Hillsborough County mired in Snoopergate

What's going to happen this week?

Hillsborough County's government, facing a looming budget crisis, is stuck on hold as its leaders wallow around in a name-calling mess we'll call Snoopergate.

Once again, instead of attending to the people's business, this week promises to be more of the same as the board of county commissioners comes together Wednesday. The commissioners will talk about hiring their own legal counsel and probably will listen to lawyers for at least two of the three county leaders they wanted to fire last week.

Snoopergate is all about reading e-mails and figuring out who has been snooping into what and whether they were authorized to do so.

The three targets of the board's wrath are: longtime Hillsborough County Administrator Pat Bean, Hillsborough County Attorney Renee Lee and Internal Performance Auditor Jim Barnes.

Before this is done with, I suspect equally in the spotlight will be the board members themselves, several of whom seemingly have been unable to refrain from trying to gain political advantage out of this.

What's unfortunate for the rest of us is there is no way this can be shuffled off to a backroom. With all the significant issues pressing down on the county, this has got to be worked out.

Take at least three aspirin

I got a headache reading through the stacks of memos among the commissioners, Bean, Lee and the auditors.

I have to tell you right off, it appears Jim Barnes only is guilty of trying to do his job. The other day someone in the country procurement office stuck up a picture of TV detective Columbo and stuck Barnes' face on it.

Columbo he isn't. But if you labor through the memos to his office from his many bosses, it's a wonder he comes to work sober.

Go for the trifecta

Let's see, here's an example. This is a memo dated Oct. 28, 2009, to show you this has been oozing for months. It's from Lis Mendez, the legal assistant to senior Assistant County Attorney DeBora Cromartie-Mincey and Assistant County Attorney Charlotte Diggs:

"Good morning all. I received a public records request for any and all correspondences (letters, memos, reports, etc.) received or sent by your office regarding the One Percent Extra Merit Increase issue. Do not worry about the emails. Staff is pulling all emails related to this subject.

"A request was also made for any correspondences (letters, memos, reports, etc.) regarding any audits, investigations or reports relating to the county attorney's office. Do not worry about the emails. Staff is pulling all emails related to this subject.

"Please forward the requested information to my attention."

You can see it is going to take a while to work through all the palace intrigue to discover if what happened amounted to people covering their tails, people going after someone else's tail, or just the muddled memo-speak of a bureaucracy. I'm betting the trifecta.