It is obvious by this picture and more importantly the prepared remarks delivered by our TOP leaders that they have not a clue what we really do. It is smoke and mirrors. Sound bites and prepared statements. Do just enough to give the appearance that we are functional. Ignore all the vacant positions. Ignore that we are not ONE PERCENT better, faster, stronger, more skilled, better staffed than we were 5 yrs ago. Ignore that millions are being wasted on internal disputes, whitewashing and cover ups. How much did it cost to cover Vanessa for a yr on Per Diem? How much to give all these bosses temporary details? How much to insert an entire new crew in Mexico after the last were EJECTED by the State Department? How much to send a bunch of NIBIN equipment to Mexico and then not support its use? How much for Cadillacs? How much is being wasted by SACs on this side of the border who refuse to support the country attache' in Mexico because they may lose some little part of their power? How much wasted on sexy headline grabbing wiretap cases that turn out to be not much more than a GS-9 case? The list goes on and on. 1.16 Billion dollars to maintain the status quo? This group of managers is using our funding as their own little empire building fund. When Billy and Mr. Melson got called out on the hill as to why after 1 1/2 yrs we have done nothing to assist with the border crime, his answer SEND 100 PEOPLE DOWN FOR 90 DAYS. WHEW WE GOT CONGRESS OFF OUR BUTTS. They say a picture is worth a 1000 words. Its understandable Mr. Melson, Billy, you have let this Bureau sink to its lowest morale and productivity since Waco. It IS going to be a hard uphill battle since your credibility is totally gone with the field. Whats done is done. HOWEVER, If you have lost your passion for this Bureau, if you are too tired to carry on, if you are not prepared to step up like men and fix what you have broken, JUST LEAVE. Quite frankly, if I was sitting on the other side of that sub-committee, I would have asked " Are we boring you ATF"?
Fox gaurding the hen house
Started by Doc Holiday, Mar 18 2010 06:14 AM
5 replies to this topic
#2
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Posted 18 March 2010 - 07:25 PM
If you were a member of a Congressional Appropriations Subcomittee that said yes or no to budgets for Justice Department agencies would you give this crew over one billion dollars? That is what they are asking for when this picture was taken. It looks like the photographer said, "OK everyone. On the count of three look sad and pissed off."
Is there a more dower, uninspired appearing, sour group of people possible to be found to sit before Congress and ask for our appropriations. They can't even fake enthusiasm or get off their blackberry's to address Congress.
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#3
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Posted 18 March 2010 - 07:08 PM
There is nothing ethical about ATF Ethics Attorneys. Unethical is the correct term. I am going to do my best to get Congress to look at the history of ATF's legal counsel as it relates to employee disputes against the agency. I am going to do all I can to draw attention to past complaints, the facts of those complaints, the treatment by ATF of the employee who filed the complaint, what the final result of the complaint was, what type of harrassment or retaliation the employee recieved, and most importantly who was involved from cheif counsels office in addressing the complaint and what unethical tactics were used leading up to resolution.
I am certain that a common denominator is going to surface here.
If you have personal examples of unethical tactics used by ATF's chief counsels office in the processing of your complaint against the agency, post details here or send them via the secure CleanUpATF email system. We have a couple members of Congress ready to review and possibly audit ATF's legal practices.
#4
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Posted 18 March 2010 - 01:44 PM
Another example of ATF’s dirty EEO tricks. See the below attached email text.
At the time of the email (sent from ATF Ethics Attorney Rachel Bouman to Dobyns attorney) both parties were discussing the possibility of settling Dobyns’s dispute through mediation.
In her email Bouman encourages Dobyns that "good faith" and a "consiliatory spirit" are need by both parties to resolve Dobyns’s dispute.
Bouman further advised that a "sticking point" for ATF to participate in the mediation will be that ATF's EEO AD Durham, Acting Director Carter, AD Hoover and Bouman herself were currently named in Dobyns’s EEO complaint. Bouman had previously asked, and asks again, for Dobyns to remove Durhan, Carter, Hoover and herself from his complaint.
