The Garden City Telegram
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Political e-mail prompts discipline
Published 10/22/2008 in News
By STEPHANIE FARLEY
A Finney County employee has been disciplined after using her county e-mail account to forward a message that suggested 2008 presidential candidate Barack Obama is the Anti-Christ.
The e-mail, which reportedly warns that when Obama “is in power, he will destroy everything,” got the attention of county officials after Kansas City-based NBC reporter Russ Ptacek called the County Appraiser’s office looking for the alleged sender of the e-mail.
According to Ptacek, the e-mail came from the county appraiser’s office. But County Appraiser Mark Low said the e-mail didn’t originate from the office and that Mary Hargett, a recipient and sender of the e-mail, forwarded the message on.
On Monday afternoon, Hargett said she didn’t create the e-mail. Instead, “someone forwarded it to me, and I forwarded it on.”
The 32-year-old commercial appraiser said she didn’t add anything to the e-mail and deleted it after forwarding it. She said the message was sent by someone she knew, but she’s unsure how and where the message originated.
“If anyone’s offended by it, I apologize for that,” she said.
Hargett forwarded the message on Sept. 23. She’d forgotten about the message until receiving a call from Ptacek on Monday, who asked her about the message and how it was started. According to Hargett, Ptacek had somehow linked her e-mail address, which includes “appraiser06,” to the message and called the office, requesting to speak to Low. After being told Low wasn’t in, Ptacek asked to speak with “appraiser06” and was transferred to Hargett.
The click of the computer mouse landed Hargett on Kansas City-area’s NBC Action News, along with her picture. Photos of appraiser’s office employees have since been removed from the county’s Web site.
County Administrator Pete Olson said it was his understanding Hargett had not created the e-mail, but that it had been forwarded to her and then she sent it to others. He said he had not seen the e-mail and that the issue has been handled as a personnel matter. He said he didn’t feel there was anything to gain by commenting on the situation.
The county’s e-mail and Internet usage policy states, “Internet and e-mail access is intended for county business and is not to be used for personal gain. Solicitation of funds, political messages, harassing messages and other similar messages are specifically prohibited. All e-mail messages and all use of Internet and e-mail services are subject to the Finney County Personnel Policy and all state and federal laws and rules.”
Hargett still is employed by the county.
On the county’s Internet and e-mail policy, Low was quoted by Ptacek as saying, “We don’t have a policy. We don’t push one way or the other. If they want to send it to a friend, fine.”
Low said he was talking about the county having no policy on how employees vote and which candidate they endorse. He also said Ptacek caught him off guard, saying he’s been with the county for two years and isn’t very familiar with the Internet policy because Internet issues haven’t really come up since he’s been a county employee. Low said he didn’t answer the question right, “and I screwed up.
“To us, it’s really not a great big issue,” Low said, adding it’s a personnel matter from here on out.
The e-mail’s been going around for months and months, he said.
“It did not originate here,” he said, adding, “Mary made a mistake” in going against county policy. “I guess you could say she made an error in judgement,” he said.
Whether it’s a political message is beside the point, Low said, adding the issue is that the e-mail went against county policy.
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