opinion

Roberts: What is the Arizona Parks Department covering up?

There is a distinct odor wafting out of the Arizona Parks Department.

Eau de CoverYourTracks, I believe it’s called.

The Republic’s intrepid reporter, Craig Harris, has been all over the story since learning of an incident in which employees say Parks Director Sue Black got drunk and belligerent while representing the state at a conference.

Since then, Black has been investigated twice, with no apparent repercussions – at least none that the public can see.

Employees are leaving. No idea why

Now we learn via Harris that a wholesale exodus of Parks Department employees is underway.

We just aren’t allowed to know why.

Harris wants to know why. And because he does, I do, too. And so should you.

It was due to Harris’ reporting that we learned that Ducey’s juvenile corrections director improperly fired employees, including a teacher whose sole transgression was needing a little more time off while fighting cancer.

It was due to Harris’ reporting that we got a peek into the bizarre inner workings of Ducey’s Department of Economic Security, where hundreds of employees were summarily fired even as weapons were being stockpiled in the basement for the director’s private police force.

And it’s because of Harris’ reporting that we learned of accusations about Parks Director Sue Black, including claims that she berated and harassed employees, got drunk at public functions and made racial slurs while representing the state at a conference.

Why is Black being given a pass?

But while Juvenile Corrections Director Dona Markley and Economic Security Director Tim Jeffries were given he boot after Harris’ revelations, Black is being given a pass.

Ducey hired her in February 2015, nearly three years after she was fired as the Milwaukee County Parks director.

Black was a friend of one of Ducey’s pals, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, who endorsed Ducey for governor. (Walker had hired Black to run the Milwaukee parks system when he ran the county.)

In March 2016, 13 months after she was appointed Arizona’s parks director, a former parks official filed a legal claim, laying out an extensive series of detailed accusations about Black.

For example: Emily Jurmu, who filed the complaint, described an August 2015 conference in which she claimed that she and another employee witnessed “Ms. Black’s excessive drinking.”

“While there, Ms. Black ordered Ms. Jurmu and (the other employee) to follow her around while she got drunk and yelled at people,” the complaint said. “At one point, Ms. Black told Ms. Jurmu that everyone in the hotel lobby ‘wanted her.’ ”

Investigators never interviewed Jurmu

At another conference a month later, Jurmu claimed that Black again got drunk and announced the parks department was going to diversify.

“According to Ms. Black, Parks was going to bring in more blacks but not Hispanics because, as Ms. Black put it, ‘%$ the Hispanics!” By the end of the evening, (another employee) was in tears and Ms. Black was not able to walk out without running into tables. (The employee), a 13-year Parks employee quit only a few short weeks after this incident.”

The Governor’s Office hired a politically connected law firm to check into the allegations of misconduct.

Despite a year-long investigation, investigators never got around to interviewing Jurmu. They did interview several top parks officials, both current and former, who told Harris they corroborated many of Jurmu’s claims.

As in the first probe, the Governor’s Office announced that investigators found problems with "general management practices" but found no reason to fire her.

Instead of filing a written report, investigators briefed Ducey’s office verbally – a handy way to avoid creating any written records for the public to read.

After all that, Black got a raise

Meanwhile, Ducey gave Black a 9 percent raise, boosting her salary to $175,000 a year, for raising park attendance and revenues. (Not bad, given that her predecessor was paid $136,000.)

Now Harris is reporting that at least 82 employees have quit and 11 more have been fired since Sue Black took over running the agency in February 2015.

Why, you ask?

Apparently, it’s a secret.

Parks officials refuse to release state records that show why 37.5 percent of the staff departed two years ago and another 28.3 percent last year. The average turnover in the state is 18 percent.

Parks spokeswoman Michelle Thompson told Harris last week that records detailing staffers’ exit interviews are “confidential and privileged."

Cue Harris: “Thompson said the decision to withhold records was made after consulting the Attorney General's Office, which she said agreed with the agency's decision to not release the documents.”

AG wasn't consulted about documents

But here’s the thing: The AG says that’s not true.

Ryan Anderson, a spokesman for Brnovich, said the Attorney General's Office was not even consulted.

"We have not weighed in on it because we never were asked to weigh in on it," Anderson said.

Thompson ducked Harris’ calls and emails, asking her to explain how the AG was consulted by the Parks Department when that was news to the AG.

Instead, Megan Rose, spokesman for the Department of Administration spokeswoman, was tapped for triage duty. She called Harris late Friday to explain that the whole thing is just one big misunderstanding and that Parks now will seek the AG’s opinion.

"This was a misunderstanding of where exit interviews fall relating to personnel records," Rose said. "Based on past interpretations from the AG's office of what is releasable from the personnel file under the administrative code, we answered accordingly."

In other words, the parks department flat out lied.

And the stink grows ever stronger ...

Reach Roberts at laurie.roberts@arizonarepublic.com.

MORE FROM ROBERTS:

Why is Ducey's parks investigation a state secret?

Ducey appointee No. 4 on the hot seat

Here's what Ducey should do for fired juvenile corrections director