If Commissioner Whaley was really doing business when she conducted her “survey” of police and fire employees about residency, why didn’t she do it through official channels?
Hopefully, the City of Dayton does have e-mail? Telephone surveys are so last century to begin with.
Here are the pertinent parts of the Dayton Daily News article on this breech of privacy by Ms. Whaley:
The Wright State University graduate student given home numbers and addresses of police and firefighters, which were to be used to conduct a residency survey, is a Dayton city commissioner.
Nan Whaley, the commissioner, was given the information for college study, according to documents the Dayton Daily News obtained Friday, May 1.
The personal information of police and firefighters appears under a “Must Not Release” section of the state Sunshine laws.
The decision to release the records angered police and fire union officials, who said Whaley used her position as a commissioner to gain access to the records.
City Manager Rashad Young said information used in the survey was released for “business reasons” and is “not applicable” to state Sunshine laws.
Randy Beane, Dayton police union president, said, “I wholeheartedly disagree with that and it is a bastardization of state law by the city to cover themselves.”
“The commissioner used her position to get the information,” Beane said.
Young and Whaley disagreed.
“I am a graduate student conducting a survey about residency and have done nothing unethical or illegal,” Whaley said. “We have been very careful and followed ethical guidelines, like making sure I don’t contact anyone (who is) a part of the survey.”
Tuesday, Attorney General Richard Cordray’s office said the release of information on peace officers is not illegal.
In an April e-mail regarding Whaley’s information request sent to Young, a city employee wrote, “As it relates to address and phone number (of employees), these are no longer public record due to a state law change. I can provide them to Commissioner Whaley for business reasons but she cannot disclose the information.”
About 50 officers who were surveyed were asked about the likelihood of their moving out of the city and where they would move if the state Supreme Court lifted the residency rule, Beane said.
Officers were asked if they would accept a $5,000 payment to stay in the city, how many children they have, and their combined household income.
via Personal data on police, firemen were given to city commissioner [1].
If the Supreme Court finds the residency rule unconstitutional, this “research” doesn’t matter. As to paying $5,000 to employees to stay in the city, maybe this money should be spent on providing baseball fields to youth leagues [2] instead.
The sad part is that Ms. Whaley is busy thinking about things like keeping employees hostage, instead of ways to make people want to live in our city.
Right now the city isn’t in any position to pay employees more to live in the city (and why should we only be concerned with safety forces?).
What’s even more disconcerting is that a Commissioner has chosen to use her position to secure information that should not, or would not be released to anyone else. This is a serious breech of responsibility on both Ms. Whaley’s part, and the City Manager’s part. However, it’s doubtful that either will suffer any consequences for their actions.
However, one of the comments on the DDN site had at least this part right:
Nannette Whaley (home)
217 Wroe Ave
Dayton, OH 45406-5252
(937) 275-3418
Maybe some one might want to call her for comments??
da man 1:26 PM, 5/2/2009
And for good measure, if you want her cell phone number, leave a comment and ask for it- I’ll e-mail it to you.
Privacy isn’t something to be taken lightly.
I thought this was a very interesting story as I too am a student at Wright State and live near Commissioner Whaley. I use email all the time for things for record keeping and and since this is the information ago so yes the city has several email addresses. Whether they email or call you back is another story in itself. As a Wright State student, I try to tie in issues of the city with several of my projects as a way to make suggestions to the city. However, I can see where a conflict of interest lies. I hate that this story causes a break in between city leaders and city workers, it’s unfortunate that more suburbanite hatred gets thrown at Dayton. I agree that maintaining the city above all, should be priority as well as maintaining a good relationship with the fire and police departments, of all departments. I guess you might have a lot of fire and police department votes since you’re running. Since the city pays for her continuing education, I’m sure it’s only a matter of time before someone challenges that because of this story.
Is it true the city is picking up the tab for her college classes?
As far as I know, she’s paying for the degree on her own. Of course, since being a commissioner pays almost as much as she made when she was working in the County building, but is only a part time job, she has time to do both.
Wow, you’re posting personal information like that?
Not cool, and extremely hypocritical.
Two wrongs don’t make it right.
Two wrongs may not make a right, but what’s good for the goose…as the saying goes. It is not ok to release DPD and DFD names and addresses, she was not personally making the calls so who knows how many people ended up with access to that list. There were unlisted cell phones that were called. Dayton is well known for its crime, in 2007 the ranking was 19th in the US for most dangerous city. Safety services have aready been cut but the leaders continue to turn the knife by giving out names and address of people that put their lives on the line to protect the people of Dayton. Talk about not cool!
Can someone tell me why police should be secret police?
@civil servants: the address for Nan was posted in the comments on the DDN site. It has been since removed- however, it is easy enough to find it on the County Auditors page- as well as all of the petitions she took out to run for office.
@Drexel the reason police officers don’t want their home addresses known, is because sometimes convicted felons seek retribution against the officers. I’m sure one of my readers can give instances of this happening- although none come to mind for me.
Dayton’s residency requirement is illegal, and hopefully their appeal will be denied by the Ohio Supreme Court. We had an interesting conversation regarding residency requirements over the weekend. Apparently Rhine McLin lives in Jefferson Township. It is the city commission’s job to investigate residency violations. If the city commission investigates and fires an employee for residency, knowing that the city’s mayor is guilty of the same violation this makes the city susceptible to a lawsuit (possibly class action) for all fired employees against the City.
“Apparently Rhine McLin lives in Jefferson Township. It is the city commission’s job to investigate residency violations”
Yeah right Ryan and the Pope doesn’t live in the Vatican.
Interesting. You can go to http://www.mctreas.org to look up property in Montgomery County by owner. There are several properties listed for Rhine L McLin, all of which save one are in the City of Dayton, but the one that’s not in the City of Dayton is not in Jefferson Township but rather in Trotwood, so if she’s living in Jefferson Township, perhaps she’s renting?
Do you have anything, Ryan, to back up your claim that the mayor of Dayton is living in Jefferson Township?
It might have been Trotwood in lieu of Jefferson Twp. My apologies. I am taking real estate classes on the weekends. One of the students in this class is a firefighter and has serviced a call to “her” residence in Trotwood. Other than hear say like this, no. Does anyone know what address she claims as her residence? Would city employees living in Trotwood be seen in the same light as those living in Huber Heights?
By ‘Huber Heights’, I assume you mean the area around Kitridge Rd. where a number of City employees live. There is a large amount of housing in the northeast area of the City that might appear to be in Huber Heights, and even has the Huber zipcode and Huber schools. But rest assured, those employees live within the City of Dayton boundaries in that area. Some very nice neighborhoods I might ad. If you’re into the suburban-style living, there are areas within the City limits up that way that could easily pass for nice areas of Centerville or Beavercreek.
And I believe McLin’s “official” City address in on Paul Laurence Dunbar Street…
You could always just ask Nan… I’m sure she’d be happy to tell ya… probly give you Rhine’s phone number too.
That Kitridge Road area census tract has around 31%-32% government workers of its working age population. The only tracts in the area higher than that are the tracts for the military housing on Wright-Patterson.