Open Letter to Secretary Mayorkas

April 27, 2024

?

The Honorable Alejandro Mayorkas

Secretary of Homeland Security

Washington, DC 20528

?

Dear Secretary Mayorkas

?

Bottomline:?

?I recommend taking a single day to have the lawyers review facts of the Sanderson case against standards at the circuit court in order to finalize a decision about negotiations. We are now seven years into a case that should not be in court.? It has gone so long that the Agency lawyers can’t see benefit from negotiation.? That view suffers from a limitation in scope.? The lawyers do not know that the case facts were not validated and a factual mistake in the performance process was made during the Trump Administration transition.? So now, this is most likely headed to circuit court, where the price tag in dollars and reputation are much higher.? Further, in seven years the value of the Government property lost through negligence in this case has been valued by experts at several $Million.

Recently, I initiated filings with the OSC, and I expect to file with DHS OIG, over a series of incidents that occurred seven years ago but is a daily struggle for myself and my family.? There is an entire group of SMEs that will be filing corroborating evidence.

I was a FEMA employee for many years and an award-winning planner.? My last assignment, before being expedited out of FEMA was with Response & Recovery, as a Co-Director of FEMALab; a GS 13, Program Analyst.?

From the beginning, there have been several mistakes made that I don’t believe will be resolved until we get to Circuit Court.? However,? we are seven years in, and DHS is now significantly outside of processes.? The lawyers never verified the facts and so do not know that they need to negotiate a settlement.?

Let me explain, this is not a personnel case.? As POGO put it, this case is about management ?abusing the personnel system.? The worst-case scenario is that this is the targeting of SMEs at the administration change, using the lack of judges to assure that the SME capabilities are lost.? The best case is that a bad actor harassed SMEs out of the agency in order to get their PINs.

Here are the facts:

1.????? In 2016, I was Co-Director of FEMALab running many projects that were scheduled to be completed (reviewed and moved to the responsible stakeholders).? These projects had to be reviewed for upper management and policy decisions.? Citations: ORA SOPs, FEMALab Implementation Plans (governing procedures)

2.????? In the first? three quarters, my reviews were satisfactory.? In the last quarter, my work resulted in two National stakeholder conferences and seven major risk analysis processes.? The value of the project work is in the $Millions.? The State of California says the Post Wildfire Risk Assessment processes has saved $Millions.? Could have been in the running for an administrator’s Award.? After the workshops I deployed to a disaster until mid -January.? Citation:? California OES and Watershed program, DHS S&T.

3.????? Steve Saunders group of SMEs in ORA under which I operated, was given a new supervisor? in ORA at the end of the year (maybe November 14) but we weren’t told until the 4th of January.??? The supervisor was Avital Wenger.? You will discover that Wenger was placed into a GS 15 position by Adm. Nimmisch (without competition).? Later she married the FEMA Chief of Staff.? Citations: emails and the Ex-O log

4.????? Saunders advised Wenger that he would do the evaluations,? but she insisted citing protocol for evaluations that occur after a supervisor is incapacitated.? Steve Saunders was not incapacitated.

5.????? On February 1, I had a meeting with Wenger and explained to her which projects we had to review and make decisions about.? She didn’t listen.? I quickly gave her a project summary with the most pressing requirements, and she wrote back that she didn’t understand the projects and even the basic verbiage used in our field like “modes”.? ?Citations; ?Email.

6.????? On February 2,? Wenger explained that she would not be reviewing my work (the FEMALab projects).? She did not want to, and she was told she didn’t have to, if she put me on a PIP. ?The evaluation must be done and reviewed before a PIP.? Superior work does not receive a PIP (many witnesses and experts to testify on the work).? Citations:? EX O heard the conversation, Ex O log,

7.????? At the end of 2016 several requests for support came in from the Regions.? The most urgent was in Region IV and the Planning Section along with IT requested me for a temporary duty.? First, Region IV lost their lead in Risk Analysis (David Lawson).? They asked me to come to Atlanta and get them ready for Hurricane Season and support other critical matters. ?Like the New Madrid products.? I had run the Planning Section in the RRCC and so had put together the protocols for hurricane operations in R4.? I also worked on the New Madrid data and other risk and planning products in R4.? I was the Planning Section Chief until I was redeployed to do the same for the Katrina Operation.? Second, the Gatlinburg Fire Complex hit and R4 requested my assistance to help the State of Tennessee with Post Wildfire Assessments.? Wenger turned down all these requests and killed the operational improvements documented in the FEMALab projects. ?Citations: emails and the Ex-O log.???

