Schaller, Jack - Vol (Investigation-11/15/13)

Transcript of the Testimony of Jack Schaller
Date: November 15, 2013 Volume: I Case: In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation
Printed On: November 30, 2013
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc. Phone: 417-358-4078 Fax: 417-451-1114 Email:daholliday@hotmail.com Internet:
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Joplin Critical Investigation
Page 1
IN RE:
JOPLIN CRITICAL INVESTIGATION
SWORN STATEMENT OF
JACK SCHALLER
Taken on Friday, November 15, 2013, from 2:03 p.m. to 3:38 p.m., at the law offices of Juddson H. McPherson, LLC, 626 S. Byers, in the City of Joplin, County of Jasper, State of Missouri, before SHARON K. ROGERS, C.C.R.650, a Certified Court Reporter and a Notary Public within and for the County of Jasper, and State of Missouri.
Holliday Reporting Service, Inc. 417-358-4078
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 2
APPEARANCES
MR. THOMAS E. LORAINE Loraine & Associates, LLC 4075 Osage Beach Pkwy., Suite 300 Osage Beach, MO 65065
tellaw@loraineandassociates.com
Jack Schaller
In Re:
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S T I P U L A T I O N
IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED AND AGREED that this Sworn Statement may be taken by steno-mask type recording by SHARON K. ROGERS, a Certified Court Reporter, and afterwards reduced into typewriting. It is further stipulated that the signature of the witness is hereby waived, and that said Sworn Statement of said witness shall be of the same force and effect as though said witness had read and signed Sworn Statement.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 4 I N D E X Page/Line DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE E X H I B I T S Exhibit #28 . . . Interview for jobs Exhibit #29 . . . May 2013 memo Exhibit #30 . . . 5/30/13 letter Exhibit #31 . . . Letter to Mark Rohr Exhibit #32 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33-11 45-5 48-12 68-12 68-17 . . . 5-4
Letter to Jack Schaller Exhibit #33 Emails Exhibit #34 Email . . . . . . . 76-22 . . . . . . . 75-24
Note:
Exhibits in separate binder
(sic) - typed as spoken (ph.) - phonetic
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 5 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 JACK SCHALLER Having been first duly sworn and examined, testified as follows: DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE: Q. A. Q. A. Q. Mr. Schaller, is that two L's? Yes. S-C-H-A-L-L-E-R? E-R, no T. Thank you. Mr. Schaller, you're under oath.
I appreciate you've taken that, I don't think I can make you take that, but that's the way this investigation has gone so it helps if we stay consistent with everything. If you were
a City employee I know what I could, but I can't do that to you because you're private. So you're here voluntarily and I appreciate it. out. We're trying to straighten some things My name as I told you is Tom Loraine
and I'm a lawyer, I practice mainly out of Osage Beach, but I travel around the state of Missouri for these kinds of things when asked to, and these are called critical investigations and you do them when some city asks you to come down and do them because they can't straighten their own mess out.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. And that's what I'm here for. I'm supposed One is
to talk about three primary areas.
Woolston, Mr. Woolston's dealing with real estate and being on the Council. The second
one is Mr. Scearce's alleged background with gambling. And the third is an internal
matter about somebody allegedly - how a note got from the City Manager's desk to Bill Scearce, and any collateral matters that arise out of any of those. One of the
collateral matters that have arisen is the management style of City Manager Rohr. It's
been described as my way or the highway, it's been described as hostile, intense, hollering, doors slamming, that kind of thing, threatening of employees that work for the City, among other things. I think that
you might be able to shed some light on this last issue. As I understand it you used to
work for the City? Yes, I was the Assistant Public Works Director. Who was the Works Director? David Hertzberg. Have you talked with him?
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 7 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. No. I mean about this. No. Well, he just came in and visited me a little bit before so I'm anticipating some things that you may or may not say. I would like I
you to keep this internal, behind doors. can't make you do that because like I said
you're no longer a City employee, but I would ask your cooperation because it is a very sensitive probe. Certainly, and I have stuff at stake, too. My name gets drug into it my company doesn't get work for the City. And I am concerned about that so I was somewhat hesitant to ask you to come over for that reason, but some of the guys suggested I should talk to you anyway so I'm going to do that. And I guess if there's any retaliation
or anything that does occur I'm going to give you one of my cards and I would like you to at least let me know that. Sure. And I thank you for that.
I was concerned about that myself because anticipating what you may or may not say,
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. only from what other people have told me I think that could be a possibility. agree? I do agree. And from my perspective I don't Do you
know how much of this is going to wind up being a matter of public record. Yeah, from your perspective some of it could be, some of it could be. the truth obviously. I want you to tell
If you don't want to
talk about something I would just as soon you say I don't want to talk about that issue and we'll respect you. I can't make you talk is
what I'm telling you, I can only make City employees talk. talk. I want to do what's right and that's my goal here and that's what I hope to do. I don't I can't even make Councilmen
want to sacrifice my company for the - I mean they were nice enough to give me a job. Right, I'm aware of that. identify yourself. private practice? I left the City of Joplin the second week of September of this year. 2013? First of all
How long have you been in
Jack Schaller
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Page 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. A. Q. Yes, sir. So how many years did you work under City Manager Rohr? I went to work for the City of Joplin February 1st of 2008. And as I understand it you are a Professional Engineer? That's correct. And you have a license, a college degree and a license and you've been registered with the State of Missouri as a P.E.? That is correct. You're presently doing engineering consulting work for the City? Yes, some. We have a couple of contracts
with the City. And who gives those contracts out from the City? Basically it's Council approval. staff writes up the green sheets. The City You know,
we give them the contracts, they write up the green sheets, then they go through legal, Brian head, finance, Leslie Haase, and City Manager, and then they go to Council during the Council presentation.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. Q. Q. So those three people that you mentioned that would be Mr. Rohr, Mr. Head, and the Financial Manager, those positions would be somewhat critical to your employment with the City? That's correct. I want to ask you about why you're no longer with the City. Okay. First of all I'd like to state that I I was really
loved my job with the City. good at it.
And I felt I kind of had to I
leave because I had no other choice.
didn't leave because I wanted to leave, I left because I felt I had to leave. The
circumstances that led up to that to try to cut out as much of the back story as possible started when we interviewed an employee for the Operations Manager named Cody Cowan. There was several applicants that had put in for this Operations Manager. The Operations
Manager that we had at the time, Tim Nyander, left the City of Joplin partially because of his distaste with the way things were being run. With who?
Jack Schaller
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Page 11 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. Q. A. A. Mark Rohr had asked him to do some things that he didn't feel were right to do. Was it ethical problems or legal problems? No, it was basically the City Manager had went to I believe it was Reeves Tire to get a tire fixed during the tornado and because they didn't just move everybody else out of the line and put him first and said, listen, you're going to have to wait, it's going to be a couple of hours before we get to you with all the other flat tires and stuff we've got, he had instructed Tim Nyander, listen, we don't do anymore business with them because, by god, I run the City and I'm the most important thing going right now, they need to move everything else out of the way and take me first. And Tim didn't feel
comfortable about telling a company that we do business with that we're not going to do business with them because they did them first come, first serve. So anyway he found
him a job in Arkansas and we have a -Tim told you this personally? Yes. And you know that to be true?
Jack Schaller
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Page 12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. A. Q. Yes. Was this the department that you were in? Did Tim actually work for you? Yes, the Public Works Department hierarchy was Public Works Director David Hertzberg, and then myself was the Assistant Public Works Director, then Tim Nyander was Operations Manager, and Troy Bolander was planning the community development, so I was basically in charge of the Public Works Department whenever David wasn't there and I was over Engineering so the three of us kind of worked together, but in the hierarchy I was their boss even though the three of us, Tim, Troy, and I, basically work on the same level. You were really a supervisor for Tim Nyander? A. Yes.
Can you spell his name for the record? N-Y-A-N-D-E-R. And as a supervisor this is what Nyander told you he was being requested to do was stop buying the tires because they didn't cow down to Manager Rohr? That's correct.
