See-Nothing SEANC
2015-02-17 - by
For years, Dana Cope and the State Employees Association of North Carolina have pursued a vendetta against State Treasurer Janet Cowell. They didn’t like the way she manages the state’s pension fund.
They’re the ones to talk.
Cope and SEANC demanded more answers and more transparency from the Treasurer’s Office. But, to them, openness and transparency apparently go only one way.
SEANC barred the media and public from its meeting this weekend to discuss the sorry mess, which reportedly heard a motion of no confidence in management and the executive committee.
Most remarkable was John Drescher’s account of how SEANC tried to head off the N&O’s story. During the meeting, Drescher wrote, SEANC’s lawyer read this statement: “SEANC requests that The News & Observer respect the integrity of SEANC’s ethics process and refrain from printing a story that not only is unsubstantiated but which has been disproven by our own democratically elected governing body.”
SEANC’s 13-member executive committee told the N&O “there was nothing to see.” SEANC president Wayne Fish said the story was “quite simply, not true,” but Drescher added, “he didn’t say what was not true.”
And there was this classic dodge: the lawyer “said at The N&O that there was an explanation” for a phony invoice, “but he would not discuss it because it was a personnel matter.”
Ah, “personnel matter.” The last resort of the stonewaller.
SEANC’s visit worked about as well as any first-year Journalism School student could have predicted. The N&O ran the story. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said she’d ask the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a criminal inquiry. Then Cope resigned. And Drescher promised, “We’ll keep reporting.”
See-Nothing SEANC
2015-02-17/
For years, Dana Cope and the State Employees Association of North Carolina have pursued a vendetta against State Treasurer Janet Cowell. They didn’t like the way she manages the state’s pension fund.
They’re the ones to talk.
Cope and SEANC demanded more answers and more transparency from the Treasurer’s Office. But, to them, openness and transparency apparently go only one way.
SEANC barred the media and public from its meeting this weekend to discuss the sorry mess, which reportedly heard a motion of no confidence in management and the executive committee.
Most remarkable was John Drescher’s account of how SEANC tried to head off the N&O’s story. During the meeting, Drescher wrote, SEANC’s lawyer read this statement: “SEANC requests that The News & Observer respect the integrity of SEANC’s ethics process and refrain from printing a story that not only is unsubstantiated but which has been disproven by our own democratically elected governing body.”
SEANC’s 13-member executive committee told the N&O “there was nothing to see.” SEANC president Wayne Fish said the story was “quite simply, not true,” but Drescher added, “he didn’t say what was not true.”
And there was this classic dodge: the lawyer “said at The N&O that there was an explanation” for a phony invoice, “but he would not discuss it because it was a personnel matter.”
Ah, “personnel matter.” The last resort of the stonewaller.
SEANC’s visit worked about as well as any first-year Journalism School student could have predicted. The N&O ran the story. Wake County District Attorney Lorrin Freeman said she’d ask the State Bureau of Investigation to conduct a criminal inquiry. Then Cope resigned. And Drescher promised, “We’ll keep reporting.”