Given a chance to respond, Belfield tackled the footnote head-on.
"Any ridicule brought to Lingner or the agency was brought on by Lingner through his actions," she wrote, "and his denigration of the entity continues by those that remain in contact with him to support his personal mission to dismiss me, which, in my opinion, is retaliation in a most deliberate form."
Michael Ratcliff
Janet Belfield
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Indeed, it's hard to imagine a more clear-cut whistleblower case.
And yet, last week, Mofford, the interim director, fired Belfield. Mofford's letter did not mention her Facebook surfing. It only dealt with her supposed "dishonesty" on March 5.
"Your dishonesty during Ms. Baker's initial interview cannot be tolerated," she wrote.
Pardon my cynicism, but that's bunk, and Mofford knows it.
It's not Belfield's brief dishonesty they can't tolerate. It's that her honesty led to Lingner's ouster, to HUD's on-site visit, to the housing authority being forced to clean up its act.
It's funny to me that the board tiptoed around Lingner's resignation, trying desperately to save itself from a lawsuit, even when it was clear that he had no real ability to fight back.
Yet by firing Belfield, Mofford has acted in a way that almost guarantees the housing authority will have a legal mess on its hands. If Belfield wants to sue, I'm confident that she has one hell of a case.
Federal law clearly protects whistleblowers. Meanwhile, a 13-year veteran with a clean record has been axed for something this petty? A good lawyer would have a field day with this one.
But I'm not actually all that confident that Belfield wants to sue. What she really wants, she says, is change.
It's clear that problems at the housing authority go far beyond Lingner. We now know that they extend to the deputies who enabled him, to the interim director now doing his dirty work, and to the mindset that it's somehow a crime to forward public records to people who might bring about much-needed reform.
"Anybody that runs on government funds on any level, there's supposed to be transparency," Belfield tells me. "That's a given. It's my tax dollars. It's yours!
"The HAMC has lost all sight of why it exists," she says. "They exist to assist people." But it's hard to focus on affordable housing when you waste six months trying to help your former director cover his ass.
SO LONG, FAREWELL
In case you haven't heard, I'm leaving Arizona to work as the managing editor at New Times' sister paper in St. Louis, the Riverfront Times. And it's fitting, I suppose, that my final column in Phoenix is about the Housing Authority of Maricopa County.
To me, this story exemplifies everything I hate about Phoenix — as well as everything I've grown to love. I don't think there's anywhere else in the country where con men prosper so quickly, where rules are broken so casually, where the rule of law is something that's enforced only on the poor and the alien.
In almost any other big city, a guy like Doug Lingner would still be setting tile, not given the keys to a major nonprofit organization. In other places, people would be up in arms demanding Joe Arpaio's resignation. (Say what you will about immigration, but this clown has squandered $45 million in lawyer fees and insurance payments! $45 million!) In other states, too, a guy facing a credible threat of disbarment — ahem, Andrew Thomas! — would not be considered a viable candidate for state attorney general.
Let's face it: Shysters thrive here. Too many people are transplants who don't care. Too many people hew too closely to ideology and have no interest in getting at the truth.
And yet, I've met more brave people in this state than anywhere else I've lived. It's been easy to be a reporter here. For every con man, there's someone willing to turn him in. For every Doug Lingner, there's a Janet Belfield.
I may not miss the dry white heat of Phoenix summers. But I will miss having this weekly soapbox. And I'll miss the brave people of Arizona, too.