Jack Schaller
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Page 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. So did you make any kind of record on that? I did not. It was just in conversation, one
of our meetings. Did you take that up to your director? He was at the meeting, also. That was the gentleman -David Hertzberg. Now if I understand it Mr. Hertzberg has been severely demoted, he lost some 30 thousand bucks or something a year? That is correct. Do you know what the facts were surrounding that? Yes. Can you tell me? The facts were that David Hertzberg is a super, super nice guy and was basically said that he mismanaged the Building Department to a tune of $150,000.00 of revenue that wasn't billed. And the fact of the matter is that
it was because of what we were asked to do for the code enforcement piece of that that I was involved with with Sam Anslem and the City Manager Rohr to try to get code enforcement more technologically advanced
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 14 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. Q. A. that we actually got training for our Navaline system, which is the system that handles all the finances plus the code enforcement piece, plus the building Department piece. And part of that training they came down, went through all of the way that we did it. They kind of sat next to it
and seen how we done things and showed where we could improve things, how we could streamline the process, and in the process of doing that they found out that we didn't input - well, we input all of the building permits and the fees for the prime contractor and subcontractor, and the prime contractors go down basically to the Finance Department to be billed. another step. The subcontractor piece takes Well, nobody ever knew that we
had to do that other step so we've learned that we have to do this other step so that stuff can wind up being billed. And that's on the form? Yes, on the Navaline deal, yeah, there's another step that had to be done on the computer. And nobody advised you of that?
Jack Schaller
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Page 15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. Q. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. A. No, we'd never had training. allowed to have training. How many people were ever trained on that Navaline? On the Navaline? Yeah. None. In the six years that I was there, We were never
five and a half, six years, we never had training on that line. Whose idea was it to purchase Navaline? I don't know for sure, but I believe it was the Finance Director, Leslie Jones at the time, it's now Leslie Haase. Anyway having purchased that nobody gave you training, your department or division, department would be the right term did not receive training on that? That is true. And as a consequence some subcontractor somehow didn't show up on the form and did not come to the billing records? It was input, but in order for it to be billed there was an additional step in addition to what was on the prime contractor and that step we never knew to do so it was
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. never done. So nobody in the department knew how to do it? No, and so -Who was head of that division? The division would have been Steve Cope. And he got fired? Yes. And can you tell me the circumstances surrounding that? Basically they had told Steve that there was this $150,000.00 of missing revenue and they gave him, I'm not going to be a hundred percent certain on this, but it was between one to three days to come up and rectify all of it. And he went through it and got it Or was asked to leave?
down at the time that he left to about $19,000.00 that wasn't accounted for at the time. Steve was the one that took it to
Leslie Haase to say, hey, we're not billing for these subcontractors, we can go ahead and bill for it. Well, that's how the ball got to rolling. She went to the City Manager and
then the City Manager, oh, we've got all this money that's out here. I know for a fact
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 17 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. there was $50,000.00 of that that wasn't even - had no relevance at all because it was Steve put in a $50,000.00 bill as a test and called it a test so he could see how the process worked. That was out of that $150,000.00? That is correct. Wow. Was that all made known to the City
Manager? I don't know if it was made known. It was
made known to myself while they were doing the investigation. Who did the investigation? The Police Department. And what would they know about this particular form or entry? Nothing. So that was done because the Police Department is also under the City Manager? That is correct. And in the time frame that
you look at how it was done was they demoted David, basically fired Steve, and then decided to go and do the investigation. And what did the investigation reveal? I don't know the final results of it, but
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 18 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. when I had left I talked to the officer that was working on the investigation and he indicated the only thing he could come up with was that wasn't fully resolved that couldn't be accounted for was around $100.00. And who was that officer? I don't remember his name. I'd never seen I'm not
him before at the Police Department.
saying that was what wasn't billed, but that was just when they ran through all the numbers they weren't able to basically say this is what wasn't accounted for. And that
was over the fourteen year period of which Steve was only there for seven years of that. How many of those years were you there? Six, five and a half. And Steve worked for you? Yes. So you would have been his supervisor, once removed? Yes, that's correct. It was your job to know what he endured during this period of time and I take it you did find out? Yes.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 19 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. Q. Q. A. A. Q. So as a result you lost - how many years of experience did you lose as a result of this from the Engineering Department? Well, from the department wise by losing David that had 30 some years of experience, Tim had 30 some years of experience, and Steve had 7 years with the City and 20 years in the building trades before that. How about you? Well, engineering wise I had 22 years of experience. So basically the City lost a lot of people -A. A little over 100 years of experience and
institutional knowledge. -- and that was a result of the City Manager's whims or how would I put that? It was the result of the City Manager wanting to find a scapegoat for this monies that weren't accounted for at the time. And
realize you're talking about after the tornado wherein a six month period Steve Cope had to take in well over 4,000 building permits and we weren't allowed to increase any of our staff to be able to do that so you've got a one man show, you know, with his
Jack Schaller
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Page 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. help with no increase. We went from a couple
million dollars in building a year to over 100 million dollars a year and no increase in staff. So with the phenomenal increase in
workload you're going to have some errors and issues and mistakes that will be made just because of the extreme amount of work that you're having to do in the six and seven days a week working on them. Well, it sounds like a terrible abuse of justice. You would agree with that? The only
I would certainly agree with that.
help that we were allotted was what they called WIB workers, which is the Workforce Investment Board, which are basically people that were displaced from their jobs with the tornado and would come in there. So you
might have somebody that was a check-out person at a grocery store that would come in so they're limited in capacity with being to help you with doing building permits and stuff like that. They were able to do some
of the secretarial stuff, but they weren't able to actually do any of the building permitting process. We tried to streamline
Jack Schaller
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Page 21 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. it to make it as quick as possible because if you have a line of people twenty deep waiting to get building permits it gets irate, then it gets down to the City Manager that he's chewing you out because why do you have a line of people up there. through. How is the City Manager's style? Was it -Get them run
He's a dictator and he is a tyrant is probably the way that I would say it. A lot of City employees fear him? I would say every City employee fears him. Either physically or by certainly loss of their job? By the loss of their jobs, and there's probably a few that may fear him physically. An imposing man? Yes. Does he use voice inflection to express himself? Yes. Yes, he does. I can say safely that I
know of at least ten upper level supervisors who have either been witness or been on the receiving end of some of his tirades. Would that be actually verbal abuse in your
Jack Schaller
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Page 22 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. opinion? Yes. Way beyond what he ought to be doing? Yeah, I've had him chew me up one side and down the other and I've seen him do it to Brian Head, I've seen him do it to Chris Cotten, to Leslie Haase, David Hertzberg, Patrick Tuttle. I witnessed him and his wife
in an unbelievable argument when we were down in the basement yelling and screaming at each other that I just walked out the side door. And you probably don't know how the city basement is set up, but there was a door on the south side and a door on the north side and he sat over in the southeast corner and I sat in the northwest corner after the tornado. And I was the only one down there
at the time when his wife come in and they were yelling and I snuck out the back door and was told by him after that that I needed to next time stay in there so that she wouldn't get as mad. And I said I don't
