June 18, 2009

As Grammer trial drags on, questions about her hopeful outcome

One question looms over Janelle Grammer’s show trial before the City Council: What does the city’s public health administrator hope to accomplish?

Grammer’s increasingly bizarre trial rolled through its third day Wednesday minus an attorney. Grammer dismissed her counsel and pushed ahead representing herself. The decision dismantled any pretense of a formal hearing and created the sad display of a disgraced manager trying to settle personal scores while the city’s attorney laid out serious, systematic problems with the agency responsible for protecting Racine’s public health.

The bombshell of the night came from Jeff Schmidt, an epidemiologist in charge of the city’s STD clinic. Schmidt laid out a series of problems that undermined local resources to test and treat people for sexually transmitted diseases over the past two years. Schmidt attributed the clinic’s decline to Grammer’s poor leadership.

Problems began in mid-2006 when the nurse practitioner who worked at the STD clinic asked for her first raise in three years, Schmidt said. Grammer didn’t respond to the request for a couple of months, and then the nurse-practitioner left after the eventual offer was too low, he said.

That left the STD clinic understaffed, but Grammer failed to move at finding a replacement, Schmidt said. The position remained unfilled a year later – Grammer scheduled one interview in eight months – and the city outsourced the clinic to the Racine Family Health Clinic at St. Luke’s Hospital.

But once RFHC took over the clinic it didn’t follow federal standards for treating people with STDs or signs of STDs, Schmidt said. For example, people showing signs of an STD are supposed to be treated under federal guidelines. While the city followed those guidelines, the RFHC sent some home without treatment, increasing the risk of STDs spreading in the community. In one case, a patient went in with genital warts but wasn’t tested or treated for other STDs, again increasing the risk of spreading the diseases. In one email cited during testimony Schmidt wrote: “This is horrible public health.”

The issue is particularly acute for Racine because the city has the second highest number of STDs in Wisconsin behind only Milwaukee.

Schmidt testified he raised dozens concerns about how RFHC was running the clinic, but was ignored by Grammer and doctors who said he was upset the clinic was taken away from the city. He described Grammer’s leadership and communication skills as poor.

It was also pointed out that the STD clinic – formally known as the Sexually Transmitted Infection Clinic - was brought back under city control during Grammer’s absence as public health administrator. The clinic, which returned to the city in May, is now open Mondays and Wednesdays (call 262-636-9498 for times). Marcia Fernholz is serving as interim director pending the outcome of Grammer’s trial.

Grammer tried to refute Schmidt’s allegations by claiming he was unaware of a series of conversations she had with top city officials, including former Mayor Gary Becker, that tied her hands. The exchange seemed to summarize a major part of Grammer’s defense. She’s alleging her bosses placed her in an impossible position to run her department.

Grammer also gave a glimpse of personal strife she’s endured in recent years. In a series of odd questions, she asked Schmidt if he knew her father was critically ill, if he knew she had power of attorney in the matter and if he knew she had to make the decision to resuscitate her father.

“Do you think there might have been more on my plate?” Grammer asked Schmidt.

Visibly confused by the questions, Schmidt responded: “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

At 8:58 p.m., nearly four hours into Wednesday’s hearing, Grammer heavily sighed into the microphone. Her frustration echoed through the silent City Council chambers and did well to summarize the general feeling in the room.

The city’s attorney, Michael Cohen of Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols in Milwaukee, has four more witnesses to call before handing the hearing over to Grammer, who can then call her own witnesses. That all means a long trial will drag on at least another day, if not more.

City Clerk Janice Johnson-Martin brought sandwiches, snacks and sodas Wednesday for the City Council, which is serving as the jury in determining Grammer’s fate. The council has already met at least 11 hours on the matter and still has to spend time debating the case’s merits.

It’s not helping that Grammer admitted on her own that she’s not much of an attorney. She started dozens of questions with the phrase, “Are you aware …” and struggled to cross-examine witnesses that spent much of their testimony trashing her reputation. The fact that the whole proceeding is occurring in public – at Grammer’s request – adds a circus atmosphere to the event.