8.????? Wenger then applied an enormous amount of harassment, creating a toxic environment (for myself and the rest of the group).? “The environment had become toxic, and nobody wanted to come to work”.? Further, two of my family members and ?I were hospitalized.? This six month time included daily harassment.? ?Citation EX O log, and hundreds of pages of documentation.

9.????? On several occasions timekeepers and the Ex-O were asked to change the records.? On multiple occasions screaming matches were witnessed between Wenger and the timekeeper.? The timekeeper in question took 3 rapid promotions. Moving to policy.? The Senior Timekeeper is very anxious to testify.? Citation EX O log, witnessed by? all personnel in the open floor.

10.? This well documented period of harassment (six months) was not a PIP, but rather an illegal misuse of the personnel process, and in this period a tremendous amount of pressure was applied to gain encouragement to leave.? As it turns out the entire ORA? was subject to this, and diminished.? Citations: Ex Officer Logbook,? the ORA handbook,? EEO and OIG files from ORA staff.

11.? Wenger placed a gag order in the ORA.? She instructed us not to speak with Senior staff.? This included the staff that were involved in our past projects.? Two of the ORA staff were yelled at.? She was later advised that she couldn’t do that and corrected the order.? However, she became irate that I dared to tell other staff about my situation (the illegal nature of it, the fact that she removed from the FEMA universe $Millions in product and process – without any review.? How would any reasonable person not object?? She then drafted a recommendation for suspension.??? My lawyer (Mr. Conti) wrote a response, this is a time and money issue.? I am still waiting for the Agency decision.? Citations: EX O log, witnessed by? a large number of management personnel, via email,

12.? I validated the PIP against the “How to Fire an Employee Protocol”.? The PIP design failed.

The major project in the PIP was a process of moving data, validating a data and cleaning it? up, providing a document to staff that would use it as baseline in the field.? Then return the updated data to be reformatted for reports and updated in the originating database (JLLIS).??

I took a single day and automated it and reported this to Wenger.? She told me that I had to type in every step and create customized forms and reports for each field project, and they would each look different based on the customer.? Thus, it became clear that the PIP was meant to frustrate me, a tenet of the “How to Fire an Employee” Protocol.? Wenger’s, the process takes days instead of hours and is prone to data errors. Citations: EX O log, witnessed by? ORA staff members

?

13.? ?Wenger changed the plan approved by my supervisor regarding my relocation to DC, by six months.?? Due to my wife’s illness.? Citations: Emails, FMLA documentation, and Robert Sullivan and Steve Saunders (quarter 3 evaluation )

14.? Wenger changed the agreement crafted by Robert Sullivan and Steve Saunders for FMLA as required.? Which had dropped to rarely being needed for over a year.? Due to the stress induced Wenger environment, we were again in need of FMLA and family assistance.? So, my family went to Chicago for support.? I commuted between Midway and DCA.? Citations: Emails, FMLA documentation, and Robert Sullivan and Steve Saunders (quarter 3 evaluation).

15.? When I was terminated the torment didn’t end.? We have been threatened physically by people that claim to be from QAnon (for my being a whistleblower) but the timing has much more to do with Wenger and court activity than anyone else.? The FBI said to take the threats seriously. Citations: Emails and social media records.

16.? The judge has indicated that neither party wants to settle this case because it is expensive.? Seven years is a lot of salary, and benefits, even before damages.? The judge stated that I haven’t worked much.? This is not my fault. I have the documentation identifying Agency personnel threating ?contractors with a loss of contracts, and other instances (about 20).? Citations: HR personnel and cadre managers at Haggerty, Witt and others.