think that I want to be involved with any of that. So actually the argument between them was
Jack Schaller
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Page 23 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. quite forceful? Yes. And you're talking about screaming and yelling? Yes, grabbing, shaking. Who was grabbing and shaking? He grabbed her. You actually witnessed that? Yes, that's when I walked out. How big of a person is she? She's probably 5'6", 130, 125. How would you describe him? 6'3", 6'4", 230, 240. And the method that he was hollering at his wife that day that you witnessed, was that the same kind of method of dealing with his subordinates that you witnessed, also? Yes. Have you ever told - well, Brian Head received it, you said? Yes. So has anybody ever reported him as creating a hostile work environment or anything? Not that I'm aware of. I will tell you,
though, that after my two days suspension
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 24 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. that I got for this Cody Cowan, which we can go into later which is how this started, I went and visited an attorney to see what my rights were and basically found - because I knew what he was doing was harassing, you know, he was very, you know, vocal and very demanding with what he wanted and it was a very uncomfortable work environment, harassing. Intimidating? Yes, and so I went and seen what my rights were and of course then found out I'm an at-will employee so I could be terminated at any time without any cause and so basically suck it up and take it or be willing to go down a long road. And if you've looked into
any of Mark's past, which most of us City employees at one time or another have done, you've seen that he was City Manager at Punta Gorda he done pretty well the same thing. He
wanted to go in there and shake up the Police Department and the Public Works Department and redo it all, then when he got ready to leave he wrote a nice little article in the paper that mirrors a lot of what happened
Jack Schaller
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Page 25 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. here where he basically told the Council they were terrible and that he was doing what needed to be done and it's the same thing he's doing right now in my opinion with the Public Works Department. We were the most
successful removal operation in the history of the United States after the tornado and so as a reward basically he shakes up the whole department and decides he wants to reorganize it to make it more efficient. than the best ever? I understand that Mr. Cope is out of the area. Do you know that? More efficient
Yes, he works for JCDM and I think the job he's on right now is up around Michigan. But
there's a lot of times he comes in on Friday. Does he still live in the community? Yes, he still lives here. Do you ever talk to him? I communicate with him. You've got my card there. I don't want you
to talk about what we testify to, but I would like to talk to him, and I would be available either by phone or - I mean I'd just have to have my court reporter. I could take a phone
Jack Schaller
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Page 26 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. call from him, but I'd swear him in and everything. But if you wouldn't mind I'm
trying to get to the reason why we have this division on the Council. Do you think Mark's style leads to that kind of division? Yes, wholeheartedly. And why is that? Well, Mark, instead of the way Council/City Manager form of government which is supposed to work which is the Council sets the policy and then the City Manager follows, makes sure that policy gets enacted and the visions and the direction, Mark inherently wants to make it his vision and his policy and so even like with his smart project he went and got a group of all of the movers and shakers and brought them into Council and just sprung it on Council one night at a Council meeting and asked for their approval. Kind of put them
in a bind where they had to vote yes because all of the movers and shakers were out there in favor of this proposal. Instead of
knowing about the proposal and what was going on ahead of time, informing them, Mark keeps everything close to his chest and then kind
Jack Schaller
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Page 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. of does what I call the magic trick, just, you know, ta-da, here it is and likes to do that to pat himself on the back and then basically to put the Council in a position where they have to vote for him, or his ideas. Does he favor certain people on the Council? Yes. How do you know that? It's obvious. I mean I sat down in the
basement with him for nine months after the tornado. There was myself, Mark Morris,
Leslie Haase, Jones at the time, and Dan Pekarek, which would be the Health Department, Finance Department, I.T., and then the Public Works Department. If you
don't know the whole story after the tornado my boss, David Hertzberg, the Public Works Director, his house was totally destroyed and his wife asked him for a divorce and so he kind of mentally and physically checked out there and I was the City's representative for all of the clean-up. When it came to dealing
with FEMA, the Corps of Engineers, all of the state agencies I was the one that was the
Jack Schaller
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Page 28 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. Q. City's representative. that position. Mark appointed me as
After we moved out of the
emergency operations center we moved into the emergency operations center from the Public Safety building over down to the basement of City Hall and so it was just a core group of us so there was a lot of times that the rest of those were out doing what they needed to do. Leslie had to go upstairs to do her
finance, Dan was out, you know, so there was a lot of time down there where it was just myself and Mark. And you witnessed him dealing with certain members of Council? Yes, and I've had conversations with him where he has basically said he had information on Bill that could bury him. Then he's made derogatory -Bill Scearce? Yes, Bill Scearce. And he's made derogatory
comments about all of the old codgers, speaking of Jack Golden, Benji, Bill, Morris Glaze. The ones of course that he liked were
the ones that, you know, Mike Woolston which I understand after the tornado him and Mark
Jack Schaller
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Page 29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. had - there's a kinship that come with that tornado. They were both in the position that Gary
they were in at the time that happened. Shaw who is Mark's personal advisor, you know, and feels an ownership to Mark. Mike Seibert. And I don't know the
And
relationship with why Mike Seibert is such a big Mark Rohr disciple, but he is. But those
three are the ones that are for Mark and the two wild cards always at the time were Melodee Colbert-Kean and Trisha Raney. Let me ask you a question. There's been some
statements about this alleged $150,000.00, which I think you said you feel comfortable that it really was a $100.00 discrepancy, is that essentially correct? That is what I was told by the investigator that's where he was - that he could see that was different. Was there ever a retraction in the newspaper about this $150,000.00? No, actually a few weeks ago Mark was asked about it again and said he was just waiting the report back from the Police Department. And realize I was given this information
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. before I left so that's been the guy was finishing up at least his point on the Public Works end of it up on the fourth floor as I was leaving around the first of September. That would be under the Chief -Police Chief, yes. How does the Police Chief fit into this pattern? That's a good question. I don't know that I
know the whole - Lane is a nice enough fellow, but, you know, he wants to have a job and wants to get to retirement so I'm sure, and I couldn't prove it, but I'm sure there's times that he has done stuff for Mark because he feels that if he doesn't Mark will come after him. That's what apparently other people under Mark feel. I mean there is that kind of
pressure on individuals? Whenever it went to my deal with Cody Cowan was going to go to a fact finding hearing and I knew that the fact finding hearing, because I'm a fairly intelligent man and I can put two and two together on things, I knew about who was going to be on the fact finding
Jack Schaller
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Page 31 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. hearing board and it was going to be Lane and Lamont Radcliff. Say that last name. Radcliff. Who is he? He's over the courts. And that's who was going to be on the fact finding? Yes, for my deal with Cody Cowan. Does Mark control both of those people? Yes. Tell me what you found? with this Cody Cowan? What happened with that was -Did I say his name right? Cody Cowan, yes. As I said we have job What's the story
descriptions for each of these jobs and after Tim left we advertised for it and realizing that Mark Rohr has never sat in on any interview ever other than a department head that I'm aware of. In the six years that I
was there the only interviews that he would ever sit in on was a department head interview. This guy is third in line so to
speak in the Public Works Department, with
Jack Schaller
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Page 32 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 David being the Department head, me being the Assistant, and then Tim would have been essentially third in line. Mark took an
active role in going through having Sam go through these applications and stuff and they picked people - out of all the applicants that I went and looked at there was two people, maybe three that were qualified for the job by the job description, one of them being Dave Hunt who was my transportation engineer at the time, and a couple of other people that had Public Works experience and some of the education background. They