No matter the outcome – the city needs 12 votes from the City Council and the mayor – to remove Grammer as a department head. It’s highly likely that they’ll vote to fire her, but as a member of Racine’s Board of Health wondered, if Grammer does keep her job, how will she ever be able to lead the department?

24 comments:

  1. She's grasping at straws at this point. It's clearly evident that she did NOT do her job properly. Losing grants, infant mortality, STDs and the list goes on. She fire's her attorney and basically starts a witch hunt on others to blame for her actions. Another round tonight and let's see what idiotic excuses and accusations towards others she comes up with to try to save her job.

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  2. Enough already! I work for the City. Janelle should NOT have been hired in the first place. She has no leadership or people skills. Stop wasting time and vote to fire her. Time to move on.

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  3. She sounds nuts, plain and simple. Move on this is costing taxpayers money that we really don't have. She's so worried WHAT GOOD did she do for the city?

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  4. End the Circus6/18/2009 7:45 AM

    Any council member who votes not to fire Grammer is living in a parallel universe where nothing matters but ripping off the taxpayers.

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  5. Tingle/Grammer they are both lazy opportunists. All you Hughes bashers should apologize.

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  6. can't compare tingle and grammer. One is a sexual harrasment and grammer is just someone not doing their job and trying to make excuses.

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  7. anon 8:24 - yes in theory you are correct, but the reason she was fired is because she was lazy and useless. Tingel just used the sexual harrasment as her way of getting back.

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  8. If you look at tingles original complaint she isn't asking for really anything. No million dollar settlements nothing of that nature. Can't compare the 2 at all

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  9. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  10. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  11. You are not worth the energy.

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  12. Hughes is and will always be a problem wherever he goes. The outcome of this trial is no reflection of innocence on Hughes' part. He's definitely got some issues to work through.

    I agree with the other posters here that just because two people file complaints against the city does not make them comparible in any way.

    I knew Sandra and she was a great person and kind to everyone. She helped me out more than once and went out of her way to help me.

    Janelle on the other hand, I'll just refrain from giving my personal opinions here on a public blog. This whole thing sounds crazier and crazier IMHO.

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  13. What a waste of taxpayer dollars! This has gone on for over eight hours of testimony!!! With more to come tonight! Are you kidding? The aldermen should have put a stop to the drawn out nonsense already. Stop wasting our time and money on this foolishness and terminate her NOW!

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  14. just wait its going to really be the jerry springer show tonight!

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  15. K - Hughes had problems alright - Grammer and Tingel and many other Racine employee's.

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  16. She plans on accomplishing that she is incompetent, wasting tax payer jobs and showing that the proof is in the pudding behind her suspension and hopeful termination

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  17. Where is Donald Trump when you need him....."You're Fired"

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  18. Anon 10:11 - I suspect you don't know anything about any of the people you've been spouting off about. If you did, for starters you'd at least know how to spell their names.

    I think it just makes you feel good to hide behind your computer and trash people.

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  19. "The aldermen should have put a stop to the drawn out nonsense already. "

    If they could, I am sure they would have. I seriously doubt any of the Aldermen want to spend their evenings this way.

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  20. "Stop wasting our time and money on this foolishness and terminate her NOW!"

    This IS the way to terminate her. This is what the law requires. She cannot just be fired.

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  21. I am extremely irritated that Grammer is apparently using her responsibilities for and her emotions regarding her father's critical illness as an excuse for her poor quality of work. If she had "too much on her plate" to do her job, then she should have left her job.

    Ridiculous.

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  22. Where has the health department employee that has been able to go on countless out of town trips with Gary Becker been during all of this?

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  23. Amazing, blog admins leave up unsolicited attack against Tingel I wonder what they removed.

    What a joke.

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  24. First I've heard of a health department employee going on out-of-town trips with Becker. Was that his girlfriend he was alleged to have had?

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