◼ Name That Voice: Radio Caller Demands Fleming Vote History - Ryan Burns/Lost Coast Outpost
And, no, I'm not saying Ryan Burns is the bully - quite the opposite. Kudos.
Not very nice to rub it in after she covered your boy Paul's ass for all that time, Richard. You gave up calling in and asking 'what she admires most about Paul Gallegos' I guess. This is pathetic. Of course she didn't vote for him. She finally left because she couldn't take it any more, don't you think?
Salzman
ReplyDeleteIt is so obviously Salzman. It does appear that LoCo posted it not for getting help, because they clearly knew. Richard has a very distinctive voice. However, Maggie's husband Dr. Bret Harvey was a public supporter of the recall, and it is probably obvious that she voted for Worth Dikeman and Allison Jackson. Maggie turned down the ADA position, then fled the office a few scant months later. She claimed that she declined the ADA posiiton because she had a greater contribution to the office in the Courts. She then fled that assignment. If Maggie had not completely defended the CAST program in 2006, Worth could have won. So she voted for him, but she certainly did not help him. She hurt him. So Maggie is great in court, but when it comes to leadership, team-building, mentorship and administration she is sorely lacking. That is why there are many folks who fought those battles will never back Maggie ever. We would have been lucky to have Worth or Allison, particularly Allison Jackson. Richard just needs to stay out of this race entirely, but he can't learn that lesson. Maggie is in for a rude awakening in November.
ReplyDeleteNot that it matters, but I wouldn't assume that she voted for either Worth or Allison. I actually think it's a legitimate question to ask, but also a legitimate question to decline to answer, because there's not much to gain, and you're bound to piss someone off no matter how you voted. My only criticism of Richard was that he kept interrupting. But supporters of a campaign calling in to a show to grill an opposing candidate? Stop the presses!
ReplyDeleteYikes! Is there no end to this negative campaigning with its fractured fairy tales, innuendo and invective?
ReplyDeleteSo, I've done a little research here and there and tried also to remember the prior elections, and a good place to start is right here:
http://watchpaul.blogspot.com/p/child-abuse-prosecutions_09.html
Please read it completely, and thanks again for Rose's documentation.
In it, in 2006 Maggie Fleming and Wes Keat provided factual answers to questions as they always seem to have done over the years, and did not "completely defend" the program (the implication being that they were defending Gallegos and that in doing so hurt Dikeman). Also I don't remember CAST as being a crucial issue in the 2006 campaign, nor do I remember Bret Harvey having anything to do or say about the 2004 recall, or how it follows that Fleming "probably obviously voted for Worth Dikeman and Allison Jackson" while somehow at the same time working against Dikeman. The logic of all this escapes me.
Also read what Dikeman and Jackson and Gallegos had to say about Fleming: they all agreed that she is an outstanding prosecutor.
Gallegos appointed her as CAST director in late 2006 - after, by the way, and in direct response to the findings of the 2004-5 Grand Jury. (You can link to that off this blog as well.) Of course, that was after Gallegos "lost" both of the specialized CAST prosecutors as well as interviewers and investigators, and gave the CAST prosecutor slot to Jeffrey Schwartz who had no experience with child sexual abuse prosecution. He was gone by 2007 as well, Fleming was reassigned to Drug Task Force, and CAST faded back into obscurity. And Gallegos didn't let any more stats see the light of day.
It's so easy to sling the mud, but takes longer to let people know about the facts that even a modest amount of research can uncover.
Maybe for fun I'll look at the ADA stuff later.
I'm sure people will disagree with me but in spite of evidence to the contrary, I still hope for a civilized debate.
Anon 3:12 it does not matter what facts you talk about, it seems Richard and the sling mud folks, and there are just a few of them,but they will take the facts and twist them to their own liking and offer that as the facts. The people who really do want to find out will check for themselves so I don't know what Richard and his one or two cronies think they are accomplishing just like Anon 2:09. They need to be talking about the positive attributes of their candidate and what that person will bring to the table and leave it at that!
ReplyDeleteSeriously? Mike Losey who has made his mission to smear the character of Firpo is telling people to be positive about their candidates. Really?
DeleteMike you need to stop slinging mud as you say and talk just positivd about your candidate.
DeleteYour words on this blog alone prove otherwise.
This is classic when did you stop beating your wife stuff - and classic Salzman bullying.
ReplyDeleteReporters know it well, having been browbeaten more times than they can count.
You have to pity him a bit though - hear that desperation in his voice? He can't bear to hear the golden boy's reputation ain't what he crafted it to be, and has been begging people to praise Paul, been calling in questions like "What do you most admire about Paul Gallegos?"
He's a clown.
@ Anonymous at 3:12. Gallegos appointed Jeffrey Schwartz the director of CAST in late 2006. Maggie took it over in 2004 after Allison Jackson was fired by Gallegos. Maggie took over the Department of Tobacco and Firearms assignment in late 2006. Nice try. You need to get your facts straight. The Grand Jury already did that for you, but you are blinded by the facts aren't you?
