WHY WONT HE TELL US WHAT IS REALLY GOING ON?

what kind of personality disorder would that take to do all this when our water is being degraded by row-crop Ag??

Because this is a personnel matter the State cannot tell us why Paul was fired but he can. There were multiple written investigation reports (which by statute he is required to be given) and multiple interviews with him and others involved so he must know why the State fired him. After more then 20-months of time why won’t Paul tell us the reasons the State fired him?

If all this is true then this criminal act should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Thanks for the update. As a MN state employee any discipline or firing takes an investigation by DOER before any action is taken. Because it is a personnel matter any results are confidential. I’m sure there was a report(s) which by law have to be provided to the employee who was fired so Mr. Wotzka must know all the specifics why he was fired.

From what I recall the DOER stated in their dismissal letter (which was publicly released) that Mr. Wotzka destroyed State data. Since he worked on water quality I would guess it was water quality data that was destroyed. I would also guess that DOER has some pretty damaging proof to support such a strong statement and action. Time will tell.

Again thanks for the update!

Jeff

Actually, Paul Wotzka and his attorneys are currently digging through thousands of pages of government documents and seeking more documentation through the Government Data Practices Act. Once they have gone through all these documents, Wotzka plans on re-filing the lawsuit.

As you may recall, last fall both sides to the lawsuit asked that the case be dismissed without prejudice. This means that Wotzka can re-file the lawsuit at any time, which he says he will. Wotzka says one of the reasons he agreed to dismiss the case temporarily in federal court is that the State of Minnesota claims that it was the Department of Employee Relations (DOER) that fired him, and not the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). If that’s true, then he would need to sue DOER and not MPCA. Wotzka and his attorneys want to investigate the respective roles of the various government agencies in the firing decision before re-filing the lawsuit.

The government has also indicated that there was a secret investigation against Wotzka before the firing. By combing through those thousands of pages of documents, they hope to learn as much about that investigation as possible. Mr. Green, in the past you have called for the results of the investigation to be posted on the Internet. Getting such information out to the public is one of the goals of Wotzka’s lawsuit.

Finally, as has been reported previously, the government has invoked a legal technicality which would require Wotzka to re-file his lawsuit in state court instead of in federal court. All of this takes an immense amount of time and resources, and Wotzka has vowed to continue the fight, no matter how long it takes.

i would assume that the State would be required to do an investigation of an employee before they were fired and that there would be a written report of the information found during that investigation. is Paul Wotzka saying that this investigation was a “secret” and hidden from the public? i can understand why DOER cannot release the information but if Paul has a copy of the investigation report (he must) why doesent he make it public by putting it on the web so we can see who was doing what?

Both sides to my lawsuit in federal court have asked that the case be dismissed without prejudice. This means that we can re-file the lawsuit at any time. There are a few reasons we decided to dismiss the case in federal court. First, the government claims that it was the Department of Employee Relations (DOER) that fired me, and not the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA), where I worked. If that’s true, then I would need to sue DOER and not MPCA. We want to investigate the respective roles of the various government agencies in the decision to fire me before re-filing the lawsuit. Second, the government has also indicated that there was a secret investigation against me which was the reason I was fired. We want to learn as much about this secret investigation as we can. Finally, the government has invoked a legal technicality which would require me to file my lawsuit in state court instead of in federal court. Before we want to re-file, we want to make sure we are in the right court with the right defendant.

– Paul Wotzka, 11/29/07