A state engineer named Mike Fayette, disciplined for speaking to the Adirondak Daily Enterprise — glowingly, about the state’s response to Hurricane Irene — quit his job rather than get fired. And when the Daily Enterprise reported that development, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s director of state operations, Howard Glaser, took to Albany’s Talk 1300 radio in response: “He read aloud Mr. Fayette’s disciplinary history, describing him as a troubled employee who had previously been penalized for having an improper relationship with a subordinate, misusing his work e-mail to send sexually explicit messages and using his state-assigned vehicle for personal errands,” the New York Times reports.
Obviously, Fayette is steamed and ready to sue. Glaser blamed reporters for inappropriately hyping a story about “a quirky but basically routine personnel matter.” And in his radio rant he “emphasized that all the information is available to the public under the Freedom of Information Law,” the Albany Times Union reports. Because when a piece of information is public, that means you have to publicize it.