17.? The ORA staff filed with the OIG regarding the inappropriate evaluations and diminishment of the entire ORA staff.? This process was high jacked by Dalita Piper and killed.? Citations: Ex-O log and emails, ?and response from Piper.

18.? The ORR Administrator had several meetings with Wenger regarding: the treatment of the ORA staff, inappropriate evaluation process and diminishment, tampering with records, ?comments (age of the ORA staff), inappropriate hiring processes.? Further, her qualifications to be the supervisor of a technical group were drawn into question.? ?At some point he also stated that Sanderson was the best Ops person he knew and we used Sanderson to train our staff.? “We request him on operations.”? Citations: confidential

19.? Most recently we (my wife and I) been told we that we are on the list to be interned, should Trump win the election.

20.? The ORR Administrator told me that my FEMA career was over but there is an Operations Section Chief position open (another agency).? I like it better when people check facts.? As I still expect an Administrator’s Award.

?

21.? There is much more, but clearly Wenger has violated process and has managed to keep this out of court for seven years.? After killing several processes including, the OAA (governing multiple loop learning process for the agency) and without notifying anyone of the changes, Wenger moved around the organization (becoming a Deputy Chief of Staff) as I have been told.? Then she married the COS.? Her past boss Pat Hernandez was moved to Treasury.? I have read text from some of the witnesses from the FEMA Sex Scandal.? I suspect the escapades on the ship with the FEMA Corps personnel got him in trouble, but he is no longer in the Agency.??? While I haven’t written here of Hernandez involvement. It was huge.? I found his manipulation of the timekeeper to ?draft lies for the administrator’s briefing to be most interesting.? Citations: Discovery from EEO

?

Conclusion

Generally, I would believe that this case should be transparently easy, but the judge has signaled that the facts will not be reviewed ?and do not matter.? So, it would be in all parties’ best interest to complete this business.? It should only take a day for the FEMA lawyer to validate the facts in this case and to determine what the circuit court will do with it.? I would say starting ?with how the Agency missed the last evaluation and actual performance, required for the PIP.? Followed by? the not validated harassment (PIP) period.? These facts are ugly, seemingly criminal and certainly not a celebration of work.? Just consider the six processes worked with the State of California.? Region IX has always had a working issue with Cal OES.? This is not a secret.? Two FEMA personnel get praised by Cal OES for producing with them tools that save lives and property FEMA management fires both.? Further, when Cal OES requests them for support ahead of the Montecito tragedy,? FEMA tells them they are unavailable, having been fired.

However, the validated process facts should be enough to encourage the Agency to want to negotiate, as:

·?????? The performance period review will include experts from twenty agencies.?

·?????? The facts regarding the manufacturing of the performance evaluation in March to match the PIP will be included.?

·?????? The refusal to review the technical work will be included, with accounting costs and opportunity costs will be presented.

·?????? The inability of the Agency to validate facts before presenting a case will be documented.

Agency chances and costs for losing in Circuit court are much higher while ?my chance of winning is nearly assured.? I am also not afraid.? The agency lawyers should not take this as a sign of weakness.? My family and I have been harassed for seven years.? We are no longer intimidated.? However, I would like this finished.? I would like to stabilize my family’s situation and I would like to go back to work.?

This is what I want:

1.????? Agency review of Personnel evaluations resulting in PIPs at the end of 2016 performance period.

2.????? Full restitution

3.????? Reinstatement and a lab to work on Ops, Log and Planning processes…? I will provide the details.? The location will be in region 10 facilities.

4.????? Offer of reinstatement and restitutions for Huff and others in ORA.

5.????? Apologies to the impacted staff and their families

6.????? Damages paid for impacted family members.

If a legitimate evaluation of the process and facts are done, then we get to finish up. And I get to help regain very important capabilities in the system.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

?

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? William Sanderson

????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

?