compiled a list, they being Sam, Mark, and Reba Sandley (ph.) which was the H.R. Director at the time, compiled a list of who they thought we ought to interview, and none of them met the qualifications. So David and
I, my boss David Hertzberg and I, put together our reasoning for why we think it needs to be that way mostly because that's what the qualifications are asking for, and if you're going to let anybody apply for it you need to make that known to everyone. So
anyway they allowed us to interview Dave Hunt
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 33 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. Q. copy? BY THE WITNESS: (By Mr. Loraine) Exhibit #28. times. You can keep that. Q. who was my transportation guy who effectively at the time whenever you put all of the other candidates together, and I actually have somewhere, a list of all the candidates that we interviewed. Could I have this marked? BY COURT REPORTER: Is that your only
I'm going to mark that as
It gives a series of names and
Is this the list of folks that were
interviewed? That is correct. Tell me about it. Part of the qualification
was you had to have so much Public Works experience, they wanted you to have some experience in some of the different facets that the Operation Manager was involved with and that was waste water treatment, code enforcement, building codes and stuff like that. Didn't have to have all of it, but
needed to have some background with fleet, garage, and so the only one that really had any of the experience was Dave Hunt. Well,
Jack Schaller
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Page 34 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 in the first run through that they selected which was Mark, Sam, and Reba, Dave Hunt wasn't in there, so I think as a concession they let us since we complained about it, let Dave be a part of the interview process. So we interviewed and we had interviews, we ranked them all on the board, and of course David Hertzberg and I went more towards the technical piece of it which we felt was more important because you can always kind of teach somebody management and stuff like that and it's hard to teach somebody engineering. And were 2 of 5. And the other 3
miraculously ranked Cody higher so when it was all said and done Cody Cowan was the high point winner for the interview. to make our arguments. We all got
Mark and I got rather I told him why
passionate about our choices.
I thought mine was a better choice and he told me why he thought his was, and it was obvious that's the way the group as a whole felt that it was and I said, you know, having somebody that has no technical skills doesn't help me. I don't have time to do my job, the
Public Works Director's job who still hadn't
Jack Schaller
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Page 35 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 fully checked back in, and then turn around and train somebody else to come in here and do this work. I need somebody that I can
trust that's technically competent and I've got the guy right here, and he can still continue to do his job until we get somebody to fill his position and he can help train them so we don't lose some of the efficiencies that we have. And Mark just
very passionately back to me says, you know, this is the way it's going to be. the guy that we've got. This is
So I said, fine, if
that's what the group wants I'll play ball. You asked me to give you my opinion, I gave you my opinion, this is the way we're going to go so this is the way we'll go. So they,
and I say they, Mark and Sam had all the communications with Cody. Once again that's
never happened in the whole five and a half years that I've been there. Typically the
Public Works Director, which would have been David Hertzberg, he and I would have sat down and talked about it and David would have been the one working with the H.R. Director to try to get the person on, you know, get them
Jack Schaller
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Page 36 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. employed. And there's a range, a salary
range, and typically we don't go past like Level 3. Which is what? Well, there's steps. There's like 12 steps
and I can't tell you -In step? Yeah, when you hire somebody in they hire in usually at Step 1, but every now and then they'll let you go Step 2 or Step 3. So we
never had a say in it at all, Mark and Sam handled all of it. And they hired Cody on at
the top step, the very top step in the range. Which was what? $70,000.00 and some. What would it have been, what level? I don't know, Level 12 or something on the steps at the time. top. But it was at the very
He had no more room for anything to go.
And realize Tim Nyander who had left the City after thirty years of experience wasn't at the top level. And so we're hiring a guy
in with no experience at all with doing our -And he wasn't an engineer?
Jack Schaller
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Page 37 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. And he wasn't an engineer. And neither was
Tim, but Tim had come up - he had the technical background through the waste water, he was Class A certified waste water treatment operator, he had a Master's in Public Administration, he had his degree, had the background and come up and had got his education and was qualified for the job. We're paying a guy with no experience more than the guy that left and then we're paying him more than Troy Bolander who is at the same level as Tim Nyander who is our City Planner who had been there for fifteen years so we're going to bring this guy in at the top level. Once again that's not my
decision, that's the City Manager's decision. So Cody was supposed to start to work on a Wednesday, I believe it was. And I can't
tell you the exact date, but I know the day of the week was like a Wednesday. And he
came in to City Hall on Monday to visit with David Hertzberg, my boss. Mark and Sam were David
both gone, they were both on vacation. wasn't available at the time. I'm in my
office with Dave Hunt, my transportation
Jack Schaller
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Page 38 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 engineer, and we're talking about some work related matters and some personnel stuff. Our clerk in the Billing Department comes back and says there's a Cody Cowan here that's supposed to meet David, he's not here, can he come in and see you, and I said, yes, let me finish up here and I'll be glad to see him. She goes in and brings him back and
he's standing by the door and I'm trying to finish up what I'm talking about with Dave. Cody comes in and just starts talking to me, interrupts my conversation, so I tell him I don't have a whole lot of time to talk with you because I've got a mandatory prebid that I have to go to in 5 to 10 minutes so I'll do what I can to help you out and talk with you a little bit. So he asked me about the job
and he said, you know, what kind of hours, and I said you're going to work harder here than you've ever worked in any job, after the tornado I'm typically putting in six days a week, 12 plus hours a day, and I've got a hundred emails a day at least to get through and 20 phone calls to get through. You're
going to work from 7:00 in the morning until
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 39 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 7:00 at night and that's just the nature of the beast right now. And he was like, okay.
Then he asked me about what I thought about the job and I said, well, listen, if you're coming here expecting to get patted on the back that's not going to happen. You're
going to be probably the most hated person around and I said in the context that you're dealing with code enforcement and building, you're going to be over that. And the people
with code enforcement that you went out and you've ticketed for tall grass, you've ticketed for trash in the yard so when they come up to see you they're hating you right off the bat. They don't like you. And the
same way with building people, if you don't give them the permits that they want they're going to come up. So don't do this expecting
to get patted on the back and told good job because the job you're coming in it's not going to happen. You're doing this because I kind
you want to be a good public servant.
of give him the same speech that the City Manager gave me whenever I started to come to work, so I thought I was doing what of course
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 40 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 the City Manager would have wanted me to do. Then he asked about the pay and I told him you're not going to get any raises, and he said, well, what do you mean. I said, well,
you're at the top end of the range, and he asked me what that meant. I said, well,
worst case scenario you're going to work the next 30 years here without a raise. Now that
being said every 5 years the H.R. Department goes in and evaluates all the positions and classifies it all and readjusts it so hopefully you'll be able to see increases as it goes along with that and then you've got longevity that comes in, if you've been here for a certain amount of time you get some increases because of longevity, but as far as where you're at you're at the top. nowhere else to go. There's
Well, it was then I
could tell he was a little perturbed because apparently they hadn't mentioned that to him whenever they made him the offer and done all that. And he was like, oh, that's fine. And
then I had to leave, David showed up about that time. For the large majority of the
whole entire conversation Dave Hunt, my
Jack Schaller
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Page 41 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Transportation engineer, was sitting in there listening to it. He left and then Cody
decided not to take the job and told David the next day that he wasn't going to take the job. I told David, hey, do you want us to go
over there and -David who? David Hertzberg. Do you want me to go over
there and talk to him and see if we can't get him back in the fold and try to get him back in here because, you know, I'm sure I probably scared the heck out of him with some of the stuff that I talked to him about. He
