Fred Southard, vet board president, said Tuesday that he would resign amid allegations that he created a hostile working environment for the agency’s executive director Caroline Bier. And he made good on his promise by submitting his letter of resignation Wednesday.
His official resignation came four days after Bier quit because of what she called Southard’s “repeated accusations, negative comments, personal attacks and disrespect.” Bier, a former Marine, has been on the job as the commission’s executive director for 11 months.
Southard: ‘I have been rolling in the gutter’
In the three-page, single-spaced resignation letter, obtained by the Journal-News, Southard says when he joined the commission in 2014 he was a positive and optimistic person who saw the good in everyone. However, he said, the “completely dysfunctional” board has worn him down.
“Over the past seventeen months it has been a continual stream of arguing and bickering and fighting among each other. That is not my life and that is not the way I want to live,” the resignation letter states.
Southard said he dreaded setting foot inside the commission’s offices and accused the board of changing him into a different person. He said he doesn’t like what he has become.
“I have been rolling in the gutter for seventeen months and this letter of resignation is my first step toward restoring the dignity and integrity with which I conducted myself prior to my appointment to the BCVSC,” he wrote. “I choose to take the high road and make no comment regarding Mrs. Bier’s statements.”
Bier took offense with Southard’s “gutter” comment, saying it was typical of his whole attitude.
“I think it’s sad that he considered his 17 months on this board that he was in the gutter,” she said. “Once again, that offends me as a veteran, it offends me for all of our staff here. Comments like that are the exact reasons why I resigned from a hostile work environment.”
Bier rescinds her resignation
Bier hand-delivered her resignation letter to Commissioner Bob Perry on Saturday. Perry said he attempted to talk Bier out of quitting, but he couldn’t sway her.
Bier told the Journal-News Tuesday that she might consider rescinding her resignation if Southard stepped down. On Wednesday, she did just that.
Perry had planned to turn in Bier’s resignation letter to the other commissioners at Wednesday’s meeting, but it was never submitted or accepted. The board instead asked Bier if she would like to rescind her resignation, to which she replied, “yes.”
Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser chided both the board and Bier for not reporting issues of misconduct to his office, such as the ones alleged by Bier. He stressed to Bier that in the future she must report any misconduct that might cause her to want to resign to his office beforehand.
Gmoser said if she fails to do that, she will not be allowed to withdraw her resignation as she did Wednesday.
“She gets to do it once because we haven’t had this discussion,” Gmoser said. “She cannot control this board by resignation. She cannot get the board she wants by resignation. She knows that; I don’t have to tell her that.”
Bier nodded as Gmoser spoke and later said, “I would never do that.”
Gmoser: ‘I will seek your removal’
Gmoser also gave the vet board a stern warning that he would try to get rid of them all if they didn’t meet certain criteria such as passing a new travel policy (that would include a requirement that commissioners carpool on work-related trips) and giving serious consideration to a $10,000 salary study within the next 30 days and showing up for meetings regularly. The phrase “I will seek your removal” was a recurring one throughout Gmoser’s address to the board.
“I am going to require you, as prosecutor, in addition to being your advisor, that you follow the law and you do establish policies and directives for the efficient operation of this board,” Gmoser said. “And if you don’t, I’m going to seek your removal… Ultimately, it falls on the prosecuting attorney to bring these charges, if you want to call them charges, if you want to call them claims, if you want to call them a motion to seek the removal for cause; that’s what a prosecutor does, and can do, and I will do.”
Gmoser said he is the only person in the county who has the authority to ensure the veterans commissioners are doing their jobs. The common pleas judges can remove wayward commissioners, if the prosecutor proves there is just cause.
In addition to passing the travel police — which the board rejected three times previously — and the salary study — which they just recently agreed to reconsider after trashing, Gmoser demanded good, regular attendance at meetings.
“If you miss two meetings in a row, I’m going to seek your removal. If you miss three meetings in a five month period, I’m going to seek your removal,” Gmoser said, adding verified medical, verified immediate family emergency and immediate family death will be the only accepted excuses for an absence.
“Attendance by phone is not going to be acceptable,” he added. ” So nobody is going to be sitting in sunny Florida, buzzed in by a phone here so he can participate, or she can participate. The bottom line is, that’s an absence.
“We do business in this room. We don’t do it by telephone and long distance while you’re on vacation. Schedule your vacations some other way so you don’t miss these meetings because these are important for the veterans, and they demand that you be here. And if you can’t do it, then you should resign.”
Prosecutor to Bier: ‘Stiffen up’
Gmoser said their was enough blame to go around for the dysfunction at the Veterans Service Commission. And while Bier doesn’t have to endure disrespect or verbal slights, the prosecutor said he does expect her “to have some pretty thick skin.”
“I expect her to stiffen up. She’s a military woman, she’s tough, she’s been through boot camp,” Gmoser said. “But she doesn’t have to just suck it up and take it.”
After the meeting, Bier said she is tough, but everyone has a breaking point.
“I was in the Marine Corps for 20 years; I was a female chief warrant officer. There’s only about 300 of us in the whole Marine Corps out of 200,000 some people,” she said. “I have thick skin, but it got to the point of being intolerable.”
Change on the horizon
Commissioner Tom Jeffers said he doesn’t have a problem with Gmoser’s “Prosecutor Protocol,” adding that Southard’s departure will make for a better board.
“To me, I think you’ve got to work as a team. We need to work together,” said Jeffers, who is the newest member of the board. “This office does a tremendous job. We help a lot of veterans… As they always say, there is no “I” in team. I think we got rid of the “I” so I think we will make this work.”
It is unclear how long Commissioner Ken Smith might remain on the board. During the meeting, he mumbled something about not liking Gmoser’s travel policy recommendation and that his time on the board might be short.
Ray Conlin, an elderly veteran who attended Wednesday’s meeting, said he has not been angered by the events of the past week, he just wanted to see for himself what is going on.
“It’s been quite a week, but I think things will get straightened out,” he said.
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