More e-mail claims surface

The county's former internal auditor said someone from Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean's office began snooping through her e-mail shortly after she released an audit critical of the county's hiring practices under Bean's leadership.

Referring to allegations by current internal auditor Jim Barnes that his e-mail had been searched, Kathleen Mathews told commission chairman Ken Hagan and commissioner Mark Sharpe in an e-mail last week, that "the same e-mail issue happened when Bean wanted me, as auditor, to resign."

Then-commissioner Brian Blair, she wrote in the e-mail to Hagan and Sharpe, "was waving e-mails from my office around in front of me. Someone had retrieved them from the internal auditor's office online records and given them to Commissioner Blair." Mathews was hired as the county's first internal performance auditor in 2003.

In an interview Monday, Mathews said she has contacted the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, which is investigating 1 percent pay raises that Bean and County Attorney Renee Lee received in 2007 and which Barnes uncovered in an audit last year.

The FDLE has expanded its probe to include the searches of e-mail by the offices of Bean and Lee, which Barnes disclosed in a March 4 report.

The allegations prompted a call from Hagan for Bean, Lee and Barnes to resign by noon today or he will ask the board to fire the trio at Wednesday's commission meeting

Several commissioners said they are unwilling to fire anyone until they have more details on the allegations in Barnes' report and a legal opinion on the ramifications. Still, several other commissioners said they plan to move ahead with firing Bean on Wednesday.

Hagan, who said Bean's leadership has created a "culture of dysfunction," is sticking by his deadline and said he plans to call for a vote to fire her during Wednesday's 2:15 p.m. discussion.

That can be done with a supermajority vote, consisting of a 5 to 2 or more count in favor of terminating her contract, or two additional voting actions of a simple 4 to 3 majority.

Bean, he said Monday, "has given me no indication that she intends to resign," he said Monday.

Bean, whose attorney will argue her case Wednesday, has admitted she requested e-mail but said she never read them, producing the results of a polygraph test at last week's special board meeting.

She didn't return phone messages seeking comment on Monday.

Mathews said she came under fire from Bean after releasing an audit in 2005 revealing the county spent $1 million more than budgeted for temporary workers, among other findings.

About a year later, Mathews received a critical performance evaluation and was told she would have to reapply for her job, which would be opened to others as well. The evaluation was based, in part, on a report from the county's human resources director, whose department she had criticized less than a year before in the audit.

She never found out how Blair got the e-mail that he used to criticize her performance and managerial skills in commission meetings, and didn't question them at the time.

"There's no doubt they were targeting me," said Mathews, who acknowledged during her performance review with commissioners that she was not good at hiring employees. "Pat Bean didn't want an auditor looking over her shoulder, especially one that didn't answer directly to her office."

Blair said Monday he didn't recall receiving the e-mail, but said he remembers "someone" from Bean's office coming into his office to complain about Mathews' performance.

"I don't remember who it was, but they weren't happy with her performance," he said.

Commissioners are expected to hire an attorney at their meeting from the two names provided by Hillsborough County Clerk Pat Frank's office on Monday. Frank suggested Richard C. McCrea Jr., of the Tampa office of the firm Greenberg Traurig, and Michael D. Malfitano, of the Tampa office of the law firm Constangy, Brooks & Smith.

Several commissioners said they want a report before they proceed with firing Bean.

"I think it's in the best interests of the county and taxpayers that we consult an attorney before we go any further," Commissioner Kevin Beckner said Monday. "We need to know the ramifications."

Barnes told commissioners last week that he will not resign, saying that despite past problems with his office, he was merely doing his job by uncovering the e-mail records request. Some commissioners said during last week's meeting that Barnes should not be fired because he brought the e-mail searches, as well as the 1 percent raises, to the commission's attention.

Lee, who has hired an attorney from prominent Tampa criminal defense lawyer Barry Cohen's firm, argues her office was merely conducting public record searches in response to outside requests.

On Friday, FDLE investigators subpoenaed several members of Lee's staff and seized a stack of e-mail from Commissioner Rose Ferlita that she says were given to her by Lee.

Ferlita said she never requested the e-mail and only read a couple of them pertaining to Barnes' work performance that she referenced at a Jan. 13 commission meeting.

Commissioners who want to oust Bean cite several gaffes under her leadership, including mismanagement of the affordable housing department that cost the county $2 million in federal grants and Bean's giving pay raises to select senior staff members.