Day: May 15, 2013

Actually some of it is yesterday’s and the day before’s but I am steadily wrapping my mind around this troubled state agency and there are a couple of items which deserve a second look and maybe a bit of analysis. First comment bumped is from Eye-Spy:

This is a classic example of waste, fraud and abuse by the state government–along with other devious insider deals. Will someone please explain to me how a contracting agency can collect mega bucks from political campaigns and then turn around and nail numerous communications contracts with the state government?

Susan Perkins was put in that position to help fix the PR department and its unfortunate she did not get the chance to do that. The former director Lauren Thompson was clueless since she was hired years ago and she did nothing to help the DMR image. Over the years, she continuously destroyed relationships with the people in the DMR offices, the media, and had groves of employees quit because they couldn’t stand her. Of course she was never moved because Ol’ Bill Walker was in charge and it seems he was caught up with higher priorities. Her finally being demoted from a government position should tell everyone how bad her performance was. So, the question is why didn’t the former director get the boot? Or, is that coming in the near future when Frontier renews another contract to take over all communications?

To this I’ll add the PR department was a dumping ground for Bill Walker cronies and that included his daughter in law Trinity, who did not possess the prerequisites for the position to which she was hired. Sources indicate to Slabbed she showed up for work everyday, put in an honest 8 hours and worked hard. That is also beside the point IMHO.  I suspect such is true across DMR which I’m picturing in my minds eye as having employees scattered about that were qualified for the positions they held and knew how to do the work burdened with political hacks and cronies that may or may not give an honest effort or know how to do the jobs for which they were hired.  To a person in both the commenting community here on Slabbed and former DMR employees familiar with the operations of the agency speaking with Slabbed on the condition of anonymity, Susan Perkins was known as Do Bee that was actually qualified to run the PR department. It raises troubling questions as to why Executive Director Jamie Miller fired her in light of the fact he is now hiring out communications to Phil Bryant political crony Joe Cloyd.

It is at this point that I remember noting from the Sun Herald public records materials posted online that strongly indicated one department head was not qualified to hold the job and that was at the PR department before Perkin’s came back.  A PR Department that must hire freelance a local sports reporter (from the Sun Herald) to do its press releases has several employees too many in my opinion but that is exactly what Ms. Perkin’s predecessor did.  Your tax money at work folks.

Next up is Ocean Springs Mayoral Candidate John McKay and his story du jour about his taxpayer funded deep sea fishing trips with Billy Walker.  Just a few short days ago he even claimed Walker as a friend again, fresh off throwing him under the bus last weekend.  Karen “Campaign Killa” Nelson has the skinny:

McKay told the Sun Herald he is friends with Walker and feels Walker has been mistreated by the Sun Herald, which has reported on spending practices of the agency.

Yoo hoo John over here doc. Methinks you need to become acquainted with Patricia. Now another reader comment bump and again it is Eye-Spy: Continue reading “How about some DMR gossip”