Get To Work
NEW VIDEO! One of the things we expect our public servants to do is to work for what we’re paying them. So when we find a public official who isn’t doing their job, we want to call it out. We have a message for the Galveston County District Clerk John Kinard: GET TO WORK.
Get To Work
There are literally thousands of videos online about digging a hole.
We all know that dogs just love doing it.
But people have to do it a lot too, and it’s hard work.
The most famous comedian in U.S. history was humorist Will Rogers, he made the nation laugh even during the Great Depression.
And more than a hundred years ago Rogers had some advice for public officials.
It’s still true today.
‘If you find yourself in a hole stop digging.’
“I’m one of the hardest working government employees down there,’ John Kinard said.
It’s a lesson longtime Galveston County District Clerk John Kinard is about to learn the hard way,
“I’ve been in the journalism business in this town for about 40 years. I’m not afraid to cry bullshit,” Wayne Dolcefino said.
All this frigid January weather, it makes you dream of being on the beach in the sunsoaked Bahamas.
“I used to watch you on the news growing up,” Samantha Morris said.
And it’s where elementary school teacher Samantha Morris wanted to cruise to last summer.
And she came here to the Galveston County annex off Calder Road one Friday afternoon to get a new passport from the Galveston County district clerk’s office.
And as I go into the district annex I realized that the district clerk’s office is lights off, doors are locked,” Samantha Morris said.
During the work week, and Morris wasn’t the only one who had wasted a trip to go down there.
“I was pretty pissed off, yeah. Like it just didn’t sit right with me,” Samantha Morris said.
And that’s when Morris decided it was time to run against the longtime Galveston County District Clerk John Kinard.
A former FBI agent, Kinard was first elected fourteen years ago.
“So I decided if no one else was going to step up to the plate why not me,” Samantha Morris said.
“Hey John. What are you doing? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” Dolcefino said.
“This is work,” Kinard said.
It’s a Tuesday in mid January, and John Kinard’s office has been open since eight a.m., but he hasn’t stepped foot in the place, he’s been busy, spending the whole morning putting up campaign signs.
“But you’re paid to be the district clerk,” Dolcefino said.
“And I’m going to answer district court calls,” Kinard said.
“You’re answering calls?” Dolcefino said.
“Yeah absolutely,” Kinard said.
But a little while after we left, Kinard must have come up with another different explanation for why he was working on his wife’s campaign during the workday.
‘The journalist tried to portray that I was doing this on government time. In reality I was using vacation time, which was used today.’
“Nice try, government employees get a certain amount of vacation days and have to keep time sheets, but Mr. Kinard, you know that elected public officials don’t get a specific amount of days off, we are supposed to trust them to not abuse their office, but OK, let’s play along,” Dolcefino told the camera.
But here is the thing, that day along the right of way on Highway 3, it was not the first time we had followed John Kinard. He must vacation a lot.
On Monday January 5th, the first day after the New Year’s holiday was over, Kinard did go to his office in the morning like all his employees had to.
But they worked till five, by one o’clock Kinard was already busy handing out campaign signs in the courthouse parking lot.
By two he was home.
“Not a tough schedule, but a lot more effort than Kinard put in the following day,” Dolcefino told the camera.
He didn’t step foot in the office, he only left his house, to go put up campaign signs.
The next day too.
And that’s exactly what we saw Kinard doing a few weeks later,
Loading campaign signs, after a few stops along Highway 3 in Texas City. We’d seen enough. It was almost 11 a.m. and he hadn’t stepped foot in his office.
“You make 123,000 a year to be at your office,” Dolcefino said.
“No, to answer phone calls to talk to people like yesterday was a 16-hour day,” John Kinard said.
And Kinard hasn’t just been busy since the first of the year campaigning for himself during the work day, instead of joining his employees at work.
Take a closer look at the signs.
“And whose campaign is this?” Dolcefino asked.
“This is my wife,” Kinard said.
“So you’re working on your wife’s campaign during the workday?” Dolcefino said.
“No, my workday’s not started. It will start when I go home and then I’ll start answering calls, which I’ve already done this morning,” Kinard said.
“The reason I cry bullshit is because we’ve been keeping an eye on Kinard since last November,” Dolcefino told the camera.
Not every day, he’s not the only public official we’ve been watching, so be warned.
Last November we began our surveillance on a Tuesday morning, it was November 7th.
It was almost 11am before Kinard even walked out of his house.
He’s not dressed for work, he’s in his shorts.
He’ll go back inside in just a few minutes, for the entire rest of the work day, maybe he’s on vacation that day too, we are just lucky.
A few weeks later we are on surveillance again. It’s a Friday this time.
The district clerk doesn’t leave his house until 11am, must be a nice schedule.
Kinard does go to his office that day, but just for a few minutes.
Kinard and his wife stop at Gordon’s Restaurant Market for a few minutes, and then it’s time for lunch, off to Mr. Gatti’s for some pizza.
Kinard didn’t know one of my investigators was sitting at the next table.
We expect our public servants to have a good lunch, but then they are supposed to go back to work.
But not Kinard.
He’s back home for the rest of the day, in fact we never saw Kinard go to the office for an entire day on any of the several days we watched at random.
“Makes you wonder what the employees of the district clerk’s office think, they work a full day, and they make a lot less then Mr Kinard does,” Dolcefino told the camera.
“You know this looks bad,” Dolcefino said.
“However it looks because this is what I’m doing I don’t think it looks bad,” Kinard said.
Take a close look, maybe you can see that Mr Kinard’s legs are shaking.
“You’re nervous about this conversation. You know it doesn’t look good,” Dolcefino said.
“Well that’s over with, I got to get this thing done so I can get back to work,” Kinard said.
Kinard didn’t go back to the office, even after our unscheduled interview, after my photographer and I left he put up more campaign signs.
We know, I left one of my private investigators behind to watch for a while.
But then later that day Kinard must have gotten some advice, because that’s when he came up with that vacation story.
“I don’t know how you hold down a job, currently one as important as that, and don’t show up for work, he is just there to collect a paycheck,” Samantha Morris said.
“We have been watching for over a month and you don’t go to work very much,” Dolcefino said.
“Work is wherever you need to be taking care of the district clerk’s office,” Kinard said.
Kinard says we got it all wrong. We may be seeing him screw off during the typical workday, but he’s got a campaign to run too.
“So do you think taxpayers are paying you to put up campaign signs all day?” Dolcefino said.
“No,” Kinard said.
“Well why are you doing it?” Dolcefino said.
“I’m in a campaign right now so I do most of my district work stuff at night,” Kinard said.
“What’s he doing at night,” Samantha Morris said.
It is a good question. The district clerk’s office is closed, all his employees are off at night.
“Cause none of the duties of the district clerk you can do at night,” Samantha Morris said.
Except for the district clerk website which is open 24 hours.
“Yeah I think the only thing that happens at night is lawyers filing cases on the system,” Dolcefino said.
“Right,” Samantha Morris said.
Kinard’s wife posted after our chat on Highway 3, talking about how long of a day the district clerk had the day before, stops at least twice in the office, but some of that work scheduled was campaigning for his wife, who is trying to unseat County Judge Mark Henry, who got the complaint from Samantha Morris that led to her to start her campaign.
“I mean if he is working 50 hours a week the taxpayers should be able to see it and not have the surveillance of him, you know, screwing around town,” Samantha Morris said.
“I call it digging the hole deeper,” Dolcefino said.
“I mean whatever they want to,” Samantha Morris said.
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