August 31, 2006, a full week before it was authorized.

 Jowers argues the documents were probably invented months after the dates they allegedly were written, then submitted to the administrative hearing examiner when his appeal came up for consideration.

Sexual harassment and porn

There are some other facts that should raise eyebrows here. The September 21 document says Jowers had discussed bringing a sexual harassment complaint. Since the memo isn’t addressed to anyone, it’s not clear who saw it. But it’s noteworthy that Jowers and another former employee have claimed they were called into Chief Calkin’s office to view pornography on his computer. Maybe someone in the chain of command knew about the porn, saw that mention of sexual harassment, got the jitters and decided Jowers had to go. And if the public documents associated with Jowers’ lawsuit are any indication, there might have been good reason to have the jitters. More on that in coming blogs. 

Council honored Jowers

The time frame for these memoranda is instructive. One week after Jowers was allegedly written up for misusing his cell phone, city council minutes say he was presented with an award for “Professional Excellence.”

Quick summary:

 The public safety division has a director who tampers with a witness in a criminal investigation involving his son. His department has produced a document that contains an alleged forgery. That forged document impeaches an employe who one week later is described as “excellent” before the Pacific City Council. A little over a week after he’s honored by the council, another document is produced that says he signed his reprimand a week before it was authorized.

Documents are nonsense

Are you confused? Don’t be embarrassed.

We’re not talking about ambiguous speech; we are talking about written documents, and it is crystal clear that they make no sense.

These documents were produced by the same public safety division  that ignored instructions of the Pacific City Council and produced documents which caused a prosecutor not to investigate  Mayor Richard Hildreth for misuse of a credit card.

Given these circumstances, it might be a good time for the Pacific City Council to look over the depositions that were taken in the runup to Tom Jowers’ lawsuit. There’s information in those depositions they should see. The council has oversight over the performance of the executive branch and is entitled to that information. In fact, it has a duty to know what was going on.
Next time: Abuse of power in Speed Trap City.