VehrsGate

Last night, I heard Delegate Ward Armstrong had sent a letter to Governor Kaine about the Will Vehrs situation, and Delegate Armstrong's opinion that he should no longer be in the state government.

I called Ward to discuss this, and he was kind enough to take my call late last night.

Ward felt strongly about this issue, because "its like making fun of someone who is sick".  He also called Will's comments "demeaning" and also said they "damaged" the community.

I asked him about Barnie Day's comments that people should calm down.  (Barnie has been Chair of Ward's re-election campaigns since they were drawn into the same district).    Ward said, "Barnie is a good friend of mine, but we aren't clones".

I have a lot of sympathy to what is going on here.  My family has been in this part of Virginia for over 200 years.  Clearly Ward, Roscoe Reynolds, Danny Marshall and others from this region felt their constituents were being attacked by this.  At the same time, it was a caption contest, and the over response to this is not helping the community either.

Here's what I propose as a solution:

1)  Bloggers who want to support Will Vehrs need to get off their keyboards.  I think we should have a bloggers meeting, in Martinsville and take this as an opportunity to use our sites to promote this community in need.  If others are interested, I would be happy to organize it.

2)  I see in a couple of weeks the Martinsville Chamber is having a big event.  Maybe they could invite Mr. Vehrs and talk to him about what he could be doing for their community.

3)  The calls for Mr. Vehrs to resign or be fired must stop.  Employees are given jobs and Mr. Vehrs is assigned to respond to businesses as they call in or email questions.  Thus, when he gets off the phone he doesn't have much to do until the next call comes in.  If any punitive action is taken against Mr. Vehrs, it is war against the blogosphere as far as I'm concerned.  Employees go on the web to do shopping, to read news and whatever else they want while they are taking a break or between calls.  To fire Mr. Vehrs would essentially be putting blogging below those other habits, and I would certainly be very offended if the Kaine administration thought reading my blog was worse then shopping on HSN!

Who's willing to do something in Martinsville?

Comments

[Bill Kuster]

Reminds of one of George Allen's first acts as governor - uninstalling the Games on all of the state computers.

[Not Robert Roberts]

I just want to go on record here and say that I have no problem with what Will said. I think it's hilarious. I definitely agree with someone else who said that who should really be ashamed is the M'ville/Henry County folks who thought that having a jingle contest would be a good use of funds instead of investing in the local economy.....

Anyway, what really bothers me is the amount of posting that Will does while on the job. Not only the amount of posting but that it is so partisan. Here is a civil servant that people expect to be non-partisan yet he is obviously pushing a partisan agenda while at work. Will may be the most efficient person in his office but using that as an excuse for his blogging is unacceptable. Will is a smart and well reasoned person- he should know better than to use an argument like that to justify his actions. Maybe his colleagues should step it up but if he doesn't have enough to do between the hours of 8 and 5 then we know where to find some room in the budget don't we?

That's not to say that workers are not entitled to take breaks throughout the day and rest their minds by perusing some websites or talking to colleagues or whatever. However two things stand out in this case: a) Will used his state time and his state equipment to push a political agenda---DEFINITELY a no-no b) if you look at the times of his posts it looks as if all he did for over three hours was post responses. Whatever the specifics of his job at that point it is unacceptable to be spending that much time posting.

Like I said, I have no problem with what he said. M'ville and Henry Co. officials need to take a breath- however, the blogosphere needs to look a little more carefully at the appropriateness of state employees using state time and state hardware to post political opinion.

[I'm Not Emeril]

Ben,
Good suggestions all. I'm here in Collinsville. If your ideas take hold, I'll do whatever I can to help arrange it.

[Will Vehrs]

I'd like to respond to FreeVaGOP and Not Robert Roberts because they are making very valid and defensible judgments.

As someone who has spent the last five years trying to make state government more productive and cost-efficient in my tiny little spot in the bureaucracy, if you look at my blogging, it sure makes me look like a hypocrite. It's like the abstinence preacher doing a high school kid. I have numbers to back up what I've done.

