Arthur “Mac” Love IV, B. Stanley McCullars and Danyelle Bennett. They’re three complete strangers from three different states and yet they have the same story.
All three were government employees who lost their jobs after posting their opinions on their personal social media pages on their own time. They all sued to get their jobs back and they all lost, too.
Should employers have the right to terminate employees based on their social media posts? How far does the First Amendment extend? It’s a debate that is raging across the United States and right here.
While Medical Center Hospital, Ector County Independent School District and Ector County have social media policies, the City of Odessa does not. Nor does the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, although they will be drafting one as part of the accreditation process with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said President Renee Earls.
Whether the City of Odessa should create such a policy is worthy of discussion, but it’s not currently a priority, said Mayor Javier Joven.
He remembers one Odessa Fire Rescue employee being disciplined a few years ago for a Facebook post despite the lack of a policy, but he also knows of other city employees who weren’t disciplined for writing equally questionable posts.
“I am very against more bureaucracy. I’ve never liked it. I think smaller government is good and so I promised that we have a smaller, smaller leaner government,” Joven said.
He wants to know if the city council decides to create a policy, exactly why it’s doing so and what the end result will be.
“I can understand people calling for one, but the thing is they are all calling for one, but nobody’s saying why. Are they trying to address an individual, a situation or an overall policy? Basically are you going to allow people to be who they are or not be who they are? Do you want to censor them? I don’t know. I mean, I have my perspective, we just need more perspective from other people,” Joven said.
Personally, he doesn’t visit Facebook, Joven said.
“We’re very sensitive now. People have a choice to do something. They don’t have to read them. You can text something, but you don’t have to hit send. In the end, you have those choices,” Joven said. “I don’t read none of that stuff. I do hear about it, but I don’t read any of that. I just stay away from it.”
Councilmember Mark Matta reacted quite strongly when asked for an interview on the topic.
“How about writing an article that promotes the city and its employees instead of always trying to stir stuff up? Your stories are what is dividing this community, not elected officials. The community is tired of it and view the OA as a gossip rag,” Matta wrote in an email. “The OA used to be an integral part of this community, a source where people went for information. Now, it’s only a paper that is hell bent on painting the city of Odessa in a negative light. I hope that one day the OA will become what it used to be…a great newspaper.”
Councilmember Steve Thompson said he tries to stay away from social media as much as possible, but he is in favor of a city policy.
“I just don’t like social media because people have carte blanche to say whatever they want to say, with validity or without. I just think it’s being used in the wrong way for political purposes,” Thompson said.
Equally troublesome is that when people try to rebut posts, moderators of certain pages often end up just deleting them, Thompson said.
Ector County policy
Ector County Judge Dustin Fawcett said the county has a social media policy governing how employees post on the county’s social media pages, but he doesn’t see the need to add rules about employees’ personal pages.
Should questionable posts be written, they’ll be handled on a case-by-case basis, he said.
“Could we look at ensuring that our county employees aren’t posting crazy derogatory or inflammatory remarks? That’s a slippery slope. They’re free individuals,” Fawcett said. “As long as it’s not on county time or under county authority or tied to county government, then it’s their own personal opinion. I think that we allow people their free expression, their First Amendment right to go about it.”
It’s unfortunate people use social media to “tear people down” instead of having civil conversations that would move the community forward, Fawcett said.
“One of my goals as county judge is to help change the dialogue and the discourse to something that is more based on solutions and policy rather than feelings and attacks, those sorts of things,” Fawcett said.
Bad experiences
In recent months, Savannah Morales and Casey Hallmark have both been on the receiving end of social media attacks.
Morales said she encountered a lot of ugliness while running for the Ector County Commissioners Court and Hallmark resigned as the executive director of Downtown Odessa after being bullied on Facebook.
“The comments got pretty gruesome. I actually had to step away. My husband would try to read me some stuff and I was like, ‘I don’t want to know. I don’t want to hear it,’” Morales said.
In both instances the women said they were even harangued by city council-appointees.
“As appointees and elected officials we should carry ourselves with respect. We’re supposed to be role models for the community, someone to look up to. I’ve always believed that you can stand up for yourself without being extremely disrespectful,” Morales said. “There are a lot of people that look up to you. You’ve become a public figure and you should be showing the community how to react.”
Morales acknowledged she recently allowed her frustration level to get the best of her. She said she went too far during a recent city council meeting when she told Joven several in the Hispanic community describe him as a “coconut” because they believe he represents the white community more than the Hispanic community.
Still, she said that one comment pales in comparison to the abuse she’s suffered.
“I know it probably eats at them because I usually stay quiet,” Morales said. “I always tell my kids they can try to ruin your reputation, but they can’t take your character.”
