Killing the Messenger

Over the past several months, TBT has brought you the story of systemic corruption within the Manatee County Code Enforcement department that was revealed by an internal whistleblower. While it momentarily looked as though the county would be forced to reform the toxic, top-down culture within the department, ultimately, that was not the case. Instead, the whistleblower was recently fired and it's looking like most of the actors who facilitated the corruption she exposed will get off scot-free.

Manatee County Code Enforcement Officer Tanya Shaw was initially assigned to investigate complaints from Myakka City residents in her sector who alleged that a neighboring property owner had begun extensive unpermitted improvements on what they were advertising to be the new home of the Sarasota Medieval Fair (nevermind that the two cities are separated by around 30 miles and a county line).

Shaw reported the violations she found on the site but says that after her supervisors found out that then Sarasota County Director of Development Services Kathleen Croteau was the owner of the property, she was ordered to close out the case with no findings. This led to other complaints and when Shaw refused to play ball the case was simply assigned to another agent who complied. Unable to accept that citizens were not able to use the prescribed relief for unauthorized improvements that negatively impacted their property rights just because they had been made by someone with the political juice to get away with it, Shaw eventually went to the press.

Shaw and other former employees have alleged that there has been a longstanding, unwritten rule that certain property owners were effectively immune from enforcement of codes based on their relationship with high-ranking employees, including former Manatee County Building and Development Services Director John Barnott. Barnott and five of his subordinates were initially suspended with pay while the county was finally forced to at least make it look like they were addressing the malfeasance within the department. Rather than risk facing the results of that investigation, Barnott, 70, was allowed to retire with full benefits.

Most of the other employees have now returned to work and it seems as if none will be held accountable and that Barnott’s cozy retirement and their paid vacations will have to serve as the closest thing to accountability that could be mustered. Shaw, who’d also been placed on administrative leave, returned to work where she documented a hostile work environment in which she was reassigned to one of the department’s most undesirable sectors and shunned by those who supported the good old boy network that she and others say have long dominated the department’s culture, one that was rife with favoritism, sexism, and highly selective enforcement.

Shaw was forced to be retrained by an employee with far less experience in the department and despite never having had a single, even verbal reprimand on her record was written up on multiple occasions for what her superiors deemed to be violations of conduct. This all led to exactly where Shaw feared it would, her termination.

This is a common tactic used against whistleblowers and federal statutes offer some protections that will most likely see Shaw walk away with some sort of settlement, yet nothing that will come close to making worthwhile the horrific treatment she and her family have endured for simply attempting to do her job by the book with the integrity that taxpayers should expect from a public servant.

In covering this case, I have been reminded by more than one public official that Shaw, a former law enforcement officer, was involved as a whistleblower in a case that occurred in another Florida county–as if the fact that she has a history of both stellar work performance and having the intestinal fortitude to do the right thing even in the face of adverse consequences somehow indicates that she’s a troublemaker whose claims should be met with skepticism.

What’s more, there’s a sexist and misogynistic tone to the comment that is not unlike the tactic of placing a female employee who happens to work in a male-dominated field under extreme workplace duress and then accusing her of being too emotional or dramatic and unable to perform her job up to the standard, even if such a bar–if it exists at all in that department–seems woefully low for employees who do not disrupt the status quo.

At a certain point, large, deeply-entrenched organizations can suffer so much institutional rot that the mere prospect of reforming them seems like an impossible endeavor to those who have the power to do so. Additionally, when the status quo is keeping those with political influence fat, there is little reward in rocking the proverbial boat. You need employees who have the courage and strength of character to do the right thing in the most difficult circumstances. Highly effective organizations that strive for excellence celebrate such people. In Manatee County, we run them out of town on a rail.