When Pima County Sheriff’s Sergeant Kevin Kubitskey filed a complaint against Sheriff Chris Nanos in early 2016, the County’s workplace bullying policy had been in effect for three years. Through investigations and training, County employees and managers began to monitor employee behavior through the lens of the policy, and the County’s workplace culture benefited from the change. Cases brought under the policy quickly came to dominate the Human Resources investigative docket, validating the unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors to adopt it. Unfortunately, since the policy is not fortified by state law, there is no requirement for public accountability. That flaw was illustrated in the case against Sheriff Nanos, who had been appointed to the position when his predecessor retired and was running for election in 2016.
When Sgt. Kubitskey submitted a series of incidents in support of his claim I was assigned to investigate his allegations. Pima County’s workplace bullying policy defines bullying as “intentional behavior with the purpose of creating an abusive work environment.” Sheriff Nanos not only provoked and humiliated Sgt. Kubitskey (in front of a witness), he also confronted and embarrassed him in an incident in the Sheriff’s Department cafeteria and personally attacked him in an email message delivered to the entire Department staff. The Sheriff admitted many of the facts alleged against him when I interviewed him, as well as in an interview with Tucson Police. I concluded that “There is sufficient evidence to substantiate that Sgt. Kubitskey was a victim of workplace bullying as defined by Board of Supervisors Policy D 23.1.” It was not a close call and my two immediate supervisors concurred and referred the report to the chain of command. The Director of Human Resources agreed that the facts supported the finding of bullying, but suggested the Policy did not apply for technical reasons. The report was hand-delivered to Deputy County Administrator Tom Burke on July 28th.
South Dakota Goes To Hell
If any state should recognize an emergency, it’s South Dakota. The Mt. Rushmore state has experienced more than its share of disasters, from the “Schoolhouse Blizzard” of 1888 that killed 235 people to the Ice Storm of 2013, from the Black Hills Flood of 1972 that killed 238 to the killer tornado that hit Spencer in 1998 and reduced the town’s population by more than half. South Dakota’s most recent “emergency” is different from these.
South Dakota, like every state, has dealt with a number of scandals. One of the ugliest involved the operator of a non-profit corporation who allegedly embezzled at least a million dollars intended to help Native American students. The term “allegedly” is necessary because the suspect, Scott Westerhuis, never went to trial. As the posse closed in, he shot and killed his wife and children and burned down their house before killing himself. Around the same time Richard Benda, an aide to a former South Dakota governor found himself under investigation for alleged improprieties involving a visa program. Like Westerhuis, Benda never went to trial. He also killed himself as the posse closed in. While the Benda investigation implicated former Governor Mike Rounds and another state official, a legislative investigation decided to let them off the hook and blame the dead guy. These scandals, as well as South Dakota’s notorious laissez-faire attitude toward lobbyists, earned the state an “F” from The Center for Public Integrity.
The people of South Dakota finally had enough. In 2016, they passed Measure 22, a grass-roots initiative formally known as the “South Dakota Government Accountability and Anti-Corruption Act,” a compelling dose of ethical disinfectant.
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