hogelin, barbara | testimony transcript continued

Transcript of the Testimony of Barbara Hogelin (Continued)

Date: November 7, 2013Volume: I

Case: In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation

Printed On: November 13, 2013

Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.Phone: 417-358-4078

Fax: 417-451-1114Email:[email protected]

Internet:

Barbara Hogelin (Continued) In Re: Joplin Critical Investigation

417-358-4078

Holliday Reporting Service, Inc.

Page 1

IN RE: JOPLIN CRITICAL INVESTIGATION

CONTINUED SWORN STATEMENT OF

BARBARA HOGELIN

Taken on Thursday, November 7, 2013, from 9:49 a.m. to 10:09

a.m., at the law offices of Juddson H. McPherson, LLC, 626

S. Byers, in the City of Joplin, County of Jasper, State of

Missouri, before

SHARON K. ROGERS, C.C.R.650,

a Certified Court Reporter and a Notary Public within and

for the County of Jasper, and State of Missouri.


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APPEARANCES

MR. THOMAS E. LORAINE

Loraine & Associates, LLC

4075 Osage Beach Pkwy., Suite 300

Osage Beach, MO 65065

[email protected]


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S T I P U L A T I O N

IT IS HEREBY STIPULATED that this Sworn Statement may be

taken by steno-mask type recording by SHARON K. ROGERS, a

Certified Court Reporter, and afterwards reduced into

typewriting.

It is further stipulated that the signature of the

witness is hereby waived, and that said Sworn Statement of

said witness shall be of the same force and effect as

though said witness had read and signed Sworn Statement.


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I N D E X

Page/Line

DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE . . . 5-2

E X H I B I T S

Exhibit #19 . . . . . . . 6-8

6/28/12 through 10/8/13 minutes

Note: Exhibits in separate binder

(sic) - typed as spoken

(ph.) - phonetic


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1 BARBARA HOGELIN

2 DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MR. LORAINE:

3 Q. Barb, you're still under oath. You realize

4 that?

5 A. I realize that.

6 Q. Okay. And what do you have for me today?

7 A. Okay. I made copies, these are all of the

8 JRC, the Joplin Redevelopment Corporation

9 minutes, from June 28th to the present. Now

10 I want to share with you, maybe one or two

11 are signed. I just made copies. I had the

12 secretary send them down to me. The signed

13 copies are in my office and they're not

14 certified, but if you would like for me to

15 give you signed copies the originals are

16 there, but they're the same thing.

17 Q. Are they in order?

18 A. Are they in what?

19 Q. In some kind of order?

20 A. They're in order, yes, chronological order.

21 Q. I'll let you do that.

22 BY COURT REPORTER: Do you want to

23 mark them individually or as a group?

24 BY MR. LORAINE: Just mark a group

25 number and then number each of the stapled


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1 things in sequence.

2 BY COURT REPORTER: I'll mark Exhibit

3 #19 then as a group.

4 BY MR. LORAINE: And while you're

5 doing that I'll go off the record.

6 (Short break taken, back on record)

7 Q. (By Mr. Loraine) On the record. Ms.

8 Hogelin, I've got Exhibit #19 and it consists

9 of a lot of pages, but essentially the last

10 page according to our court reporter is 149.

11 Do you agree?

12 A. Yes.

13 Q. And can you explain what this is?

14 A. These are the minutes of the Joplin

15 Redevelopment Corporation.

16 Q. And from what period? That would be from

17 June 28th?

18 A. Yes, clear through October 8th of 2013.

19 Q. Why did you select these dates?

20 A. These were all the minutes from the time

21 after David Wallace came into the City.

22 Q. All right. Have there been any minutes of

23 meetings where Wallace-Bajjali was mentioned

24 in the Council?

25 A. Yes, there have, and I'm still working on


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1 that.

2 Q. I'll be able to get that from you still?

3 A. Yes.

4 Q. Okay. So this is Exhibit #19 and we've got

5 the pages associated with it. I want to

6 shift gears a little bit, Ms. Hogelin.

7 There's a charter review coming up and your

8 department is presently under what

9 supervisor?

10 A. By charter I work under the City Council.

11 Q. Under the City Council directly. And what is

12 the proposal?

13 A. There is a proposal that upon charter review

14 that I work under the City Manager instead of

15 the City Council.

16 Q. And how long have you been in this job?

17 A. 21 years.

18 Q. What's your feeling in regards to the charter

19 amendment?

20 A. I would like to stay where I am and continue

21 working under the City Council.

22 Q. How strongly do you feel about that?

23 A. Very strongly. On a scale of 1 to 10 it

24 would be a 10.

25 Q. Why is that?


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1 A. I would not be happy working under the City

2 Manager. I don't talk to the City Manager.

3 Q. Why?

4 A. The City Manager is not a - well, the City

5 Manager is not a real friendly person.

6 Q. Well, we don't have to be friends at the

7 office, do we? So what more than not being a

8 friendly person is there?

9 A. He doesn't work well with his colleagues. If

10 he has something to say to you you get

11 summoned to his office. I pass him - I'm on

12 the same floor with him. The Mayor's office

13 is between my office and his office. And he

14 doesn't speak. You have to speak to him in

15 order to get him to speak to you.

16 Q. Is he mean to his employees? Have you seen

17 that?

18 A. I haven't seen it, but I have observed in the

19 past, I have observed his door being slammed.

20 I had a deputy City Clerk at one time that

21 would call my attention and tell me that, she

22 said you need to observe that door down there

23 is being slammed. It was his door. And he

24 would slam his door. And so I would stand in

25 the front office, in my front office, and I


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1 could hear that door being slammed.

