Re: Embattled county official losing re-election bid, posts angry letter

[50 gallon drum]

In article <t2emu7$3ion9$8...@news.freedyn.de>
<governo...@gmail.com> wrote:

The re-election of embattled Clark County Public Administrator
Robert Telles is in jeopardy after a lackluster showing in his
primary battle with two Democratic challengers, including his
top assistant.

Telles’ lagging numbers follow a Review-Journal investigation
last month that uncovered an office in turmoil and claims of
bullying, retaliation and an “inappropriate relationship”
between Telles and a staffer.

The latest Democratic primary results show longtime Assistant
Public Administrator Rita Reid with a 1,169-vote lead over
unknown candidate Caroline Escobar. Telles, who was endorsed by
the influential Culinary Union and other labor organizations, is
in third place, behind Reid by 2,077 votes. Final results won’t
be known until next week.

Escobar, 35, who said she is a real estate agent and former
paralegal, acknowledged that she spent no money in the race and
did no campaigning. Her Nevada financial disclosure statement
lists no sources of income and no campaign donations. She said
if she wins the primary, she will run aggressively against the
Republican candidate in the general election.

Public administrator workers who previously spoke out about the
alleged hostile work environment said within the past week that
they still fear for their jobs because of a letter Telles posted
on his campaign website ahead of the primary. They said they
have reported their concerns to county human resources.

The letter attacked the Review-Journal and its reporting and
claimed the allegations against Telles were false. It also
leveled what the employees allege was a threat to retaliate
against them for stepping forward.

Former Public Administrator John Cahill, who preceded Telles in
office from 2007 to 2019, said the letter is another effort to
intimidate the workers.

“The employees were afraid of him before, and now, if he’s lost
the race, he’s coming back at them with nothing more to lose,”
said Cahill, who has endorsed Reid.

Telles: ‘They’ve won’

Telles declined to comment, other than to say in a text message,
“It’s fine. At this point, they’ve won. Do what you would like.”
He offered no further explanation.

Later, he posted tweets lashing out at a reporter.


Rob Telles
@RobTellesLV
·
Follow
Does the @LVRJ know that @JGermanRJ may be doing double duty on
their dime? Do they know he basically made a veiled threat to
make me take down my site with the truth after I already lost
the election? #LasVegas

<https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FVd8VHRUAAEzpck?format=jpg&name=sma
ll>

Telles previously has denied the allegations of office abuse and
blamed the unrest on “a handful of old-timers” left over from
Cahill’s tenure.

That was a major theme of his campaign letter, titled
“Addressing the False Claims Against Me.”

“After my opponent from the office (Reid) announced her
candidacy, her supporters in the office began to ramp up
interference with our operations,” Telles wrote. “After the
article, this included harassing other employees in the office.
Tragically, these other employees have suffered mental and
physical effects.”

Telles said Reid was “counting on a win so she can shield her
supporters from being disciplined for their actions against the
other employees the past couple of months.”

Reid called that statement a lie and an indication that Telles
is still trying to divide the office.

“How can people work together or learn to appreciate the
strengths of one another, or even start to know one another,
when they are intentionally divided by the boss?” she asked.
“People under this much stress every single day are not at their
best when serving others. Rob’s lies will not return common
human decency to this office.”

County managers have taken the workplace allegations against
Telles seriously enough to hire former longtime Coroner Michael
Murphy to try to quell the upheaval. The county has no authority
to take action against Telles, but it can monitor how his
publicly paid employees are being treated.

County spokesman Dan Kulin declined to comment on the latest
turmoil, calling it a personnel matter.

History of scandal

The public administrator’s office, which oversees the estates of
those who died, has eight full-time employees and 15 part-time
investigators. It has been stung by scandal periodically over
the past 40 years. One administrator in the 1970s was convicted
of fraud for attempting to overcharge a dead man’s estate for
storage.

Controversy followed the lengthy tenure of Jared Shafer, who ran
the office between 1979 and 2003. That included the 1983 FBI
arrests of an estate manager and an investigator charged with
stealing from the estates of dead people.

For years, the office oversaw the much-criticized private
guardianship system until the county spun off those duties into
an appointed public guardian’s office in 1999.

Shafer’s tenure was marred by allegations of poor record-keeping
and a failure to properly track estate possessions. He also was
accused of paying neighbors and other friends for services
performed for the estates he supervised. But he was never
charged with any wrongdoing.

Cahill’s three terms were relatively quiet, but he recalled how
difficult it was to get the county to pay attention to the
office and provide the resources he needed.

“Historically, the office has kind of been neglected by the
county and that has left it open for problems and criticism,” he
said. “It’s always been short-staffed and begging for help.”

The discord under Telles has kept county human resources busy.
Within the past week, one employee referred to the threatening
campaign letter in a discrimination complaint filed with the
Clark County Office of Diversity.

“This has amplified my fear that my job is in jeopardy, that he
will do everything in his power to fire me,” wrote Senior Estate
Coordinator Noraine Pagdanganan.

She said Telles’ false claim that she and other whistleblowers
are interfering with office operations is offensive and causing
her “anxiety, apprehension and undue stress.”

Human Resources alerted

Estate coordinator Aleisha Goodwin forwarded a copy of Telles’
letter to human resources and the Office of Diversity and voiced
her concerns about the alleged threats.

She rebutted his latest claims in emails, also calling them
false.

“We work very hard despite the ongoing problems in this office
and constant harassment from Telles,” Goodwin told human
resources.

In a May 9 retaliation complaint, Goodwin revealed the
relationship between Telles and another estate coordinator,
Roberta Lee-Kennett. Goodwin alleged the relationship was
responsible for the hostility in the public administrator’s
office. Telles was secretly videotaped by employees meeting in
the back seat of Lee-Kennett’s car.

Former employees have alleged that the relationship between
Telles and Lee-Kennett allowed the favored staffer to act in
some cases as an office supervisor beyond her assigned duties.

Both Telles and Lee-Kennett strongly denied having any kind of
improper association. But they acknowledged the clandestine
meetings at a parking garage several times after work earlier
this year. They said they only hugged each other.

Cahill said he found it interesting that Telles made no mention
of the relationship in the online letter attacking the accuracy
of the Review-Journal’s reporting.

“He’s trying to shift attention away from what he was doing, his
unethical behavior with a staff member,” he said. “He made an
office pet out of one of the staffers, and she in turn thought
she had power over her peers. And that created a really hostile
work environment.”

Contact Jeff German at jge...@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-
4564. Follow @JGermanRJ on Twitter. German is a member of the
Review-Journal’s investigative team, focusing on reporting that
holds leaders and agencies accountable and exposes wrongdoing.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/investigations/embattled-county-
official-losing-re-election-bid-posts-angry-letter-
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