said, well, he did say, my god, is this what I signed up for. I said, well, I'm not going to say I was the most pleasant in the world because I was busy and he interrupted me, he was very arrogant, very rude when eh came in, so I responded in kind of. And we got in
there and had what I thought was a fairly decent banter back and forth, told him what he wanted to hear, and I'm sure he was not very happy with it so he decided not to take the job. Then it comes at me that I was the
reason that, and Mark assumes that I'm the
Jack Schaller
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Page 42 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 reason that Cody is not taking the job, that I sabotaged him from getting the job. not my intent at all. It was
I said I've got a
witness in there that can tell you exactly what happened. I've got nothing to hide. Sam I have
I'll tell you everything that happened. Anslem called up Cody to talk to him.
no idea what was said. I don't have any idea if he coached him or Cody told him anything, but then Dave Allgood, the H.R. Director, and Sam turned around and called Cody back up again and they wrote up a nice little dissertation of exactly what Cody had said and it painted me in a very unfavorable light. And I talked to my boss David
Hertzberg about it because they started doing an investigation on me to see what kind of punishment I should get for sabotaging this relationship, and I told David, I went through that list, and I told him, I said I did exactly, I told him that, that's exactly what I said, this is the context that it was in. Cody had taken things and took them out
of order and put some of the stuff out of context so if you put it in context it wasn't
Jack Schaller
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Page 43 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. near as bad as Cody made it out to be, it was, yeah, I did tell him, yeah, you will be here the next 30 years without a pay raise, but I said if you had been in there with me he'd asked where he was at, I try to be honest with him, answer his questions honestly because it does not good for me to lie to him and him come to work here and find out three weeks later that he gets no raises so I tried to be honest with him and let him know what our process was. the work, you know. He asked about
So we went through point
by point on this deal and I let David know exactly what I said and David put together the investigation on his end, turned it in to -David? Hertzberg. Took it and turned it in to Mark
for I've done my investigation on this, I don't think Jack did anything malicious or wrong. Should he have maybe used a little
better tact at times, yes, probably should have, but he didn't do anything except for answer the questions that were asked of him honestly. Then I get a notice to a Fact
Jack Schaller
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Page 44 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Finding Hearing, told I'm going to go to a Fact Finding Hearing. right about that. Let me make sure I'm
I'm not going to lie to
you and tell you I know the exact order, but at one point after that I got called in to the City Manager's office and sat down there with Brian Head, David Allgood, Sam Anslem, and Mark Rohr in what I call the ambush. got called up there and basically Mark sat there and said you're going to get a chance to talk, but I'm going to talk first and I want to go over some of the stuff that's happened with this, and I don't want to misquote it. I went and asked for it to be I
put in my personnel file after a certain amount of time after I left because I know that Mark would have pulled it out of there had he known I'd put it in there. But I put
in a memo stating exactly what had happened during part of the ambush and everything like that and what it was. Could I have a copy of this? Yeah, you can keep that. Is this your only one? No, that's a copy.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 45 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. Q. Q. A. Can I mark that, please? There should be one provided, if it hasn't been taken out of my personnel file there should be one in my personnel file. This is Exhibit #29, sir, what you just handed me? Yes. And what does this basically say? I mean I
can read it and I will read it, but what does it basically say? That is basically my reason for why I signed the waiver of the Fact Finding Hearing under duress. I had been told I was going to go to
a Fact Finding Hearing and when it come to the Fact Finding Hearing process you can either go to the Fact Finding Hearing or waive your right to the Fact Finding Hearing, and this kind of explains why I had decided I should sign the waiver of the Fact Finding Hearing. And the reason for that was, and I
say here by signing the waiver, I am by no means admitting that I did anything wrong, but I had no chance to win. Because the way
the Fact Finding Hearing board works - and let me diverge just a little bit here. One
Jack Schaller
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Page 46 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 of the other reasons that I signed the waiver for the Fact Finding Hearing was to keep other people from getting damaged in it, too. Because if Chief Lane Roberts and Lamont Radcliff had been on that panel and heard my side of the story I'm a hundred percent confident that they would have voted on my side of the matter. They know me, they know
how I am, I'm very honest, I don't lie about stuff. Whether it gets me in trouble or not I'm very blunt. I'm
I just tell it like it is.
I wear my heart on my sleeve at times.
very passionate about what I do, but I'm very honest about it, also. And had they voted to
there would be no disciplinary action towards me, that I really didn't do anything wrong, then Mark would have been mad at both of them. And then once you do the Fact Finding
Hearing they turn in their recommendation to Mark, Mark gets to make his own recommendation out of it. He doesn't have to
accept their recommendation so he gets to make his own recommendation, so Mark already had it in his mind that I was going to get punished on this deal. So regardless of what
Jack Schaller
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Page 47 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. they would have come up with the only thing that would have happened out of it is they could have got in trouble and got on Mark's bad side. Then had I appealed that it would
have went to the Personnel Board, so it goes to the Personnel Board and I'd win at the Personnel Board, then I've gotten the City Manager, my boss' boss, unbelievably mad at me because he thinks I ought to be suspended for what I done. And I don't agree with
that, but as I was saying what I called the ambush, those four people and myself were in there, and Mark come up and said you're going to get a chance to talk, but I'm going to talk first. But he said before I talk I
should listen to him and if I said anything that was contrary to what he knew was the truth there would be serious consequences. And everyone there heard it. Was he yelling at you at that time? No, but he was right below a yell, yeah. He
stood up and, you know, kind of come towards me from behind his desk to get the point across. What that basically told me was shut Don't tell him
up and don't say anything.
Jack Schaller
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Page 48 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. Q. what your side of the story is or don't tell him what the truth is because he's already made up his mind what he thinks the truth is. You might have to make a copy of that one. That is my original. We'll take a break here.
(Short break taken, back on record) Q. (By Mr. Loraine) Sir, you've handed me, I
made a copy of your document, and it's a copy of a memorandum of discipline from Rohr to yourself dated May 30th, 2013. That's now marked Exhibit #30, is that true? That is true. What does Mark say in this document that is significant? Well, he said he reviewed the investigation conducted by David Allgood and that after he done the thorough investigation it was recommended to him that he be suspended without pay, that I be suspended without pay for two 8-hour shifts. What I would say on
that is the part of the investigation that never happened was Sam Anslem was doing the investigation in conjunction with Dave Allgood. Neither one of them talked to me
Jack Schaller
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Page 49 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. about the incident that happened. I will say
David Hertzberg, my boss, was the only one that come to me and asked me about it and talked to me about it. He also went and
talked to Dave Hunt who verified the content and the frame with what I said and how Cody reacted to it which was, hey, that's fine, I'm used to working long hours, you know, I've been where I'm at and I haven't got a pay raise there in awhile, too, so that's not big deal, I'm used to it. So when Cody came
back and gave his side of it - and that's why I want to quantify the fact that Sam had talked to Cody alone and then come back and talked to Cody with Dave Allgood there. don't know if he led the witness down the answers that he wanted to hear because he knew Mark wanted me punished. This was So I
Mark's guy that Mark wanted, and so what happened with that -You're talking there was no thorough investigation and, in fact, nobody really talked to you except your boss and ultimately he gets disciplined? Yes, ultimately. And there's even more to it
Jack Schaller
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Page 50 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. than that. When this was presented to me it
was presented to me by Dave Allgood, the H.R. Director at the time. He come up there and
he gave this to me and I said, Dave, it says right here that this was your recommendation to Mark. Did you recommend to Mark that I be I said based on And he says, Jack, He says I told
suspended for two days? everything that you know.
I can't - he says I did not.