ReplyDeleteMaggie Fleming scares the pants of these clowns. There is nothing negative about Maggie Fleming so they make shit up. For shame.
ReplyDeleteTakes a clown to know one.
ReplyDeleteDTF?!?!Dept.of Tobacco and Firearms or Drug Task Force?!? Either way, not good !
ReplyDeleteHomeboy, same two lines you guys keep blogging.
ReplyDeleteAnd we all know blogging wins elections.
You stay here, the rest of us will talk to actual voters.
To 2:09/ 6:13,
ReplyDeleteI am trying to put together the facts and also say where I am getting the info from. (For me at least it’s a little harder than Mr. Losey might suggest.)
What the 6:13 post is saying about 2004 is also not correct.
Maggie Fleming was appointed CAST director in late 2005 – sometime after 8/29/05 (the date of the final response to the 04-05 Grand Jury (the “GJ”) but before 1/1/06 (sorry, I was thinking beginning of 2006 and said end of 2006). In mid-2004 Gallegos “lost” (fired) Allison Jackson, and “lost” Rob Wade (in July 2004 per the GJ - he was the person referred to by them as informally filling CAST’s pre-Director “leadership” role including going to meetings because Gallegos was not). The GJ also notes that CAST cases had dropped significantly - between 2002 and 2004. So, from mid-2004 to about the end of 2005, there was only one CAST lawyer and no Director. Then at that point Fleming was assigned to the newly created Director position, but the remaining CAST attorney was promptly reassigned elsewhere, so by January 2006 Fleming became the only CAST prosecutor as well as Director, with the former CAST person as “backup” until sometime in 2006 when Schwartz became CAST prosecutor. I didn’t see any place where Schwartz was then made Director in late 2006 but if so then Fleming was director for about a year or a bit more.
According to her website:
“In 2005 District Attorney Paul Gallegos appointed me as Director of the Child Abuse Services Team (CAST). I worked with social services, law enforcement and other community agencies (e.g. Rape Crisis & the Sexual Assault Response Team) in investigating and prosecuting child abuse cases. My duties as Director included working on budget issues and grant applications, and preparing agreements to partner with Tribal organizations providing services to victimized children.
In 2007 I was assigned to the Drug Task Force (DTF) where I worked for 4 years.”
To be continued.
To continue by quoting some sources:
ReplyDeletePer the 5/18/06 article quoted on Watchpaul,
“I can tell you that ... CAST has never paid for two full-time attorneys, nor have we had two full-time attorneys assigned to (CAST),” Gallegos said. “We currently have Maggie Fleming assigned to CAST with Andrew Isaac as her backup attorney for CAST cases.”
This contradicts the grand jury report, which says that DHHS funding for CAST provided for two attorneys, an investigator, a senior legal office assistant and some overhead costs, and is also refuted by Gillian Wadsworth as quoted in the ER article of 5/16/06 on watchpaul.
The following is from page 33 of the 2004-5 Grand Jury Report (CAST is reported on at pages 32-33 – there’s much more):
"During its recent compliance review of CAST, the National Alliance for Children recommended that a leadership person be named to improve communication and to oversee all CAST operations and decisions. At present, CAST has an Executive Board, a Governing Board, and an Advisory Board. The District Attorney, who is a member of the Governing Board, has failed to regularly attend meetings as documented by testimony, statistics, and meeting minutes. In the past, a Deputy District Attorney filled the leadership position by virtue of his commitment to the program. His departure in July 2004 left a leadership void detrimental to the effective operation of the program. The compliance review was generally favorable, and Humboldt County’s CAST program was again certified and the $10,000 annual grant was continued."
This is from page 31 of the 2005-6 Grand Jury report, as a late response (after 8/29/05) to the 2004-5 Grand Jury:
"GRAND JURY REPORT #2005-LJ-01
A Review of the Humboldt County Child Abuse Services Team
Recommendation 1a: The Grand Jury recommends that the CAST Boards create a leadership position .
Response from the District Attorney: The recommendation has not yet been implemented, but will be implemented prior to January 1, 2006. As indicated above, the creation of a director position which would authorize a leadership person to coordinate and make decisions about CAST has been advocated and was initiated by the District Attorney's Office. The District Attorney's position is joined in by the CAST Executive Board, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Law Enforcement Chiefs Association. The delay in the creation of such a position has been caused by the lack of consensus within the CAST organization about the
need for the position and/or the authority of the person who fills it.
• Additional Response from the District Attorney:
Our office assigned Deputy District Attorney, Maggie Fleming, to fulfill the responsibilities of a director position and to coordinate and make decisions about CAST. Deputy Fleming is an outstanding attorney who is both experienced in and dedicated to CAST."
When Jackson and Wade left, Fleming was given the CAST assignment then in late 2006 Schwartz took over for her. Jackson ran a great program. Fleming got it looked at by the GJ.
