Who's the real bully?


  • August 20, 2015
  • /   Randy Hammer
  • /   community-dashboard

Did Pensacola City Administrator Eric Olson try to get neighborhood association volunteer Melanie Nichols fired from her Navy job?

Nichols says yes. Olson says no.

Has the Pensacola News Journal, Inweekly, WEAR, the local radio stations and the rest of the press in town been bullies? Have they bullied Olson and the city’s former Chief Operations Officer Tamara Fountain and Mayor Ashton Hayward and the rest of city hall?

Fred Levin says yes. I say no.

The story of the moment is about Olson and Nichols. She says her supervisor at the Navy told her that Olson called and tried to get her fired. Olson, however, says he called Nichols’ employers to let them know she was using her Navy email to communicate with the city about issues related to her role as president of the North Hill Neighborhood Association.

In other words, she was using her government email for personal business.

But until Nichols’ supervisor steps in and clears the air about what Olson said or didn’t say, we simply don’t know who’s telling the truth, even though a lot of people have already made up their minds.

What we do know is that Olson made a bad decision to call her work and her supervisor. Common sense and common courtesy says he should have called Nichols rather than her boss to complain about her use of her government email. Olson should have sensed that Nichols would view that as intimidation.

Actually, any citizen would view it as intimidation.

Earlier this week Fred Levin appeared on BlabTV’s “The Daily Brew” to defend Olson and to complain about “ridiculous media attacks” on the mayor. He said the press was bullying city hall. PNJ Editor Lisa Nellessen-Lara wrote an excellent column in response to Levin’s claims.

But Levin isn’t the only one who has accused the PNJ and the media of bullying. Earlier this month when Fountain resigned as the city’s COO, she complained that the media and bloggers repeatedly crossed the line and bullied public employees and public officials. She said the personal attacks on her by the media were unfair and unproductive.

She’s absolutely right about the bloggers as well as the trolls who add comments to stories on websites. They can be brutal about public officials and their spouses and even their children. And, yes, the trolls were sometimes brutal about Fountain. But she’s wrong about the local press.

Pat Crawford, executive director of WUWF Public Media at the University of West Florida, said it best:

“The press like the public just wants straight answers. That’s not being a bully.”

What’s interesting about Fountain is that one of the people who was rather brutal about her and others in the community was Derek Cosson, who happened to be her employee. Cosson was the architect of the anonymous “Dick’s Blog,” a parody of Inweekly Publisher and Editor Rick Outzen and his blog.

“Dick’s Blog” was an attack on Outzen and others in the community who said critical things about the mayor and city hall. “Dick’s Blog” did things like imply councilman Charles Bare was a pedophile; call Donna Clark, the mayor’s opponent in last year’s election, a drag queen; and describe councilwoman Sherri Myers as a kook and a nut.

City Hall did an investigation and verified that Cosson was the man behind “Dick’s Blog.”

Fountain’s response? She defended him. Let him keep his job. And when Cosson eventually resigned from his city job, she rehired him as a contract worker.

Which makes you wonder: Did Fountain know all along that Cosson was behind the mean-spirited “Dick’s Blog?”

It makes me wonder if calling her a “Stepford wife” and “the mayor’s crazy-eyed enforcer” was an insider joke that she and Cosson laughed about at the office.

Fountain was the mayor’s liaison with the city council. It was her job to create a good working relationship between the mayor’s office and the council.

But her employee was posting anonymous comments on a website he created to say Gerald Wingate was a human turtle who had just finished a Hooked on Phonics course. Cosson also poked fun at the oldest of Charles Bare’s sons, saying he was seen on the prowl for rich girls.

This is why Fountain had no credibility when she accused the media of bullying.

The PNJ, Inweekly, WEAR, WUWF and the rest of the radio stations in the area have been asking appropriate and sometimes tough questions of Fountain, Olson, the mayor and councilmembers.

That’s not being a bully. That’s being a good citizen.

So if Levin wants to shout about “ridiculous attacks” and “negative stupidity,” he needs to shout at Fountain and the communications team she put together.

Those were the real bullies.

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