Mark that you didn't do anything wrong, worst case scenario it ought to be an oral reprimand, you know, just to use better judgment on stuff. job. But I've got to have a
And this is where he decided he wanted.
And I told him I said, hey, I'm fine with that, Dave. I wanted to know - and he said
and I can't - he said I can't - he said some day I'll make it right with you, I'll get it right in your file and I'll make it right, which to me meant after Mark is gone he'll make it right. But he couldn't do anything
at the time because Mark had basically said this is what's going to happen. Who told you that? He told me - we sat there face to face and he
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 51 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. told me that, and if he's a man of his word he would sit right there in front of you and tell you that he told me that. Let me ask you this. It wasn't his recommendation that I be suspended for two days without pay. Let me ask you this question. Did Allgood
ever really talk to you about your side of the story before this happened? No. So neither of those guys talked to you? No. So that's false, also? Yes, after it was all wrapped up and I already knew what was going to happen then Dave Allgood come up and talked to me and we went through the whole deal and he says, you know, Jack, that's exactly what I thought would happen, and then he gave me this and then I asked him, I said, did you make that recommendation and he said, no, that's not the recommendation I made, but I've got to have a job. So basically how the system
works, which I will tell you I think is a flawed system, is that my accuser, Mark Rohr,
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 52 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. Q. A. was also the judge, jury, and executioner on the whole thing, so I had no right to a fair process. And conversely what happened after
that is my boss gets demoted because he stood up for me, not saying that there was management style and stuff like that that David was really great at what he done, but what they demoted him over was not - you know, if you wanted to get him on his performance or on his supervisory skills that's fine, but the way they went at it was wrong. What did they get him on? They tried to tell him he was - basically wrote him up in the paper like he was a criminal. He was responsible for that
$150,000.00. Which we've already discussed on the software? Yeah. And I know I'm taking some tangents
here, but I want you to know that I get very agitated about the fact that they start talking about the uncollected revenue of that $150,000.00, and if you go and look into it very close at all you will see that Leslie
Jack Schaller
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Page 53 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Haase writes off about $50,000.00 a year in mowing bills. We have told her from the day
that I got there, within the first two months we sat down and talked to her about these mow bills, you need to go and put them on the people's personal property tax, then they have to pay it. You can't just pay part of
your personal property tax, you have to pay it all. She didn't want to upset the apple So you
cart so she would just write off.
start talking about somebody that refuses to use the legal system to collect money. We
basically fire Steve Cope, we demote my boss, she gets nothing out of it and she's got more outstanding debt over a ten year period than we had over a fifteen year period even if you used the $150,000.00. Four years at
$50,000.00 a year is $200,000.00. That's what is missing out of her -Well, what it is we send out mow bills when we have to go and mow the lots for somebody that's got tall grass. They don't mow it themselves, we mow it and they get a bill. She sends the bill out to them. don't pay she writes it off. If they
Well, we've
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 54 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. told her and told her and told her that you need to get to collecting on that and the best way to do it by the legal system is to go have it put on the personal property tax. Yeah, I know the County Collector over there is going to raise hell about it, but he can't do anything about it. Legally he has to put it on there and that forces them to pay. you put a lien against their property most all of those properties that you're dealing with you're going to be third of fourth lien holder on there so you're never going to see a dollar out of it anyway, but you can take those small ones and put them on the personal property taxes and they have to pay them. Do you know if that's a legal method? Yes. How do you know that? We researched it, Steve Cope, myself, and Dave Hertzberg researched it, brought it down to her, showed her the legality of it and how it worked, and I believe we even checked with Brian Head, you know, to make sure everybody understood that was a way to do it. what Steve Cope did. That's If
He talked to all his
Jack Schaller
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Page 55 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. other code enforcement counterparts and found out how they all done it and that was the way the majority of them were able to get good collections done. It's a little more
tedious, a little more work to do it, but if you're going to go and start hammering people for not collecting revenue I give you a way to collect revenue and you choose not to use it that's to me almost as egregious as not collecting revenue to start with. Now let's move to another topic. I want to
talk about the rebuilding of Fire Station 2. I was told that there was an issue with a culvert and I was told two different stories, but I want to hear your version of it. Explain to me what the standard engineering opinion was and should have been. A little background. Station 2 over on
Schifferdecker, the property that we acquired was kind of in a lower area and had a drainage ditch that run through it. Part of
that drainage ditch whenever you put the new fire station on it needed to be relocated. And our original intention, and I say our which would have been myself and Dan Johnson,
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Page 56 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. who was my storm water engineer at the time, was to just do an open channel, basically leave it as a ditch, make an open channel, slope the side slopes back so that they were easily mowable, plant some grasses in the bottom that weren't going to grow up real tall because it always seemed to run water through there so you wanted to make it - or we were going to put a concrete channel in the bottom of it just so it would look decent because we know the City Manager is all about how things look. So we sat down with the
Fire Chief, Mitch Randles, and said here's what we've got. He said, well, can we put a
box culvert in there and I said, well, yes, we can, but the most economical way to save money because he was really tight on his budget -Who was tight, Mitch? Mitch was. Leslie had only budgeted so much So we can
for the rebuild of Fire Station 2.
do it with our own City forces, we use Public Works crews and we'll do this. And he said,
well, what about a box culvert and I said, yeah, we can put a box culvert in there, but
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 57 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. who is going to pay for that box culvert. He's like I don't know, I just know that the City Manager is not going to want the ditch in there, and I said, okay, that's the most economical way to do it. He said I'll talk
to the City Manager and see what he wants, but the City Manager is going to want a box culvert in there. And so I thought that he
and I would probably go approach the City Manager about it, but Mitch talked to him aside from when I had come, said, yeah, the City Manager wants the box culvert in there. I said, well, how are we going to pay for it and so Mark Rohr, Mitch Randles, Leslie Haase, and myself sat down to discuss how it was going to do it. I said, well, we can put
it in with City forces so all you'd be paying is the materials, but it's going to be, you know, close to $100,000.00 of box culvert, just materials alone to go in there. But on
the bid for the contractor it was $600,000.00 so it was a net savings based on what their estimates was of about half a million dollars. That was using City guys?
Jack Schaller
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Page 58 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. A. A. Q. A. Q. Yes, using our City funds. No, I mean City builders? Yes, City forces. So you do it within, okay. be out $600,000.00? Yes, and that was their estimate. They Otherwise you'd
hadn't bid it at the time, but that was what the architect had estimated. And so Mark
said, well, let's go ahead and put in the box culvert and do that and then we'll have a flat area for that and then whenever we sell that property, the property out in front of the fire station because that would leave a piece of property out in front of the fire station, if it sold then we would take that money and we'd put it back in the storm water fund because we were going to use storm water sales tax money to pay for that box culvert to go in. Whose idea was that, to use the storm money? Whose idea was it? Yes. I believe it was Leslie and I think we all sat down there collectively and said, well, how do we pay for that, and I was like, you
Jack Schaller
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Page 59 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. Q. know, I'd say you put it to the fire station, just add it to the fire station, and I believe Leslie said, no, we can put it in the storm water. It is a storm water deal and I
was like, well, it is a storm water project so if that's where you want to do it that's fine, but as I always did with her whenever something like that came up I said, but I want you to realize if I come back to you at the end of these projects, and not necessarily this specific but the whole group of projects, and we're short I want you to remember this, you know, if I need another $50,000.00 over here on another project to finish up because there's no money it's because we took it out of this project here. Let me ask you this. There's no accounting
