Posted on 03/10/2010 10:14:20 PM PST by george76
A longtime state Commerce Department official says the Schweitzer administration forced him to quit Friday because he responded to a Republican senator's inquiry about why $3.5 million in local government grants were being stalled.
David Cole, administrator of the department's Community Development Division until Friday, said Wednesday he had planned to retire March 31 to end a 37-year state government career. Last Friday was going to be his last day in the office anyway, because he planned to use his remaining vacation and compensatory time before month's end.
Instead, Cole said, he was ordered to pen a hasty, handwritten resignation letter and quit immediately Friday. It cost him $6,000 in gross pay and left a sour taste after a career that saw him twice win the governor's excellence award, including one in 2008 under Schweitzer.
"I've worked for seven governors going back to Forrest Anderson," Cole said. "I've never seen anything like this."
"We didn't know about it till after it happened," said Sarah Elliott, Schweitzer's spokeswoman.
GOP lawmakers criticized the Schweitzer administration for holding back $3.5 million in grants intended to go to local governments for water, sewer and other projects...
the "resignation" orders came from Vivian Hammill, Schweitzer's chief of staff.
Hammill said through a spokeswoman she wasn't aware that Cole had resigned until after it had occurred.
Cole said he had never e-mailed Lewis, but had responded to a Feb. 26 inquiry from Lewis about the held-up grants. Before responding, however, he cleared it with Preite and the department's deputy director, Andy Poole.
Cole said that on Jan. 22, the governor's office told the Commerce Department to stop processing the local government grant applications because of the looming state budget problems.
"I told them I wasn't going to lie to a state senator," Cole said.
(Excerpt) Read more at missoulian.com ...
Wait a minute - - Montana has a Democrat governor??
For some reason, I don’t think of Montana as having a whole lot of losers, deadbeats, parasites, atheists, abortion enthusiasts, Hollywood drunks, pinky-ring union thugs, welfare grandmothers, Boy Scout-hating lesbians, condom-throwing sodomites, hand-wringing communist professors, etc... So how does Montana end up with a Democrat governor?
The very sad truth about Montana is that it is full of liberals. I can fully understand why real Montanans have a distrust of all the invaders that have moved here, especially the Hollywood types.
I moved back to Montana ten years ago and was saddened and shocked to see how liberal it is. The nearest town to me is Livingston. Livingston is a liberal hell hole. Full of washed up actors and actresses, crack and meth houses and subura driving wackos with o stickers (still) on their bumpers.
Montana almost went to o and we now have a dem gov and 2 dem senators: Bauchus (yeah, a main player in health care) and tester. Our only congressman, Rehberg, is a republican.
It is so bad here that I am considering moving to Texas. I love Texas, it’s just that the trout fishing in Montana is so much better.
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