Fascist Ron continues his history of smearing state employees who reveal his secretive and illegal actions.
Florida state parks whistleblower personnel files released by DeSantis admin
The state agency that formerly employed James Gaddis released records showing a female colleague had filed a police report.
https://www.tampabay.com/news/envir...ida-state-parks-whistleblower-fired-desantis/
Days after a state employee
was fired for disclosinginformation about plans by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration to build golf courses, hotels and more on state parks, the administration released portions of the employee’s personnel file that detailed issues from a previous state job.
The documents were providedto a Gainesville TV news station, WCJB, which
reported that they came from the DeSantis administration — specifically an unnamed source inside the Agency for Health Care Administration.
That agency provided those records without being asked, an unusual step for an administration that typically takes months, evenyears, to provide public records when journalists request them, if the state turns them over at all. For instance, the Tampa Bay Times requested an unrelated personnel file from the Agency for Health Care Administration in May 2023. The agency has not yet produced it. The Times asked for a copy of any public records request made by WCJB that prompted the release of these documents, and an Agency for Health Care Administration spokesperson, who did not provide their name, said in an email that no such record exists.
Jeremy Redfern, a DeSantis spokesperson, texted a Tampa Bay Times reporter a link to the WCJB story about an hour after it was published Wednesday night.
The personnel documents detail how a woman submitted human resources complaints and filed a police report about James Gaddis when they both worked at the Agency for Health Care Administration, after their romantic relationship ended. The woman reported that Gaddis would not stop trying to contact her, making her “scared every day when I go to work,” according to apolice report. He was not criminally charged in the case. Gaddis resigned instead of being fired in early 2022.
He was then hired by the Department of Environmental Protection two months later. Both agencies are part of the DeSantis administration.
When asked whether the environmental agency had concerns about this issue when it hired him, spokesperson Alexandra Kuchta said the department “does not comment on personnel matters.” Gaddistold the Times the department never asked him about it before hiring him.
“It looks like the WCJB article is a needless but somewhat expected hit piece, irrelevant to anything involving state parks, about an unfortunate situation from three years ago that involved a messy end to a brief workplace fling that resulted from a communication breakdown and hurt feelings on both sides,” Gaddis said. “Both parties involved moved on to greener pastures and have not interacted or communicated since my January 2022 resignation.”
The name of the woman who submitted the complaints about Gaddis was redacted from the files.
This isn’t the first time the DeSantis administration has released damaging information from an employee’s personnel file after they criticized the governor or his administration.
Two former top employees at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, for example, were investigated by that agency after they filed complaints withconcerns about the agency’s refusal to turn over DeSantis’ travel records to The Washington Post. The agency compiled a 129-page report,
according to Politico, that dug into allegations including conflicts-of-interest and workplace harassment. Investigators also wrote there was evidence to suggest the two employees were in a romantic relationship, Politico reported. The law enforcement agency took the findings to a Tallahassee prosecutor, but he declined to pursue charges.
