JUDGE MURNER THROWS BILL TUCKER UNDER THE TRAIN

While Judge-Executive Duane Murner was throwing Oldham County Maintenance Director Bill Tucker under the train at the February 2, 2010 meeting of the Oldham County Fiscal, other Magistrates were busy defending their vote to approve the contract awarded to Classic Cleaning for cleaning of the Fiscal Court Building. At issue was the awarding of the contract and the subsequent use of jail inmates to do some of the cleaning work within the scope of the contract.

A little background is in order. Modern Maintenance was under contract to clean the Fiscal Court Building and the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) building that houses the District Court and the Oldham Circuit Court. Although the value of the contract for cleaning the AOC building is unknown at this time, the value of the contract to clean the Fiscal Court building was $25,000. As the contract for the cleaning the Fiscal Court building was about to expire, it was put up for bid again. The only two bidders on the contract were Modern Maintenance and Classic Cleaning. It must be noted that Classic Cleaning is owned by Wendi McGohon and Tina Schaaf, who are both employed in the office of County Judge-Executive Duane Murner.

In my opinion employees of the county should not be allowed to bid on county contracts. Nor should companies that are primarily owned by employees of the county be allowed to bid on county contracts.. County Attorney John Fendley said that no conflict of interest was involved at the time the contract was discussed. Further counsel should have been sought. I believe that a poll of the Oldham County residents would reflect that the vast majority of the people would agree that there appeared to be a conflict of interest.

To make matters worse, county jail inmates began assisting with the cleaning of the FC building immediately after Classic Cleaning was awarded the contract to clean the building. By Judge-Executive Murner’s own admission, inmates had never been used for cleaning the inside of either the Fiscal Court or AOC buildings and they are still not being used to assist Modern Maintenance with the cleaning of the AOC building.

The issue of using the inmates to assist Classic Cleaning in the Fiscal Court building was brought up for discussion at the last Fiscal Court meeting by Magistrate Scott Davis. From the onset of the discussion and the intense questioning by Magistrate Scott Davis, Murner immediately said that it was not his idea to allow the inmates to clean the building but rather the idea of Bill Tucker. He reiterated that Bill Tucker made the decision to start using the inmates and he made the decision to stop using the inmates. I wonder if Bill heard the train coming. In other words, if outside authorities come in to question anyone, Murner wanted his hands to be clean - pure and simple. Does he not remember that he is the County Judge-Executive, albeit in name only over the last three years, and as such he is responsible for what happens in the county.

Further, Murner claimed that the cleaning by the inmates was done under the supervision of Bill Tucker. He further stated that the inmates were being used to supplement the cleaning due to the additional salt that was being tracked into the building as a result of the inclement weather. When my wife saw the inmate cleaning Bill Tucker was not in sight and the inmate was not cleaning the floor, as he was cleaning the windows on the door. I can assure you that she is willing to testify to that in court. I wonder how other people’s stories would change if they were asked to raise their right hand and take an oath in a court of law. Murner’s story became more and more unravelled during the ongoing questioning by Magistrate Scott Davis. Toward the end of Davis’ questioning, Murner appeared shaken and unsure with his responses. There is an old saying, the truth is much easier to remember than the lie. Murner might want to take this advice to heart.

Magistrate Iva Davis, in a rare moment, decided to try and offer something to the discussion. She stated that the company having the contract would not have been able to clean the floors at the time that the inmate labor was being used, therefore she saw nothing wrong with the inmates helping. Once again let me reiterate the inmate was cleaning windows when my wife observed him. I feel certain that a poll of the other employees in the building would reflect that the inmate did more than clean the floors when an abnormal amount of dirt was being brought in by pedestrian traffic due to inclement weather.

Iva Davis went on to compare inmates doing other work in the county to the inmates doing work in the Fiscal Court building. She just doesn’t understand the issue, as is normal with her. The other inmates hopefully are not doing work that a contractor is being paid to do.

Even Magistrate Steve Church, who claims to be an affluent and knowledgeable businessman did not understand the issues. He also compared the cleaning of the Fiscal Court building to the inmates working at the recycling center or other places. Once again, hopefully the other inmates were not performing work that contractors were being paid to do.

Obviously feeling uncomfortable with the position he was in, Judge-Executive Murner once again tried to place blame on Bill Tucker. He stated that Tucker had not been happy with the performance of Modern Maintenance. Was he trying to say that was justification for allowing McGohon and Schaaf to have the contract? The problem with that reasoning is that Modern Maintenance is still cleaning the AOC building. If you were unhappy with a contractor, why would you not replace them entirely? I suppose that you could say that McGohon and Schaaf did not want to clean both buildings. Could that have been because they knew that they would not be able to use inmate help in the AOC building? More than one inquiring mind wants to know the answer to that question.

Speaking of security, my wife said that when she entered the Fiscal Court building on January 26, 2010 and saw the jail inmate cleaning, a closet door was open and there was nobody else present. Immediately she thought, “what was there to prevent this inmate from grabbing her and possibly taking her into the closet?” That thought is in no way a reflection on the inmate as my wife said that he was a very clean cut individual. It is just a natural reaction for a lot of women.

Magistrate Bob Leslie suggested that county employees not be allowed to bid on contracts in the future. Murner replied that to not allow county employees to bid on contracts would cost the county a lot of money. To say that he must be insinuating that county employees would do the job for less money. What evidence does he have to prove that? Are there other county employees that are doing work outside of the normal assigned duties and being paid for it? Are there other county employees that have contracts with the county? His statement was nothing more than a feeble attempt to justify his uncomfortable position. It was clear that Murner did not have adequate answers or responses for Magistrate Davis’ questions.

Magistrate Rick Rash offered his thought on the issue and in doing so demonstrated that he did not understand the issue either, by which nobody was really surprised. He stated that he advised the administration to stop using the inmates and that since they had stopped, there was no harm and therefore, no foul. As is the norm for Rash his reasoning is on a different plane than that of most other people.

Let me sum this up for you. The issue here is not the use of inmate labor to save money. The issue is the proper bidding of contracts. The inmate help was not offered to the other company that bid on the contract, as this was clear from Magistrate Scott Davis’ questioning of Murner. Had the use of inmates been offered to the other company, perhaps their bid would have been as low as or lower than the bid of Classic Cleaning. The foul is that both bidders were not on the same field. The Judge can argue all day long that there was no wrongdoing in the bid process, but everything appears to point to the fact that additional help was given to Classic Cleaning in a secretive manner after the awarding of the bid. At what point Classic Cleaning learned that it would receive additional help is unclear.

It all stinks and I am not the only person that smells the aroma.