Two recent articles that appeared in the Sentinel have prompted protests by a current and a former elected official. One maintains that the Sentinel made a juxtaposition of language that had the effect of altering a quote, while the other contends the Sentinel, by relying on conversations from years past, misquoted him and credited him with statements he did not make.
On April 24 the Sentinel published an article about Assistant General Manager Jeremiah Brosowske’s departure from the West Valley Water District. Early in the article, the district’s board president, Channing Hawkins, was referenced as stating that during Brosowske’s time with the district he had provided “unqualified and incompetent management and services.” That statement was extracted from a longer quote from Hawkins, which was quoted further down in the article. That statement was: “There is still much more work to be done, but the days of unqualified and incompetent management and services are over. I’m proud to work alongside our water district’s board members to reevaluate, reorganize and hire highly-experienced and qualified professionals to do the job right. Over the next few weeks, we will continue to work together to improve accountability, transparency and fiscal responsibility for West Valley ratepayers.”
According to a district spokesperson, “The statement from President Hawkins, which we provided to you within the body of the email sent on April 23, referred to the general hiring practices of the West Valley Water District, which have been reassigned to the interim human resources manager. This statement, as written by you, would imply that President Hawkins violated Article 17 of the water district’s Human Resources Policies and Procedures Manual.” The Sentinel’s use of the excerpt from Hawkin’s quote in one of the article’s introductory paragraphs, the district maintains, “distort[ed]” what Hawkins had said.
Former Upland City Councilman Glenn Bozar this week indicated he wanted to distance himself from observations he had made in 2013 regarding the nature of public employment and in 2016 relating to employees in the public sector directly.
Bozar was quoted with regard to those issues in a Sentinel article relating to the impact drawdowns of tax revenue into local governments were having and will have on public sector workforces in San Bernardino County.
In asserting that the statements he was quoted as making should no longer be considered operative, Bozar told the Sentinel, “You have statements attributed to me that I never made. Those are your words, not mine. You are attempting to remember a conversation from four years ago, and including it in an unrelated article is absurd. You put me and my home in jeopardy.”