A head scratcher

Now, appearances can be deceiving, but this is a head-scratcher on couple of levels. 

First, Fitzgerald has been lauded by supporters as the poster child of open and transparent government, particularly as it relates to the practices of FirstNet. Yet, at the moment when there was a chance that the public might get a glimpse into the inner workings of FirstNet—and better understand Fitzgerald’s allegations, which he has refused to discuss publicly since making his statement in April—via these e-mails, Fitzgerald opted to take the one action that could block the public from learning this information.

Second, by providing the e-mails to the federal government, Fitzgerald bolstered the position of FirstNet/NTIA/DOC, despite the fact that he alleged in April that FirstNet board members were not sharing information with him and some sources have claimed that Fitzgerald has been treated almost as an outcast on the board.

In a vacuum, this might be an admirable sign of professionalism; after all, Fitzgerald is a member of the FirstNet board, and he should do what’s in the best interest of FirstNet, regardless of any personal issues he may have with other board members or the fledgling organization’s practices.

But what makes Fitzgerald’s alleged actions so puzzling is that he ignored the directives of the Story County board of supervisors to not release the e-mails to the federal government before providing them to Romm. After all, Fitzgerald “day job” is to serve as the elected sheriff of Story County, a position that he has held for two decades—long enough to allow him to become president of the National Sheriffs’ Association when public safety was lobbying Congress for the D Block, which led to him being named to the FirstNet board.

While Fitzgerald may have some enemies on the FirstNet board, he has plenty of friends in Story County—you don’t get re-elected to a job several times if that’s not the case. Fitzgerald has done good work for Story County, and Story County has been good to Fitzgerald, providing him with a paycheck for 20 years and the flexibility necessary to lead a national trade association.

With this in mind, it’s rather surprising that Fitzgerald would release the e-mails early to the federal government against the decision made by the Story County board of supervisors. Fitzgerald and county board members are all elected and operate “at the same level,” according to the Story County filing, but the board of supervisors does determine the budget for the sheriff’s office. In other words, you would think that any choice by Fitzgerald to contradict a county board decision was not made lightly, especially since he supposedly sought outside legal advice.

Given these circumstances, lots of questions come to mind regarding the content of these e-mails. Federal attorneys have expressed “deep concern of the potentially significant harm that would result if Story County were to publicly release e-mails sent by and between Sheriff Paul Fitzgerald relating to his participation as a sworn federal officials in the work of … FirstNet,” according to a letter from Acting Associate Attorney General Elizabeth Taylor to Story County Attorney Stephen Holmes.

Exactly what this means is unknown to those of us on the outside, but it generates a ton of questions surrounding Fitzgerald and his allegations. Here are some examples:

• Would releasing these e-mails somehow jeopardize the investigation into Fitzgerald’s ethical and procurement allegations?
• Is the “potentially significant harm” cited by federal attorneys related to the FirstNet mission, such as violating nondisclosure agreements (NDAs) that FirstNet signed with manufacturers to know the upcoming product roadmaps of vendors, so FirstNet can make more-informed network planning decisions? Or, is the “potentially significant harm” that the e-mails might make FirstNet look bad?
• Would the e-mails reveal the evidence Fitzgerald had when he made his allegations? If so, why would he take an action that would hide their release?
• Did Fitzgerald know that providing the e-mails early to the U.S. Department of Commerce would prevent their release? If so, is there something in those e-mails that Fitzgerald wants to hide for personal reasons?
• Politicoreporter Tony Romm—the person making the open-records request to Story County—has written multiple stories about alleged Motorola Solutions efforts to undermine FirstNet. Was the open-records request related to the Motorola Solutions stories? If so, would the e-mails reveal some of the conflicts of interests on the FirstNet board that Fitzgerald has alleged? Does Fitzgerald have a relationship with Motorola Solutions?
• When Fitzgerald made his lengthy statement alleging improprieties during the April 23 FirstNet meeting, he clearly was reading from a piece of paper. No one has questioned whether Fitzgerald believes in the allegations, but many industry sources doubt that Fitzgerald actually wrote the allegations that he read, noting the legal-sounding language used in his statement. Would the e-mails reveal an author other than Fitzgerald?

Like many people who follow FirstNet, I wish I had the answer to these questions. Right now, all we have is a lot of hypotheses and speculation regarding the e-mails, and that’s not worth publishing at the moment. Hopefully, no one will jump to conclusions based on the considerable speculation that exists right now—because they very likely will be wrong.