Dobyns officially removed those defendants from his EEO complaint to accommodate ATF and give mediation a chance at success. Dobyns advised that although at the time he felt like he was be extorted to take those named off his EEO complaint he still believed that ATF wanted to resolve his dispute.
A month later at the mediation Carter, Bouman and ATF Ethics Attorney Valerie Bacon met with Dobyns in Phoenix. The mediation was conducted by an independent contract mediator. Dobyns was asked by ATF to open the negotiation with his proposal of settlement terms to ATF. Dobyns provided terms that were exceedingly fair to ATF with hopes of putting an end to his dispute.
Bouman’s, Carter’s and Bacon’s counter offer to Dobyns (with Dobyns’s wife present) made on behalf of ATF was to resign immediately or face termination. Carter reportedly told Dobyns later, “Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.” This from our Director.
Dobyns walked away from the negotiations and reportedly as he and his wife left the building they could hear the ATF representatives engaged in uproarious laughter in the adjacent room.
This is the good part: The ATF reps, after showing no good faith or conciliatory spirit and after having their names removed from Dobyns’s EEO complaint, stuck Dobyns with a $10,000.00 mediation bill.
This is the type of misconduct and dirty tricks you can expect to encounter from the highest levels of ATF’s executive staff and ATF’s Ethics Attorneys. Now Bouman's supervisor Eleanor Loos is calling the shots. Do you think things are going to get better or worse?
And they wonder how Dobyns's dispute turned into a federal lawsuit.
>>> "Bouman, Rachel A." > 2/13/2009 9:20 AM >>>
Hi Jim--
I appreciate the time we had to discuss this case yesterday. I echo
your sentiments that if the Agency agrees to the offer of mediation that
both sides have to come to the mediation table in good faith and with a
conciliatory spirit in order for mediation to be beneficial for everyone
involved.
I have not had an opportunity today to speak with my client, but one
thing I know will be a sticking point is the email chain below in which
myself, Mr. Durham, Acting Director Carter, AD Hoover and others are now
named in an EEO complaint. I may have misunderstood you, but I thought
you were going to see if Mr. Dobyns was willing to withdraw his request
to have all of us added to the complaint. I appreciate that emotions
are raw and tensions are high and anything that you and I can do to
diffuse the situation should be our priority right now. Please let me
know if Mr. Dobyns is willing to do so.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you,
Rachel
Rachel A. Bouman
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF)
Office of Chief Counsel
Administration and Ethics Division
At the time of the email (sent from ATF Ethics Attorney Rachel Bouman to Dobyns attorney) both parties were discussing the possibility of settling Dobyns’s dispute through mediation.
In her email Bouman encourages Dobyns that "good faith" and a "consiliatory spirit" are need by both parties to resolve Dobyns’s dispute.
Bouman further advised that a "sticking point" for ATF to participate in the mediation will be that ATF's EEO AD Durham, Acting Director Carter, AD Hoover and Bouman herself were currently named in Dobyns’s EEO complaint. Bouman had previously asked, and asks again, for Dobyns to remove Durhan, Carter, Hoover and herself from his complaint.
Dobyns officially removed those defendants from his EEO complaint to accommodate ATF and give mediation a chance at success. Dobyns advised that although at the time he felt like he was be extorted to take those named off his EEO complaint he still believed that ATF wanted to resolve his dispute.
A month later at the mediation Carter, Bouman and ATF Ethics Attorney Valerie Bacon met with Dobyns in Phoenix. The mediation was conducted by an independent contract mediator. Dobyns was asked by ATF to open the negotiation with his proposal of settlement terms to ATF. Dobyns provided terms that were exceedingly fair to ATF with hopes of putting an end to his dispute.