for that box culvert cost the way you've described it, it would not be audited towards that firehouse? That is correct, it would go towards the storm water. Who authorized that change? Who authorized it? through Mark. The authorization came
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 60 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. Mark. And did Mark bring that to City
Council? No, he did not. So really he adjusted the budget for the fire station by himself really? Yes. The budget was set by Leslie with the knowledge of the Council? Yes. So as we're sitting here today do you have any knowledge as to whether or not the City Council was ever advised that budgeted item was not taken from the Firehouse Number 2 budget, rebuild budget, but at least about $100,000.00 -Roughly when you looked at all the different stuff we had to do we wound up getting into some terrible subgrade out there that the geotechnical engineer said we weren't going to run into and we spent a bunch of money in rock stabilizing the site and then the box culvert alone, so yeah, it was $100,000.00 plus. Was your design engineer on that? Dan Johnson, yes.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 61 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. A. Q. Q. A. Q. Dan told me in testimony that it would probably have been about $125,000.00. I would trust his judgment on that. He is
the one that estimated all the quantities out and got the cost estimates for us so his $125,000.00 would probably be close to right. Because there was a box culvert, then there was associated piping that went with that, backfill material. So if I'm understanding this right your authorization to alter the budget for the firehouse construction was done by Mark without knowledge of the City Council? That is correct. And if went back to account for that now, if an auditor came in to account for that $125,000.00 it would not show up on the reconstruction of Firehouse No. 2? That is correct, it would show up underneath the storm water. Well, something would -As a storm water project. Yeah, and so it would not be associated with the budget that was originally set up? That is correct. That being said there is
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 62 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. discretionary funds in the storm water account to be able to do storm water projects for projects that come up throughout each budget year, and that's where that wound up landing. Well, let me put it this way. There should
be an extra $125,000.00 in the storm budget account for some other ditch somewhere else, shouldn't there? There should be $125,000.00 for a project that was necessary somewhere else in the City. That didn't get done because of that? That is correct. If I asked Leslie how that was budgeted I mean would that be - is there something called general? The general fund? Yeah, just general. I don't believe she would have put it in the general fund. Typically the general fund
takes care of salaries and stuff along that line. And the fact that Mark's statement was
when that sold, that property sold, the revenue from that would go back into the
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 63 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. storm water account leads me to believe, and I honestly didn't go and follow everything where she took it out of it, but it would have come out of the storm water sales tax or storm water maintenance account. Once again that's -It was a fire station project that got charged to the storm water account. And Mark made the decision ultimately to do that without advising the Council on that? That is correct. All of that happened before
the project bid out based upon estimated costs, and once they got the estimated costs of construction it was over budget, and in an effort to try to bring it back closer to within budget the Public Works Department had to once again take up the slack. The same
thing happened out at the athletic complex. So doing it internally normally that stuff would be bid out, wouldn't it, to a contractor? Yes, it was originally set up to be part of the contractor that did the fire station construction part of their work. But because the budget was over Chief Randles
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 64 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. A. A. Q. A. Q. is looking for a way to cut his budget, your design engineer basically tells him here's a great way to do it. question. Let me ask you this
Did you as an engineer and as a
supervisor of Dan - what's his last name? Johnson. Was his opinion that excluded the box culvert, was that within certainty of your profession as meets the standards necessary? Certainly, yes. So in other words he didn't say, hey, let's do it this way. What he decided was, hey,
this meets our engineering standards and it's within the budget. It's the most economical way for us to complete the project. Was there anything wrong with his opinion in your opinion? No, there was nothing wrong with the opinion. Q. It's good to save money, isn't it? An open channel, open
Yeah, that is correct.
ditch is always cheaper than putting in storm sewer. Now if we have by our standards like
on a roadway where it's our standard and it's our policy and it's our practice that you've
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 65 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. got to put in curb and gutter and storm water then you have to put that in. But when it
comes to the drainage channels across the City, an open channel is way more cost effective than doing a box culvert. You only
put box culverts in normally for reasons where you're going - when you have an open channel and you go to a box culvert would be because you're crossing it with a roadway, maybe you have a severe erosion problem or something like that so you're putting something in there to help arm that. But
every other project that we've done, and if I had the list in front of me I could name half a dozen of them, when we did channel modifications like that we went back in, we put down an erosion control mat, geotechnical type fabric, and seeded it and let the grass grow up and leave it as a channel there. You
reinforce it using geosynthetic material at $2.50 a square yard instead of $450.00 to $600.00 a lineal foot. Which would be the result of a culvert? Which would be a box culvert. If this had bid out and an outside consulting
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 66 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. A. Q. A. Q. Q. Q. A. Q. A. A. firm came to talk to Dan what would he have told them to do? Would he have told them to
put in a culvert or would he have told them to do what you guys did? If this was done with nobody else's involvement in it it would have been designed as an open channel. Just like he did design it? Uh-huh. Before. Before. It was just moving that open channel It was an open channel there --
a little bit to make sure that you'd get a parking lot and everything else in there. We
were shifting the open channel, changing the geometry of it a little bit, nothing but earthwork, no concrete work, no crane, no installation, just moving dirt. All that stuff otherwise had to be purchased by your group when they put this culvert in? Correct. Those services with a crane and everything? Yes. That's why the numbers like $125,000.00 or something? That's correct because base material, culvert
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 67 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. A. Q. Q. material, box culvert material, crane rental, track hoe rental for the excavation. Now the guy that makes the decision here is Mark Rohr and he's not an engineer, is that true? That is correct. So he wouldn't know what engineering standards were correct or not other than Dan would have told him and you would have reinforced that to Mark? That is correct. And would your boss have also said that? Yes, David Hertzberg would have said that, also. So he just totally threw out all the engineer's opinions and did it the way he wanted to do it? Yes, and if you witnessed any of the news here in the last two months you can see what he thinks about engineers. Well, I can see that he got rid of a bunch of you. I think he also thinks that probably Let me ask you one final
about lawyers. matter.
Oh, I do want to say here is a couple of
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 68 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. other things that you might want. The whole
deal with the Cody Cowan deal I had wrote Mark an email basically telling him my side of the story, letting him know that was not my intent, and I even told David I'd be willing to go back and try to meet with Cody and get him to come to work because he misunderstood or whatever, and then here is Mark's response to my said email to him. When you sent the first thing, the first letter that is addressed to Mark from you, this is marked now Exhibit #31? Yes. And Mark's response? That was an attachment to an email that I sent him. And Mark's response is #32, email? Yes, sir. Now was this before Mark made his decision? Yes. So if I asked him if he knew your side of the facts I guess he would say that I'd received a letter? Yes. When he made his decision he had at least the
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 69 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. information that's contained in #31 to know what your position was? Yes. And he responded in Exhibit #32. It says,
"Jack, you were more than part of the reason Cody turned the job down. The issue here
isn't about me or about the job you have done in the past, but rather the extremely poor judgment you used in this one instance. I'd
like to think your intentions were innocent, but your mere presence in the interviews in addition to your behavior during and after now betray that thought." this question. Let me ask you
He's talking now about you
