Florida’s department of environmental protection has fired a whistleblower who exposed and sank governor Ron DeSantis’s secretive plan to pave over environmentally sensitive state parks and build lucrative hotels, golf courses and pickleball courts.
James Gaddis, who worked for the agency for two years as a cartographer, was terminated for “conduct unbecoming a public employee”, according to a letter he received on Saturday.
His leaking of the proposals sparked a furious backlash that united Republicans with Democrats and environmental advocates, and forced DeSantis into a humiliating climbdown last week in which he admitted the plans were “half-baked” and were “going back to the drawing board”.
Speaking with the Tampa Bay Times on Monday, Gaddis said preservation of the state parks was more important to him than his position.
“It was the absolute flagrant disregard for the critical, globally imperiled habitat in these parks,” he said. “This was going to be a complete bulldozing of all of that habitat. The secrecy was totally confusing and very frustrating. No state agency should be behaving like this.”
News of his firing came as two Democratic state representatives pressed the agency about who was involved in drawing up plans that appeared to include no-bid contracts destined for mysteriously pre-chosen developers outside the requirements of Florida law.
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conduct unbecoming a public employee
Serving the people and the country’s nature is unbecoming, just so you know america.
Yeah, they’re supposed to serve the people who bought the politicians. /s
I agree, but this whistleblower needs to leave the state ASAP and let his lawyers fight it out in court. The Desantis regime has a long history of using law enforcement for intimidation and retaliation.
Are EPA employees not protected from retaliation? There are tons of laws protecting employees from retaliation for reporting things to agencies like the EPA, DEP, OSHA, etc. Seems really weird the people in those offices wouldnt have the same protections
I can’t figure out what the guy actually did. Florida specifically has whistle blower protections in place for reporting crimes, but I don’t think what they were planning is actually a crime.
If all he did was alert the media to information that would be considered publicly available or he criticized the idea, then that is a first amendment violation.
Are EPA employees not protected from retaliation? There are tons of laws protecting employees from retaliation for reporting things to agencies like the EPA, DEP, OSHA, etc. Seems really weird the people in those offices wouldnt have the same protections
They would, but the whistle was being blwon against the corrupt AF shitstain governor of the state, so…
It was not EPA, which is a federal agency. He was an employee of the state of Florida, fired for exposing the scheming of the governor of Florida
Looks like Florida DEP, so you are right, I had the wrong agency. That still seems like a place that should have protections against retaliation. Crazy shit, I hope someone gives this guy a better job for standing up for what’s right.
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A lawsuit will take time. But the guy started a go fund me you can find by searching “an ethical whistleblower’s new start” if anyone wants to help him. Looking at the numbers something tells me he isn’t going to be hurting in the short term.
This was going to be a complete bulldozing of all of that habitat. The secrecy was totally confusing
Republican governor does wildly unpopular shit to make money for his backers. Why would the secrecy be “confusing”?
Even Florida surely has whistleblower laws. This person will get a nice check before everything is done.
Doubt it
I really hope to see Desantis downfall someday. The guy is awful.
Yo Florida, you just gonna let him get away with that?
Ah the land of the free
Rhonda Sandtits really wants to be a Dollar Store mafia boss sometimes.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-for-ethical-whistleblowers-new-start
He made 45k. I hope this gofundme is real bc it’s almost at 200k
I tossed in $10. As a Floridian, it’s the least I can do. An exampl needs to be set that if you do the right thing and stand up to these assholes, people will have your back.
Moral courage is great but people need to eat too. I’m also very glad we don’t have state income tax so DeSantis won’t see one red cent of these donations.