Bouman’s, Carter’s and Bacon’s counter offer to Dobyns (with Dobyns’s wife present) made on behalf of ATF was to resign immediately or face termination. Carter reportedly told Dobyns later, “Don’t blame me, I’m just the messenger.” This from our Director.
Dobyns walked away from the negotiations and reportedly as he and his wife left the building they could hear the ATF representatives engaged in uproarious laughter in the adjacent room.
This is the good part: The ATF reps, after showing no good faith or conciliatory spirit and after having their names removed from Dobyns’s EEO complaint, stuck Dobyns with a $10,000.00 mediation bill.
This is the type of misconduct and dirty tricks you can expect to encounter from the highest levels of ATF’s executive staff and ATF’s Ethics Attorneys. Now Bouman's supervisor Eleanor Loos is calling the shots. Do you think things are going to get better or worse?
And they wonder how Dobyns's dispute turned into a federal lawsuit.
>>> "Bouman, Rachel A." > 2/13/2009 9:20 AM >>>
Hi Jim--
I appreciate the time we had to discuss this case yesterday. I echo
your sentiments that if the Agency agrees to the offer of mediation that
both sides have to come to the mediation table in good faith and with a
conciliatory spirit in order for mediation to be beneficial for everyone
involved.
I have not had an opportunity today to speak with my client, but one
thing I know will be a sticking point is the email chain below in which
myself, Mr. Durham, Acting Director Carter, AD Hoover and others are now
named in an EEO complaint. I may have misunderstood you, but I thought
you were going to see if Mr. Dobyns was willing to withdraw his request
to have all of us added to the complaint. I appreciate that emotions
are raw and tensions are high and anything that you and I can do to
diffuse the situation should be our priority right now. Please let me
know if Mr. Dobyns is willing to do so.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you,
Rachel
Rachel A. Bouman
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF)
Office of Chief Counsel
Administration and Ethics Division
#5
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Posted 18 March 2010 - 10:53 AM
With Loos calling the ball directly on personel matters lets watch ATF's already through the roof dispute numbers increase at a rapid rate. Why even bother filing a complaint? In Loos's eyes the agent is wrong and probably nothing more than a sadsack who hates the boss. The boss surely didn't do anything wrong or illegal. When you think about this is a great protectionist move by ATF. Employees know that before they even speak up they have lost because Loos is going to do everything in her power to destroy them for speaking up. Loos will create an instant attorney/client privlige, save the day for the boss and crush the employee dispute right out of the gate. The stories of Loos destroying agents and ignoring the facts as she does are surfacing daily and the next is always more heinous than the last. If ATF wanted to fix the moral problem a good first step would have been to take Loos out of the mix, not give her more power. This was the exact wrong thing to do and that is exactly why ATF management chose to do it. Our executives can't stay out of their own way.
#6
Doc Holiday
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Posted 18 March 2010 - 06:14 AM
This is almost too ridiculous to believe. According to a recent posting by HQ. From this point forward, managers will no longer contact ELRB (Employee Labor Relations Branch) for guidance in day to day personnel matters. Rather than having trained HR and personnel specialists guide managers through potential employee issues (since they are the experts), all questions regarding these matters will be run through Chief Counsels Office, and worse than that, it will go through Ms. Loos' office. Isnt that like asking Hitler, "Mr. Hitler, I have all these Jewish people hanging around here. What would you like me to do with them"? Ms. Loos and her minions have never resolved a dispute without an unecessary and destructive fight. If I read this right, now ALL communications with be under her famous attorney client privalage. You will now have NO right to review internal communications between the managers making the decisions. Also it will remove the ability to have anyone independantly review the occurences in EEOC and whistleblower cases because counsel has now become Judge, Jury and Executioner. The problem is, they have now made themselves material witnesses and decision makers and will be subject to subpoena. FLEOA will surely be contacting Mr. Melson. The OIG will never stand for this obvious dismantling of due process and they better get ready for lawsuits on this one.
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