Anything, in context, can be defended, but I'm in a losing battle trying to put context to this. I can tell you until until the cows come home that it doesn't intefere with my job and claim that I still work circles around those who don't blog, but you won't believe me and I can't bring everyone into my office to see what it is I do and how I do it so you can really understand what is going on. I was wrong to blog from the state computer, pure and simple. I made it worse by blogging under my real name so I could be found out easily. If I was a wily bureaucrat, I would have done everything under the radar screen.

Long ago, I would not have even thought to comment on Virginia politics in my blogging because of my state employment. Then, along came the Warner Administration. My Agency Director kept boasting that the Administration had lifted the "gag order," a Republican Administration prohibition against speaking to the press.

Under this banner of openness, I began blogging, tentatively at first, about state issues. To their credit, and I recognized this publicly on several occasions over at Bacon's Rebellion where I used to write, the Warner Administration actually tolerated blogging because they correctly saw it as a window into what people who might not otherwise be heard were thinking. Having somebody tell them they're wonderful and everything is peachy isn't much help; finding out what dissenting voices are saying can be a useful tool in government operations, communications strategy, and policy formulation.

That's one factor for you to consider, NRR, as you charge me with pushing a "partisan agenda," assuming we grant that my blogging was not explicitly prohibited. If I'm such a partisan, I wonder why Governor Kaine's staff picked me as one of the bloggers to participate in the first blogger conference call with a gubernatorial candidate--held during normal state working hours.

Anything I write that can be construed as "partisan" is thrown up at me, but nobody remembers me being one of the first bloggers to note and praise Gov. Kaine's trip to the Middle East or to stand by him in his tough decision to let an execution proceed, for example. Nobody remembers me telling Del. Cline to apologize. I have always tried to criticize or analyze constructively. If you don't agree with me, I understand how that can be see as being a partisan.

As I'm crucified as being an enemy of economic development in Southside, nobody remembers my posts in favor of a state university in Southside. Nobody cared much about what I wrote, judging from the paucity of comments. If I remember correctly, lots of people thought the idea preposterous, almost using the same stereotypes I lampooned in my ill-advised caption entries.

If I wasn't under a cloud, I'd be blogging about Gov. Kaine's mighty effort to change Ford's mind and give him enormous credit for working so hard.

A few years ago there were only a few bloggers and not many people noticed blogs. Now, there are new blogs popping up every day and even seemingly innocuous contests become public fodder. I know I can't be granted some immunity for blogging while I'm at work because I'm supposedly fair-minded while banning someone who is just as subjectively rated a raving partisan.

Anyway, I'm rambling now, but I wanted you to know that I saw your posts and that I respect your opinions. None of us is all saint or all sinner, least of all me. Do we zero in on one aspect of my work and just shit-can me summarily, or do we look deeper and find another disciplinary action that allows me to build on the good things I've done?

Since April 3d I've had a proposal in to my management to do the first-ever state agency blog on entrepreneurial subjects. It would be a win-win . . . I'd blog on state time in my area of expertise and taxpayers would benefit from having a real-time resource on a static website. I'd do it along with my current duties at no additional expense to the state.

Fat chance I'll get that approved.

[FreeVaGOP]

Will:

Thanks for your thoughtful reply. I don't envy the position you are in at the moment.

But while you take the position that, because you blog in "down time," its doesn't affect your job, my rejoinder would simply be that you should not have down time. If you have down time, then your job description should be reconstructed and your duties expanded.

Lots of down time should not be license for a state employee to engage extensively in non-state activities, especially as it seems you do this so much of every part of most any day.

As a taxpayer, I want state employees giving an honest day's work and getting an honest day's pay. Getting paid for, say, eight hours and have a couple of hours of "down time" where you do something else is not, in my mind, the way things should be.

Can someone clarify where it is that Will Vehrs works and what his remarks were? I still don't really know who he is after reading his response. Where were his comments posted/printed?

[Not Robert Roberts]

NLS readers I apologize for the long post.

Will,

Thanks too, for the response. However, I do agree with FreeVaGOP that down time in work should not be multiple hours. Taking a few minutes every couple of hours to clear your head by checking blogs, sending personal email, reading the paper or checking your investments is fine- hours upon hours of posting while on the job is not. For me though, it is not the posting that is the bother (though I am a state employee and would never think of posting to a blog on state time or state computer). The problem for me, and I know I said this before, is that in your blogging you have become a political figure and have taken political opinions. Perhaps my comment earlier about you being partisan is not exactly what I meant.