were suggesting that you needed a background with this job? Right. And you had suggested Mr. Hunt? Yes. It's because he had a background? Yes. And nobody else on that list of people that were interviewed had sufficient background? No. And you're saying that as you sit here under
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 70 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. Q. A. oath? Yes. So Mark really didn't care, is that true? That is correct. And the interesting thing
about his response there is normally for the Operations Manager position the two people that would be interviewing the Operations Manager would have been myself and David Hertzberg, would have been the only two people, and then normally Tamra Schaller, my wife, with H.R. would have sat in on the interview. She sits in on all interviews
just to make sure we don't ask any off color questions or anything like that. Like quality control or something like that? Yeah, quality control basically. Which goes
to my point Mark never sat in on any interview other than a department head interview, so he comes to this one. I was
not supposed to be part of the interview. They made a mistake and whether David politicked for me to be on there or they accidentally included me in on the email whenever they sent out when the interview was I was there. But I knew real quick whenever
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 71 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. I went down there he said, oh, you weren't supposed to be here. the email. Who said that? Sam. David being your boss? Right. So when he states right there my mere Oh, I guess you were on
presence in the interview, well, I would counteract that with Mark's mere presence in the interview of an employee that he has never ever sat in on that level of the interview is unprecedented and unwarranted and leads itself to be suspect. And that if
I might add on that, the H.R. personnel, and this one it was the H.R. Director, Reba Sandley (ph.), on any of the other interviews that we've ever done they never vote on the person because they have no idea what it takes to do the job for anything. They may
know what they need to do in H.R., but they don't need to know what they do in Public Works and Operations and stuff like that. So
the mere fact that not only Mark, Sam Anslem, and Reba Sandley (ph.) were in on the interview, Reba would never, ever be there,
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 72 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. normally it would be Tamra, but those three were in on the interview that normally David and I would do, and then all three of them had a vote on who was the employee that got it. And I'm passionate about this because If
I'm a guy that likes to follow rules.
there is a job description out there and you don't meet the qualifications the only time the City has ever hired somebody that doesn't meet qualifications typically the policy is if they can't find anybody that meets qualifications so then they - perfect example. They just did it again with the Qualifications for
garage superintendent.
the job of garage superintendent is to have a CDL. CDL. The guy that they hired did not have a So we have done that before where if
everybody that applies for the job doesn't have a CDL, you know, we can't find anybody that has it, they would readvertise it without that requirement. They didn't readvertise this one? Right, you readvertise it and then you would give them 60, 90 days to get their CDL. They
had a qualified applicant, Bruce Thompson,
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 73 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. A. Q. who is the mechanic for the Fire Department put in for it. He didn't get the job. He was They hired
the one that met qualifications. somebody else that didn't meet the
qualifications and give him the opportunity within 90 days to meet the qualifications. Okay. Let me go back to something you said This incident involving the tire
earlier.
company that was changed, do you know for a fact that company was ousted from receiving anymore tire contracts? That I don't know. control. That was under Tim's
Tim was told by Mark not to do any That put a craw in Tim.
business with them.
I don't know that Tim kept them from ever doing work after that, you know. I would
like to think that Tim did the right thing and allowed them to continue doing work and just didn't tell Mark that he put them on the, you know -The bad list? Yeah. So Mark tried to intervene and tried to what was Tim's last name? Nyander.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 74 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. Q. A. Q. A. And is he still there now? No, he's the one that left that went to Arkansas that started this Cody Cowan. And
then the person that they wound up hiring if you look on that list was Lynden Lawson who is a 30 year Marine military guy, zero Public Works experience, zero experience with waste water, zero experience with code enforcement, zero experience with anything that we have to do that we work with, but 30 year military man. He is a yes man to the boss.
And what was his name? Lynden Lawson. This is on Exhibit #28. Right. He's the first one?
And let me tell you one other thing
because there's a lot of intricacies that go with this. Lynden Lawson got his degree from When they
Pitt State in Human Resources.
filled the Human Resources Manager job he put in his application for the Human Resources Manager job and wasn't even on a list to be interviewed. So he wasn't good enough to be
interviewed for the H.R. job, but yet he winds up being the guy that they pick over my technical guy.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 75 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Q. A. A. Q. A. A. Q. Q. A. A. Q. Q. A. Q. Over Mr. Hunt? Over Mr. Hunt. I appreciate your information. If there If there
anything else you've got my card.
are any reprisals or anything I'd like to know as soon as possible. Okay. Thank you. me? Did you have anything else for
You've got some more papers.
These papers are basically just me when I left all the people that basically said, Jack, you're the reason the City is doing so well, you're doing a good job. Let me have a copy of those. extras? Yes. I'm going to put them all together and then let's staple them. These would basically be Are these
the people that said you did a good job. Uh-huh. These would be employees of the City? No, this is just people that I've worked with throughout the community. This is Exhibit #33? Yes.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 76 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. A. Q. Q. A. And what else have you got? This is one of the deals that happened that really got me irritated is whenever they hadn't officially hired Cody Cowan yet, but we all knew that's where they were going with it, David and I both knew it. Sam Anslem
brought Cody Cowan up on the fourth floor and showed him everybody, kind of introduced him to everybody in front of Dave Hunt without Dave Hunt ever being told, hey, listen, we're looking at this guy, this is what's going on, and I got irritated because I didn't like them basically rubbing Cody's face in Dave Hunt's face. I thought that was very inappropriate and I expressed my displeasure and then got Sam's response back that it's not unprecedented, and I would disagree with that, it is unprecedented. do that. You don't go and
To me that's not the professional
way to do something. We're talking this email response marked Exhibit #34? Yes. Thank you, sir. No. Anything further?
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 77 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 (SWORN STATEMENT CONCLUDED) A. Q. A. Q. Thank you for taking time out of your schedule. I realize that you're in the real
world now and it's tough. Like I say all I want to do is just tell the truth and let the chips fall where they may, and I hope that it doesn't come back and haunt me when it's all said and done. I agree with that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. I gave you my card.
Jack Schaller
In Re:
Page 78
REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE
STATE OF MISSOURI ss. COUNTY OF JASPER I, SHARON K. ROGERS, Certified Court Reporter in the State of Missouri, do certify that pursuant to the foregoing Stipulation the witness came before me on the 15th day of November, 2013, was duly sworn by me, and was examined. That examination was then taken by me by
steno-mask recording and afterwards transcribed; said Sworn Statement is subscribed by the witness as hereinbefore set out on the day in that behalf aforesaid and is herewith returned. I further certify that I am not counsel, attorney, or relative of either party, or clerk, or stenographer of either party or of the attorney of either party, or otherwise interested in the event of this suit.
__________________________ SHARON K. ROGERS, CCR-650

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Schaller, Jack - Vol (Investigation-11/15/13)

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Transcript of the Testimony of Jack Schaller

Printed On: November 30, 2013

Joplin Critical Investigation

JOPLIN CRITICAL INVESTIGATION

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Exhibits in separate binder

(sic) - typed as spoken (ph.) - phonetic

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to talk about three primary areas.

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If you don't want to

How long have you been in

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loved my job with the City. good at it.

And I felt I kind of had to I

leave because I had no other choice.

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Manager? I don't know if it was made known. It was

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him before at the Police Department.

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Page 20 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 A. Q. help with no increase. We went from a couple

I would certainly agree with that.

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though, that after my two days suspension

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