I recently wrote a blog article regarding two contradictory events that happened in 2001.
On one hand we, social workers and managers, were getting high quality investigative training by nationally recognized law enforcement personnel and I emailed DSHS Dennis Braddock on March 15, 2001 with wholehearted thanks.
Dennis replied to me: "Thanks for your message. Sounds like well worth the effort." Then Dennis forwarded my emailed to Bernie Friedman, the guy hired to reduce the number of lawsuit payouts by helping DSHS perform better.
Bernie wrote in his email me back in March 2001: "I am very interested in training on investigatory techniques as a risk management tool, so any help you can give me would be greatly appreciated."
By April 2001 I made a series of allegations regarding my managers ordering public records be altered by writing a new records and destroying the original ones, my allegations went directly to Dennis Braddock, DSHS Secretary. Until this date I had never been ordered to alter records where then the managers had the original destroyed.
On August 3, 2001 Dennis Braddock, DSHS Secretary wrote directly to Washington State Supreme Court Justice Gerry Alexander that he, Dennis, analyzed that the increased payouts in lawsuits were a result of media stories.
Quoted from the article linked below that was written in 2005: "...Dennis Braddock, took the unorthodox step of writing Chief Justice Gerry Alexander of the Washington Supreme Court to complain that the publicity generated by lawyers and reporters was hurting the agency." It's unclear from the news article if this was another contact Dennis made just as he was leaving his post in 2005 or refers back to the 2001 contact with Chief Justice Gerry Alexander.
Bernie Friedman's 2006 obituary mentioned he felt like he had to quit in 2004 in part because of conflict with the Attorney General who was now to become governor.
I was sad to find a Risk Management report Bernie prepared dated October 29, 2004 where he focused not on the poor management of DSHS but blamed juries for being outraged at children and developmentally disabled adults who were abused while under care of the state and being told "to send a message" by attorneys. Rather than suggesting that DSHS functioning be improved as he indicated to me in 2001 Bernie wrote: "The liability environment will not be changed without legislative intervention."
My intuition and experience from being inside DSHS for so long is that Bernie got pressure to write that and I bet that laid heavy on his soul after he quit.
Whether Dennis said that both in 2005 and 2001 when Dennis left the agency on March 27, 2005 Dennis wrote and sent each of us a goodbye letter which in part reads: "You have heard that the DSHS Secretary's job is one of the hardest in the State. I must say that has just not been the case for me."
My question is it unorthodox or unethical for the DSHS Secretary to have such contact with the Chief Justice of the Washington State Supreme Court? Is it wholesale ex parte contact given the many cases against DSHS over the years including Dennis Braddock's years? I'm trying to do research to find out the answer to that question. Anyone know?
I have a January 3, 2005 email from a DSHS supervisor who wrote me when I asked why we were being ordered not to put emails in licensing files: "The AAG has told us not to include emails in provider files otherwise the licensor's computer can be subpoena"
From 2002 through 2011 this author still has been requesting the Attorney General release an opinion about the concealment, the alteration, the removal and destruction of public records out of current and established licensing files in violation of the Records Retention Act.
Maybe now that Rob McKenna is running for the office of governor he will compose and release his opinion?
If McKenna doesn't will we have more and more of secret government preventing oversight by the citizens ... you know, government of the people, by the people and for the people?
SR.com: New DSHS boss has daunting task
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