While Morales said many lies were told about her during the campaign, she’s not sure about the implementation of a social media policy.
“We’re talking about rights here…so that’s a fine line. I just want our leaders to carry themselves with more respect,” Morales said.
Because the City of Odessa does not have a social media policy, Hallmark had no recourse available to her when she filed a formal complaint against Downtown Odessa Board Member Tisha Crow, who called her a “disgrace” on Facebook after Hallmark publicly accused Joven and City Councilmember Chris Hanie of bullying her during the city hall meeting that resulted in the terminations of City Manager Michael Marrero and City Attorney Natasha Brooks.
Hallmark was also on the receiving end of biting criticism from Tim Harry, who is a city council appointee who serves on three City of Odessa Boards. Harry accused Hallmark of “dishonor, lies and lack of decorum” on Facebook.
Hallmark released the following statement Thursday, “While I agree a social media policy would be beneficial in safeguarding employees against social media attacks, I have left the city and would like to move on in a positive direction.”
Harry vs. Norris
Also on Thursday, the State Bar of Texas dismissed a complaint filed against local attorney Gaven Norris by Harry, who filed it after Norris sent him a cease and desist letter alleging Harry had made false statements about him on Facebook.
Harry declined an interview request Thursday, but in a February 3 interview, said he does not believe in social media policies for the most part.
“It’s 100% a freedom of speech issue. Now if you reflect badly on your company, that’s a whole different story. I’m going off a company because I’m not the government sector. I’m in the private sector. But you have to pay attention on who you reflect on. You have to make sure that your stuff is put together but if you have facts on your side, you shouldn’t be able to be punished for that. However, if you don’t, if you just have hearsay evidence that you can’t back up, you should be smarter than how you do it,” Harry said.
Although he’s on three city boards, Harry insisted he does not represent the city.
“I represent the private sector for the city. There’s a difference. There’s a big difference there,” Harry said. “The boards that I’m on are not because I’m friends with the council member of the boards that I’m on, but because I have knowledge of an industry that I’m in. Everything from owning a business and being a business owner to transportation, which is a big thing…You don’t want to go pick somebody because they’re your friend. You want to pick somebody that has a knowledge of what they’re doing.”
Council appointees should not be judged differently on social media, Harry said.
“They’re looking at it emotionally versus logically and therein lies the problem with what happens within government. We play the emotional game versus playing the logical game and you have to look at the logical side. You can’t look at the emotional side,” Harry said.
Harry denies making disparaging comments about people on Facebook.
“I don’t need to make fun of somebody’s intelligence or their looks. They can make fun of their intelligence on their own. When they do dumb things and you call it out, that’s not calling them stupid. That’s not calling them dumb. That’s pointing out that they’re wrong and there’s a big difference. Huge difference. You made a mistake. Here’s the mistake that was made. Pointing out a fact is not making fun of somebody’s intelligence.”
Some of those who get upset with him about his posts are those who had been “controlling government for years,” but no longer are, Harry said.
He tends to post a lot about the same theme, Harry said.
“I don’t think anybody should be using government to benefit themselves or their friends. I don’t believe that we need to use government and use the taxpayer basis as as a way to enrich oneself. that’s not what government is designed for. The government is supposed to be there to do our infrastructure first,” Harry said. “When I look at what’s going on within our city, I’m sickened because we have prioritized things like a beautiful downtown and niceties over the top of infrastructure.. We’re the only city in America that’s ever had to restart an entire municipal water system over the fact that we can’t maintain our own stuff.”
As for Hallmark, Harry said there is “no way” her allegations about Joven and Hanie are true.
“Personally, I believe that she was emotionally very hurt and people tend to lash out and they tend to make emotional responses. Apparently she was very close with Michael Marrero and she was apparently very close with the Natasha Brooks and she took it very personally,” when they were terminated from the city, Harry said.
The comments made by Harry and Crow were quite different than those that got Love, Bennett and McCullars fired.
National cases
Love was working in the Maryland governor’s office when he posted memes and comments sympathizing with Kyle Rittenhouse, who shot and killed two men during riots in Wisconsin.
McCullars was working for the Seminole County Clerk of the Court in Florida when he suggesting the state attorney should be “tarred and feathered if not hung from a tree.”
As for Bennett, she was a Nashville 911 operator when she posted: “Thank god we have more America loving rednecks. Red spread across all America. Even (n-words) and Latinos voted for Trump too!”
Joven said his primary concern about creating a social media policy is treading on people’s First Amendment rights. Given the average age of the council and the complexity of the issue, Joven said he anticipates bringing in an outside expert.
”I don’t know how we’re going to address it. I don’t know who we get to help us address it, but I know it’s not going to be coming in out of this building. We need to find someone who is an expert in that field of how we address it because there’s a fine line.”
