Sept. 17, 2005 The Bluegrass Report. by Mark Nicholas. Prior reports are linked to the one this link leads to.
After Governor Fletcher requested the resignation of the head of the Kentucky Republican Party, the Republican Party Executive Committee refused to consider it. Then Governor Fletcher's fund raiser, expected to raise $500,000, actually took only $70,000. Most of that was before the recent developments. Governor Fletcher is finished, and the Kentucky Republican Party is in real disarray.Sept. 16, 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader. By Ryan Alessi
FRANKFORT - Gov. Ernie Fletcher's top aides set up the "Governor's Personnel Initiative" largely to quell the growing frustration of Republican job seekers who wanted appointed posts as well as merit positions, according to two key personnel figures.Sept. 15, 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader. By Ryan Alessi
Republican state Rep. C.B. Embry Jr., who volunteered to help interview state job candidates last year in the Capitol, said he was bombarded with angry phone calls from Republicans who complained that the Fletcher administration was not doing enough to hire loyal supporters. After all, they had waited three decades for a GOP governor.
That sparked a series of meetings last fall with Fletcher's second-in-command, Daniel Groves, about ways to speed up hiring and streamline the personnel processes within each cabinet, Embry said.
Groves then became "the guy behind" the personnel initiative, said Dan Druen, former transportation cabinet administrative services commissioner, in an Aug. 26 interview with state prosecutors.
Wednesday in Franklin Court, prosecutors filed a transcript of their interview with Druen.
The origins of the initiative, whose members later referred to themselves as the "apostles" and "disciples," had remained to this point largely a mystery and the subject of much public speculation. The group is a focus of the ongoing investigation into Fletcher administration hiring practices.
Prosecutors in the attorney general's office have called it the cog of a "corrupt political machine" for tracking the hiring of supporters into protected "merit jobs" and for discussing broad strategies to hasten the hiring of Fletcher-backers.
FRANKFORT - Gov. Ernie Fletcher yesterday fired nine administration officials, dissolved his local outreach office and called for the resignation of the Kentucky Republican Party chairman in further fallout of the ongoing investigation into state hiring practices.
Fletcher, speaking at a hastily called afternoon press conference, said he came to those decisions yesterday morning, more than two weeks after he pardoned nine former or current officials who had been indicted.
For four months, the attorney general's office has been looking into allegations that Fletcher's administration illegally hired rank-and-file merit employees based on politics instead of qualifications -- which Fletcher tacitly admitted yesterday.
"It is now clear to me that there were mistakes made by staff members who either did not understand -- or appreciate -- the spirit of the merit system rules," he said in prepared remarks. "And it is now time for me to take action that I believe is appropriate for the circumstances at hand."
Four of the nine officials whom Fletcher asked to resign yesterday had been indicted, as was Darrell Brock, the state Republican chairman. Three other men, Acting Transportation Secretary Bill Nighbert, deputy secretary Jim Adams and commissioner of administrative services Tim Hazlette, also were indicted but remain in their positions.
My previous postings on Fletcher
Sept. 01, 2005
Gov. Ernie Fletcher of Kentucky is enjoying the media saturation from Katrina
Aug. 29, 2005 Kentucky Republican Governor Pardons his staff of ALL crimes committed through Monday
Aug. 19, 2005
Republican Governor of Kentucky subpoenaed .
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