Résumé Fairy Alights in Ohio Treasurer’s Office!

I know it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of the slipshod and high-handed activities of state treasurer Josh “The Empty Suit” Mandel. But do you remember the story about how the Ohio Democratic Party requested the résumés of about 60 employees of the treasurer’s office that Mandel had hired since taking office? Since Mandel had made such a big issue about previous treasurer Kevin Boyce allegedly hiring cronies and promising he would only hire the very most qualified people, the ODP was curious to see if he had done that.

The ODP filed a public records request. And another. And another. Months went by. And more months. Fourteen months in all.

Finally, Mandel complied with the request — sort of. He dumped thousands of pages of unrequested info on them — with the résumés buried in there somewhere. SOME of the résumés. The rest were missing. Mandel’s office claimed that these were résumés that were not technically subject to a public records request because they were processed during the transition. Or something.

A Mandel spokesperson told the Toledo Blade,

The résumés of individuals who applied, interviewed, and were hired prior to the Treasurer taking office were never brought into office. The Treasurer’s office is unable to produce records that it does not have in its possession.

http://www.toledoblade.com/Politics/2012/05/03/Ohio-treasurer-short-34-r...

In other words, “You taxpayers have no right to know what kind of people we are paying your money to.”

Today the ODP shared some exciting news. Apparently, the résumé fairy was flying through Columbus and paid a visit to the treasurer’s office!

http://ohiodems.org/news/breaking-unnamed-resume-fairy-visits-mandel-tre...

Mandel’s general counsel Seth Metcalf said in a letter,

On June 12, 2012, the resumes of individuals that accepted offers of employment prior to January 10, 2011 were voluntarily presented to the office of the Treasurer of State. Since such resumes are now within the possession of the office of the Treasurer of State, these resumes became ‘public records’ on June 12, 2012, and are therefore currently available for production, and thus appear on the enclosed CD.”

The ODP has some questions for Mandel including:

Were the 33 résumés obtained from the now-defunct Josh Mandel Transition Fund? If so, how did the Treasurer’s office obtain résumés for 9 staffers who began working for Josh Mandel after his swearing in? If the 33 résumés were not obtained from the Josh Mandel Transition Fund, from where were they obtained? Did the Treasurer’s office simply ask the employees for their résumés now to hide the fact that they awarded 34 employees with taxpayer-funded salaries without requesting their résumés or reviewing their qualifications?

I think I can answer that last question: yes.

I also have a question for Mandel: Considering that you have lied to Ohio citizens, willfully concealed information, and shown virtually no interest in the job they elected you to do, in what world do you think you are qualified to represent them as their U.S. Senator?”

Oh, and there’s MORE. I may have to take a break here to catch my breath.