The point is that government employees are specifically prohibited from engaging in political activities while on the job. This has nothing to do with a gag-order on speaking to the press or whether or not Governor Kaine is blog friendly. I don't understand your comment about the blogger conference call or your defense that you often take Governor Kaine's side. That doesn't matter. The point is that you used state time and state resources for political activities. That is prohibited.

Do I think you should be fired? Hell no. Do I think that this should serve as an example? Yes. From what I understand, Virginia has been a leader in the development of political blogging. I think that the VA Political Blogosphere should take advantage of this incident to discuss appropriate and inappropriate political blogging. Government employees are not supposed to use the telephone, work email, or state time for political activities or political gain- why should bloggers be any different?

Also, directed toward NLS: I have heard multiple bloggers including yourself come to the defense of Mr. Vehrs by essentially saying, "you better not mess with the blogosphere!" This is not the way to go. Just because we are using a new medium where the rules have not yet been clearly laid out or established does not mean that we are somehow above any rules. I dont' think that's what you're implying- but be careful.

I too, Will, have started rambling but I do want to leave you with one more rseponse to your response. You talked about the Warner Admin's attitude toward blogs and blogging. While I accept this and recognize this as a definte positive- you said,

"Having somebody tell them they're wonderful and everything is peachy isn't much help; finding out what dissenting voices are saying can be a useful tool in government operations, communications strategy, and policy formulation."

One thing I think you fail to realize is that it is not your role as a state employee on state time. If you want to take part in this form of grassroots communication with our government on your own time with your own resources then that's fine. But anything else is unacceptable.

I sincerely wish you the best and hope that you make it through with your job. I do not believe this is something you should be crucified for and I do not think that it is THAT big of a deal. However, I do believe it is necessary for bloggers to have this conversation about what is and isn't appropriate for political blogging by government employeess.

[Not Larry Sabato]

NRR, we have been friends a long time, and I am familiar with your work history. Without giving any hints to your identity, you have never worked a job similar to Mr. Vehrs job. I have.

When you work a job on a call center, some days you get 90 calls and dont get off the phone all day. Some days you for a couple of hours without anything to do.

Mr. Vehrs job is to sit on the computer and do live internet chats with businesses who want more information on basically anything regarding Virginia. If there is a day where less people email in, Will has more free time.

To say he should have job duties added- I agree if he posted everyday, all the time. But he doesn't, some (busier, I assume) days he doesn't post at all. It's hard to find someone willing to do this kind of job, which is basically a "centerfield" position that has to work with almost every other Virginia agency depending on the question or request. My understanding is Mr. Vehrs clears over 300 requests a week on average. I say Virginia is getting her monies worth.

[Not Robert Roberts]

NLS-- point taken-- however, I do not agree. He is still a state employee working for a state agency and as such, should leave his political blogging to his time away from work. Using other people's ineffeciences as an excuse for taking more down time is not a good excuse. Sounds to me that it is Mr. Vehrs colleagues who should be stepping it up.

Like I said, it does not matter how much work he does or what a good job he does. The point is that state employees should not use state time and state resources for political activities or political gain. I have no problem with down time at work..TRUST ME :-) It's when you use the down time for politics that is bad.

[Will Vehrs]

NRR, I can't disagree with most of what you said. Knowing that you're a state employee, too, makes your perspective even more compelling. NLS makes the case for what it should be like in a more ideal workplace: they would tolerate/encourage my blogging because an employee allowed to do something he loves/believes in with his downtime probably will pay out in more productivity than the more rigid workplace.

It's easy to see why the state would have trouble trying to be the "ideal" model.

This is the kind of conversation I wish I could have with my "real world" critics.

Thank you.

[James O'Brien]

Just a shot in the dark, but I think that "Not Ben" is in reality Ben Domenech! Welcome back Ben!

I think all sweat over a silly little blog is just BS.

[Christopher]

If Mr. Vehrs was making blog posts while on government time, he should be fired. Period.

And I say this as somebody who shares his political opinions.

[vasya_wrj]

Hello All! Very nice JOB!!!
RESPECT