Tom Phillips, catch up

Rumor has it former city council person Tom Phillips may run for city council again this year. I've always liked Tom. He's smart, respectful and fair. I thought he was a good city council person. But Tom is not up to speed on why citizens found former city manager Mitch Johnson's actions surrounding the "black book' objectionable.

Phillips is quoted in this week's Yes!Weekly ("Justice Department probe of GDP revealed, Johnson fired as city manager" by Jordan Green) as saying this:

"These bloggers keep bringing up that Mitch admitted under oath that he didn’t know exactly how the ‘black book’ was used. He tried to find out, but the people involved wouldn’t talk. They keep bringing this up: ‘He finally admitted.’ He said that from day one. I know he told us in closed session."

Phillips employs some misdirection here (or he truly doesn't understand what Johnson attested to). Johnson was not asked if could say "exactly how the black book was used." He was asked if he had any record at all that even INDICATED any misuse of the black book. He swore no. He had previously lead us to believe otherwise.

Phillips' misrepresentation of the question at hand would be like me asserting that Tom Phillips uses his binoculars as a peeping Tom and, when asked if I had any evidence of such, swearing no, but insisting that my original accusation was fair because I cannot say exactly what Tom uses his binoculars for.

You see, Johnson did not tell the public that he was not sure how the black book was used (even after he apparently became aware that it was a proper investigative tool.) No, Johnson made statements that (we now know) were misleading in asserting that he DID know that the black book was improperly used.

These unsubstantiated assertions bolstered Johnson's case for locking the former police chief out of his office, but they caused the city great tumult and, without any evidence to indicate they were true, Johnson was wildly irresponsible in stoking racial suspicions for his own purposes.

Here are some of the things Johnson told the public:

• Were he, Johnson, a black police officer he would have been damned uncomfortable to be in "that" book. [source]
• That the former chief knew the book was improper. [source]
• That the book was used to conduct "bogus" investigations of black police officers. [source]
• "That there were numerous instances of the book being shown to criminal defendants in an attempt to target black officers among the 19 pictured in the book. Defendants were told, in Johnson's words, 'If you ID an officer, we might help you out....' " [source]
  

Johnson also failed to dispute former city councilor Sandy Carmany's public assertion that there was "ample evidence that the book was used in inappropriate ways several times in efforts to implicate black officers..." which a responsible manager would have done -- especially when, in fact, the city had no record that even indicated misuse of the book, much less "ample evidence."

Phillips thinks these things should be forgotten or misremembered as Johnson saying that he did not know exactly how the black book was used rather than as the inflammatory and unfounded misrepresentations they were.

Johnson may have told Phillips in a closed city council session that he did not really know what the black book was used for (I'll look through those minutes to see if I can find a record of that), but Johnson was telling us, the citizens, something different.

It is that deception of the public Phillips is defending. In fact, one has to wonder, if Phillips knew that the city manager did not know what the book was used for, why was Phillips silent all these years when misinformation was flying? Would he not have been a credit to the community had Phillips stepped forward and said, "Wait a minute, this is going too far. Here's what I was told?" There must be something I'm not getting --- or Phillips needs to catch up.

[edit, 11:50 PM, 03/11/09: added fourth bullet point]