ReplyDelete7:16 No, please reread the documents.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all, there is no indication that Ms. Jackson ran the program. She was one of the 2 "vertical" prosecutors. Maybe they had some administrative duties as part of that. From what I remember of the news reports and such, Jackson and Isaac were very very good at the difficult job of child sexual abuse prosecution. They brought some measure of justice and relief to the victims, and removed a number of serial offenders from access to those and other children. Not that Gallegos apparently cared much when he got there. Per the GJ, Rob Wade informally "ran" the program, i.e. went to meetings and helped coordinate the 20 some-odd agencies involved until he departed in July 2004, while Gallegos did other things. The grand jury looked at the period up to mid-2005. So that means that for over a year there was only one assigned CAST lawyer (Isaac), and Gallegos apparently continued to neglect the "leadership" role. Fleming was given the newly created CAST Director assignment in late 2005 as Paul's foot-dragging and almost sole concession to the Grand Jury. (The rest of his "responses" make for some funny/sad reading.)
In 2006 Gallegos, Jackson, Keat, and Dikeman all said that Fleming was an outstanding prosecutor and that any problems with CAST were certainly not to do with her. Wade and Wadsworth both recently stated their respect for Ms. Fleming. Regarding some of the earlier years (Wadsworth says she was an interviewer from 1996 to 2003) when Fleming was initially part of the CAST team, she says "Even in the heat of trial, Maggie never lost sight of the children of these cases. As a result, her work served to facilitate healing as well as justice."
For you to keep repeating that Fleming ran CAST before late 2005 and that she got it looked at by the GJ does not stand up to the facts.
Would you consider bringing something constructive to offer to the discussion?
So in charge of CAST is not a leadership role. The real leader of CAST is the District Attorney. Funny. That's not what Maggie Fleming says. She touts her leadership of CAST, so if she did a good job, a great job as she claims, then all the credit goes to Gallegos and she should not receive any credit under your theory. Your alternative theory is that Andrew Isaac deserves all the blame. He is a mega-contributor to Fleming. He will be her Asst DA, so now we have the lawyer that you claim ruined the program about to be given a leadership promotion. If you look at historical CAST documents that Rose has posted there are quotes in there that say Fleming and Isaac were both doing CAST in 2005. Allison Jackson was running it in 2004. She was fired by Gallegos. Who assumed the program then. Thanks to Rose, we know that Maggie through May 2006 had filed only ONE case. Are you going to find someone else to blame for that? As we scrutinize the results further are we going to say that Maggie turned over CAST in early 2006 to Jeff Schwartz, thereby claiming Maggie never really ran the program. Leadership is about accepting responsibility. Successes and Failures. Fleming can't understand that.
ReplyDelete9:05. Good post!
ReplyDelete9:05 I guess constructive dialog is not your style - you’ll stick with accusations. If someone refutes them, you can always just throw in some even more twisted ones.
ReplyDeleteI feel like I’m in an old Monty Python skit.
“I’m here for an argument.”
“Oh, well, no. It’s being hit on the head lessons in here.”
So, knowing I will not change your mind, here’s a response anyway for the record:
1. Yes, the DA needs to have a leadership role in CAST including allocating the resources per the funding received, and training (and retaining!) staff, and being part of the CAST board, and going to the meetings. In addition, the 2004-5 Grand Jury and others recommended creating a Director position for CAST, and Gallegos assigned Fleming to that.
2. It’s other people, including Gallegos and Jackson, who said Fleming did a good job as CAST director. Her own “claim” on her website is that she gained experience in budget work and grant writing and in collaborating with other agencies and tribal organizations.
3. Again, Fleming was appointed CAST Director starting sometime in late 2005 (after the 8/29/05 GJ report but before 1/1/06 per Gallegos’s late response). It was AFTER the critical Grand Jury report noted the significant decline in cases from 2002 to 2004 (while Jackson was prosecuting and Wade “running” the program – and no, I’m certainly not blaming them for that). It was AFTER Gallegos “lost” Jackson and Wade, among others, as well as investigators, interviewers, and some measure of confidence and trust of people in law enforcement. It was well AFTER there was only one specialized CAST prosecutor, and Gallegos (according to the GJ) not bothering much with “running the program.” And finally around early 2006 Gallegos took away the full-time CAST lawyer as well, and had Fleming serve not only as director, but also as the main CAST prosecutor “with Andrew Isaac as her backup attorney.”
4. You are saying that my theory is to blame Isaac? Did I not say above that Jackson and Isaac were known to be very good? How bizarre. Why are you obsessed with blaming someone? Mega contributor? Not so much, per the latest finance reports on LOCO. Asst DA? Where do you come up with stuff like that? Anyway, that ADA ploy has already been tried more than once, only with Allison Jackson (or I think there was another version naming Kathleen Bryson) as the alleged future ADA, and was shot down.
5. In the 2006 articles there is a dispute about accuracy of the partial 2006 stats. Gallegos kept a tight lid on them from then on, even in the face of Rose’s official requests for public information, so it’s pretty hard to know the rest of that story.
6. No, I didn’t say that Fleming turned CAST over to Schwartz in “early 2006” or claim she never really ran the program. It looks like Schwartz was assigned to do CAST cases sometime around mid-2006 or later, and became director sometime around the beginning of 2007 (See watchpaul of 010107).