2 Q. How many times a day? Multiple?

3 A. Multiple times in the course of several days,

4 and this has been when I had heard. Now this

5 was prior to, now this was back prior to

6 three or four or five years ago.

7 Q. So are you telling me there's something in

8 his management style that would prohibit you

9 from working under him?

10 A. Well, by him not even talking to me now he

11 wouldn't talk to me if I would work under

12 him.

13 Q. I understand that, but talking or not talking

14 is not a requirement I don't think of the

15 job. I guess the question is, is there

16 intimidation or a fear among his employees?

17 A. Well, when they had that breakdown up in

18 Public Works you could walk up in Public

19 Works on the fourth floor and people were

20 just shaking because they didn't know if they

21 were going to have their jobs or not. There

22 is a style of him and you can see it at

23 Council meetings. He just sits there and he

24 doesn't really talk, he just sits there with

25 his jaws sucked in, and he acts like he's got


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1 a mean look on his face. It is like

2 intimidating. It's either my way or the

3 highway.

4 Q. Have you had other people complain about this

5 to you?

6 A. I've had not so much people complain to me,

7 people are just really worried about their

8 jobs.

9 Q. He keeps that kind of an atmosphere?

10 A. Uh-huh.

11 Q. Can you give me a specific instance where

12 anyone has told you that?

13 A. Well, my assistant has told me that she does

14 not want to work under him and she worries

15 what kind of office we would have if we would

16 have to work under him, what we would be

17 doing. He even told me when he came on board

18 - we do the agenda for the Council meetings

19 and he even came when he came on board he

20 said where he came from he ran the agenda and

21 he wanted to do the agenda, but that didn't

22 happen because we run the agenda. I'm sorry,

23 we don't run the agenda, we do the agenda for

24 the Council meetings.

25 Q. So he wanted to take that function from you?


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1 A. He wanted to.

2 Q. Do you have any instances where you're aware

3 of anybody being fearful of him other than

4 your clerk?

5 A. And I don't mean that she's fearful of him,

6 she just said she didn't want to work under

7 him is what I meant to say.

8 Q. Is there anybody else?

9 A. Well, I think everybody in the building is

10 fearful. I think, you know, everybody just

11 getting their job done. Because of how things

12 were changing around they just didn't want

13 to, they just didn't want to lose their jobs.

14 Q. Have you reported this to the Mayor?

15 A. I have had a conversation with the Mayor that

16 we just don't know, you know, which way it's

17 going to happen. My biggest thing is that

18 I'm worried that if I do go under the City

19 Manager I'm worried that I will lose my job.

20 In a heartbeat I think he would get rid of

21 me, and there's no doubt about that.

22 Q. This is from prior relationships with him or

23 lack of relationship that you make that

24 conclusion?

25 A. There's no doubt about it. It's just because


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1 of the fact there's just no communication.

2 Q. Was there an instance where somebody else

3 reported to you what his secretary told them?

4 A. Yes, my former deputy, that was her position.

5 Q. What's her name?

6 A. Judy Howery. She used to work for me. She

7 retired. And she's best friends with his

8 Executive Assistant.

9 Q. Who is the Executive Assistant?

10 A. Vicki Coots.

11 Q. And what did she tell you that Vicki told

12 her?

13 A. That Vicki was worried, she just shakes in

14 her heels, because she doesn't know with him

15 slamming the door and with him acting the way

16 he acts, and he does a lot of things on his

17 own and she just doesn't know, she didn't

18 know when she'd be taking lunch and they'd

19 want to go eat lunch together and she didn't

20 know if she could leave or not. She just

21 didn't know the way Mark's acting she said

22 she worried about her job and she just - it

23 was just the way Mark would act.

24 Q. Almost a hostile work environment?

25 A. I think you could pretty much call it that.


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1 Q. And this has been observed over a number of

2 years that you've been there?

3 A. Right, prior to me getting my new assistant

4 City Clerk, yes.

5 Q. This is something that you believe should be

6 reported to the Council itself?

7 A. I think Council should be aware of that.

8 However, I'm not sure Council would --

9 Q. City Council?

10 A. I'm not sure the City Council would think -

11 since the tornado I'm not sure if Council

12 would consider that Mark is a person with

13 that kind of demeanor now, but behind the

14 scenes Mark is that way.

15 Q. Okay. I appreciate that. Thank you for

16 talking with me, and these are matters that

17 you're sworn to and under oath, and you

18 understand that?

19 A. Uh-huh, yes.

20 Q. Thank you very much.

21

22 (SWORN STATEMENT CONCLUDED)

23

24

25


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1

2


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REPORTER'S CERTIFICATE

STATE OF MISSOURI

ss.

COUNTY OF JASPER

I, SHARON K. ROGERS, Certified Court Reporter in the

State of Missouri, do certify that pursuant to the

foregoing Stipulation the witness came before me on the 7th

day of November, 2013, was duly sworn by me, and was

examined. That examination was then taken by me by

steno-mask recording and afterwards transcribed; said Sworn

Statement is subscribed by the witness as hereinbefore set

out on the day in that behalf aforesaid and is herewith

returned.

I further certify that I am not counsel, attorney, or

relative of either party, or clerk, or stenographer of

either party or of the attorney of either party, or

otherwise interested in the event of this suit.

_________________________

SHARON K. ROGERS, CCR-650

hogelin, barbara | testimony transcript continued

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