For the past month, a story regarding the McKinney City Manager firing the McKinney Police Chief has received statewide interest, based on misinformation flowing from a faction of the McKinney Tea Party. Accordingly, most of the resulting attention is a product of unfounded allegations and innuendo.
As previously reported, in various publications, the factual evidence in this matter is that Chief Kowalski met with the City Manager on October 5, 9AM. In this meeting Chief Kowalski was informed, in person, face-to-face, of his immediate reassignment. The Police Chief himself has confirmed learning of his reassignment in this meeting; see http://www.lewisvilleleader.com/.... After this meeting, the City Manager posted an in-house video directly to Police Department Personnel, to inform that Department of the pending reorganization.
There has never been evidence of any kind or motive established supporting claims that the City Manager had anything to do with posting his in-house video on a public YouTube account. However, there is a substantial amount of evidence showing that a faction of the McKinney Tea Party did post the in-house video on YouTube for the purpose of discrediting the City Manager and cause his removal from office.
Someone took the in-house video communication made by the City Manager and added a header entitled “McKinney City Manager Jason Gray Fires the Police Chief Via YouTube”. This concoction was then published on a public YouTube site, http://www.youtube.com/... This YouTube account was created in 2008 (2 years prior to the arrival of the City Manager) and is registered to ThePackUSA, aka CollinCoKid. The existing rhetoric found on this site is decidedly extreme. You would have to be the account owner or need an email disclosure and password in order to publish or remove anything on this site.
On October 5, the Town Square Buzz, a local media publication, ran an article entitled “Kowalski is Out as McKinney Police Chief; Williams In”, found at, http://townsquarebuzz.com/... .
In the Comments Section of the Town Square Buzz article, on October 5,
Mr. Rath, a known Tea Party activist stated “This is outrageous. Firing via YouTube. Mr. Gray is utterly devoid of class. Professionalism. What in the hell do you know about professionalism?This statement is a blatant fabrication and is an insult to the intelligence of any intended reader. What need would the City Manager have to post a video on the internet, having already informing the Police Chief in person and sending an in-house video to the Police Department? Notwithstanding the mindless minions that follow this person’s lead, you would be extremely naive (dumber than a rock) to think that Mr. Gray would post a video on YouTube, critical of his own actions in this matter.
Four days later, on October 9, in the same comments section, Mr. Rath issued a second statement; “As I predicted. The City of McKinney has deleted the notorious “Firing” video. I have reposted it at: http://www.youtube.com/... share the link.”Having initially blamed the City Manager for posting the subject video to the ThePackUSA site, Mr. Rath now blames “The City of McKinney” for accessing the offending site. How else could “The City of McKinney” add or remove videos from this account? Mr. Rath then goes on to claim that he reposted the material on the same site. Apparently, we are now supposed to believe that the City Manager, the City of McKinney and he, all share publishing access to the same YouTube account. It should also be noted that the term “repost” would be used by an individual to describe publishing material that they had already published on prior occasion. Regardless of language intent, if you visit the “ThePackUSA” YouTube account, you will still find the infamous “Firing” video. While Mr. Rath has always placed blame elsewhere in this matter, he remains as the only person with proven publishing access to the “ThePackUSA” account.
As none of his prior allegations succeeded in gaining the removal of Mr. Gray, he and his minions next showed up at the October 16, City Council meeting. It was an organized effort that included a full menu of testimony and printed material supporting the removal of Mr. Gray for publishing the notorious “Firing” Video.” Many fine people came to this meeting for the purpose of expressing displeasure with the City Manager, for an act that he did not commit. The prevailing attitude seemed to reflect “our fearless leader says it is true, so it must be true, don’t bother us with the facts (we all know the world is flat).” Having failed again to obtain the desired objective these folks have now moved on to promoting a facebook petition for the removal of Mr. Gray from office. Be very careful people because these Tea Party tactics may soon be coming to an area near you.
