Bob McEwen’s WaterTreatmentGate

I received this e-mail a couple of nights ago, and filed it under “Hmmm….”:

Got a call from a County employee. Mid afternoon today, Mr. McEwen showed up at the Water Treatment Facility (that bears his name), unannounced and unscheduled. He had a television production crew and told the employee that he was there to shoot some commercials.

The employee stated that after 9/11, they don’t allow unannounced and unscheduled people to freely roam water treatment facilities with cameras.

Mr. McEwen asked the employee if he knew whose name was on the water treatment facility…to which the employee answered, “I don’t give a hoot,” and repeated the standard operating procedure based on a post-9/11 world.

Mr. McEwen then proceeded to “go over his head” to the supervisor, who told Mr. McEwen the exact same thing with the additional statement that he did not appreciate Bob harassing his employee for following S.O.P. with regards to the safety of Clermont’s Water Treatment facility which, incidentally belongs to the taxpayers, not Bob McEwen irrespective of whose name is on the building (perhaps it’s time to rename that site).

The supervisor called legal council (sic) afterwards who said that he did what was not only legal but crucial to the safety of the facility. This will be all over Clermont by the end of the day tomorrow. If you would like further confirmation, let me know.

Who does he think he is? And what is this…his “kingdom” where he can do whatever and go wherever he wishes? He is not right…not right at all.

Knowing that it’s more than a little dangerous to get into a he-said, she-said, we-said, they-said exercise, I wasn’t about to do anything with it without more — a lot more.

Part of the “a lot more” came yesterday, when someone called into Tony Snow’s radio program about the incident, and, I am told, essentially supported what was in the e-mail I received. Mr. Snow had some choice comments in response to what he heard that I won’t relay until I hear them myself (work on obtaining the audio file is in progress; the success at getting it in a readable format is dubious at this point). See the Update below for a transcript of the call.

The remaining part of “a lot more” that makes this incident reportable came today, when I received a copy of an e-mail that was sent out to all Clermont County employees yesterday:

From: Birck, Mary
Sent: Wednesday, April 05, 2006 12:06 PM
To: COUNTYWIDE
Subject: Illegal Campaigning/Attempted Breach of Security

Yesterday, a candidate for political office arrived at the BMW water treatment plant. Apparently, the candidate wanted to film the inside of the water plant.

Fortunately, an employee recognized this as a possible security breach and counter to county policy (prohibition of partisan political campaigning in the operational areas of the county) and prohibited the activity.

This question seems to arise every campaign season: Can a candidate for partisan political office campaign in the operational areas of county buildings?

The short answer is “no.”

It goes without saying that failure to keep operational areas of our government buildings secure is a concern which pales in comparison to illegal campaigning.
It is reassuring that our employee was alert to this.

Should you have a question about whether a candidate may campaign in a particular area, please contact Elizabeth Mason (x. 7585) or Mary Lynne Birck (x. 8178) of the Civil Division of the Prosecutor’s Office.

I have confirmed that this e-mail is authentic by speaking with Elizabeth Mason at the Clermont County Prosecutor’s office.

Finally, I was told about, and therefore had one chance to listen to, a replay during the 12 Noon - 3 PM rebroadcast of The Tony Snow show, of Bob McEwen’s phone call into the show earlier today about the incident. I am hoping to obtain an audio file of Mr. McEwen’s call as well.

Bob’s core contention was this (I apologize that I have to paraphrase, as I missed out on transcription school):

April 7, 10:30 a.m. Update — Go here for a transcript of the McEwen call and (eventually) further commentary.

What was reported to me was that I went out to the water treatment center in Clermont County that is named after me, and that I had gone out there and demanded to get in and said “do you know who I am?”

I want to let you know that that is so foreign to anything that I would say or do.

The rest of his call concerned the relative merits of France’s and Western Europe’s economy relative to ours, and is irrelevant to this post. At the end of the call, Snow said (again, paraphrasing) “It’s good to year from you, I’m not doing endorsements, but the idea that Bob McEwen said ‘Do you know who I am?’ is not true.”

As of late Friday morning, the rest of the post that follows stands.

Clever. Very clever.

You’ll note that the original e-mail above reports that “Mr. McEwen asked the employee if he knew whose name was on the water treatment facility.” Mr. McEwen’s statement to Snow is a denial of something that the original e-mail did not claim; it remains to be seen if it is a denial of what was actually said by the caller into Snow’s show yesterday. And Mr. McEwen in his call did not address, let alone apologize for, the fundamental impropriety of making an unannounced visit. The Snow show would have been perfect opportunity to do that.

Regardless of how the uncleared items above turn out, this is very clearly an incident that says a whole lot about Mr. McEwen’s temperament, his pre-September 11 mentality, and his sense of entitlement that I don’t even need to waste space elaborating on.

As they say, developing …..
_______________________________

UPDATE: While trying to work through the technicial challenges, Matt at Weapons of Mass Discussion has transcribed yesterday’s call-in to Snow by Josie (major thanks, Matt!).

Here it is:

SNOW: Let’s go to Josie in Cincinnati. Josie, you are up next. Hello, Josie?

JOSIE: Hello!

SNOW: Hey!

JOSIE: How are you?

SNOW: I’m fine, how are you?

JOSIE: I’m fine, thank you.

SNOW: Good.

JOSIE: (laughs) Hey, uh, you know, we had an incident here that reminded me of the Cynthia McKinney thing. Uh, we have a guy that has, uh, come back to run for Congress. And he hasn’t been here in a long time, but when he was here, they, uh, I guess they put his name on a water treatment facility. And he showed up yesterday with a full telvision production crew wanting to film a commercial, but he was unannounced and unscheduled, so the guard said, you know, “We don’t do that here after 9/11 we have certain provisions in place. And he said, “Did you know that my name is on this water treatment facility?” And he said, “Well, I don’t care.” (nervous giggle) “You know, we need some advance notice.” And so, the guy, I guess, went over his head, and called the supervisor and called legal and it’s just all over the county and I thought, you know…

SNOW: Now, who is this person?

JOSIE: Uh, what is his name? His name is, uh, McEwen.

SNOW: (laughs) Oh, no! (Laughs) Oh my, he’s running against Jean Schmidt for the, uh, second congressional seat. (Laughs) Rob Portman’s old seat in the Cincinnati area. Well, you know what? Any politician who says, “Do you know who I am?” or “Did you know that this was named after me?”; they ought to be immediately drummed out just for having their heads in places they don’t belong. Josie, thank you for the call.

OK, so Snow is the one who turned it into “Do you know who I am?”

That does not appear to change the fact that Bob McEwen has NOT denied what the original e-mailer claimed: “Mr. McEwen asked the employee if he knew whose name was on the water treatment facility.”

Snow’s final sentiment yesterday speaks for itself, regardless of the half-hearted backtracking Bob McEwen attempted today. See the next post; the McEwen camp is claiming his interview Thursday constituted a denial that he was there.