What kind of leave he took, and payment while gone should be a matter of public record. How long he can take should be a matter of law based upon his request.

If Smith’s leave falls under the Family and Medical Leave Act, he should be entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in 52 weeks. He also should be entitled to return to his old job. (I admit my extensive knowledge of FMLA comes from one minute with Wikipedia--so take it with a grain or two of salt.)

I was hoping that the Strib article on Chief Smith would have shed some light on the two big questions: 1) what’s his medical condition? and 2) what was his issue with Al Roder? Alas, zippo.

Recently embroiled in controversy over statements he made about heroin use among young people in Northfield, Police Chief Gary Smith is known for speaking out and letting the public know how he feels.

Update at 11:50 PM: now blogged -- A criminal investigation of the city administrator by the police chief is revealed

An ongoing medical condition prompted Police Chief Gary Smith to take a leave of absence, Smith’s attorney said Wednesday. David Hvistendahl, who has represented the chief and his family for several years, said the stress brought on by his job has exacerbated the problem. What the problem is, Hvistendahl wouldn’t say.

… Hvistendahl also addressed the criminal investigation Smith had begun against Roder. Smith did some preliminary investigation, Hvistendahl said, then turned the matter over to County Attorney Paul Beaumaster before asking for the leave. Hvistendahl declined to comment further on the nature of the investigation. Beaumaster, he said, is expected to determine how to proceed with the investigation and whether another agency should continue looking into the chief’s concerns.

Northfield Chief Takes Leave After Heroin Episode. FYI, the text on the left of that page is not a transcript of the video.

Bright

I wondered, last night when I heard the news, if there could be another reason. I even sensed (totally unverifiable), that the heroin thing wasn’t the reason for the leave — regardless of people’s understandable assumptions.

This morning, I was surprised to read of the criminal investigation of Roder. I wondered, as did the article imply, whether this might have something to do with the leave somehow.

Regardless, it seems there is more to this story than we are hearing.

Note: Just as it is obvious some posters have major problems with Smith, I too have my biases — though I won’t disguise my name or post anonymously. I, personally, liked Smith and got along with him well. I also like Roder and get along with him well. I have yet to see anything that would lead me to believe they are/were anything but assets to our community.

I would be sorry to see us lose a good police chief over this incident. I am sorry to see so much of the community distracted from the real issue by worrying over how it was handled. I am sorry about how this makes our community look.

The Key had a great forum with many interesting ideas for potential solutions. People weren’t saying that we have an enforcement issue, but an educational and societal issue. Start here if to explore solutions.

When I read your post yesterday, my first thought was that something else is going on; this is way deeper then what he did on July 3.

Maybe you should check into what is going on with Northfield City Administer Al Roder and why Gary Smith was conducting a criminal investigation against him.

I thought this discussion was about Gary Smith’s leave of absence and the whys and hows of that. The heroin issue is not going anywhere, we can sit and talk about it 24/7. What is need now is ACTION. The first group of adults who have to take action are the parents.

“From the local treatment clinic we know of 30 [a number I heard at the Key's forum] people who received treatment in the last year. According to New England Journal of Medicine articles the appropriate multiplier is 4-6 so we would believe that there are perhaps 120-180 users who could have entered treatment in the last year.

Note that the base number is presented with a reference, the multiplier is given with a reference and the result is caveated by soft pedaling the numbers.

Without such an explanation, any numbers I read I take with so many grains of salt that my doctor would roll her eyes right out of her head. But in a sound-bite and blog-byte world, no-one bothers to look that deep, especially since it is so much fun to watch the officials swinging in the wind after we get their hurried numbers and run to carve those numbers in the hard rock of the infotainment machine.

I would hope the readers would take the time to listen to the podcasts in their entirety, but especially at the two points I site.

I directed my fingerpointing towards Chief Smith because I believed the way he handled the press conference was outrageous and believed that if his conduct in deciding to do the press conference in the way he did was indicative of abilities and his ethics, we were in real trouble.

First, his rationale to hold the conference in such a splashy, televised, statewide fashion was to serve notice to the Twin Cities heroin dealers that their Northfield customers were “burned”. Smith believed that the dealers would see him on TV, read about him in the newspapers or find out about his threats in some other way--and they’d be scared and stop selling to Northfielders. I thought this was unlikely, but if others sincerely believe that this is the way the drug dealing world works, I think it’s OK to agree with Smith.

However, I can’t see how anyone could agree with the way Smith held the conference. He didn’t ask any stakeholders for their opinions. No one was consulted in forming his “NIMBY” plan. He barely informed them at all--sending them last minute emails. Then at the press conference he claimed exactly the opposite. Please listen for yourself at the 27:30 mark:

http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/archives/1744/

Last night at the joint session between the city council and the school board, City Council member Noah Cashman quizzed Roger Schroeder (who was with Smith at the original press conference, now taking Smith’s place) about Chief Smith’s statements. You can hear it at 16:50:

http://locallygrownnorthfield.org/archives/1932/#comment-20430

Any way you slice it, Chief Smith lied at his press conference--and not in some accidental, fine pointed, unimportant way. Listen for yourself.

Our leaders need to be accountable. Fingerpointing is a part of accountability sometimes.

By the way, I was really impressed with the Joint Meeting last night. No one was discounting the fact that we have a heroin/oxy problem. Everyone was looking for constructive ways to deal with this problem. I think we can expect better things from Roger Schroeder.

In High School Journalism class, we were taught to Check our facts, Check our Facts, Check our Facts…

Well, my concern with the internet and the media these days, is that they are citing blogs as sources.

I don’t know when you were in a journalism class, so forgive me if I missed the timing. But, I am told that journalism as a trusted source is old news, and that the new rule is “print anything as long as you attribute it to someone”. So, if I claim something (like that the lowest 51% of tax payers pay only 2.3% of the taxes collected) then as long as they attribute the quote to me they are under no obligation to fact check. This (if true) would appear to be a change from what we hoped they were doing, which is acting as honest brokers of information who would call out any stupid statements, or at least throw in a [sic] to indicate that any error in facts were the fault of the speaker not the reporter.

If my understanding is correct, and they are quoting blogs without fact-checking them, then the media is no longer serving us well.

I live in the world of scientific research, so I am really familiar with the sorts of things that go with presenting information to an audience with some serious critical thinking skills. I fear that our media has forgotten that not all of the sources they find are quite so scrupulous and that their audience is not necessarily well trained in critical thinking, in part because the sort of reporting that trains people (through experience with good reporting) does not sell ad space.

Responsible journalism or blogging doesn’t just “happen.” It has to be done by responsible people. If the mainstream reporter is found to be irresponsible, he’s fired or forced to retire. A blogging site, if found to be irresponsible or publish false information, will be ignored and the site will lose favor with its readership and become irrelevant.

Thank you! You have stated elegantly the point I was trying to formulate in my mind for a few days now. Excellent response!

My son is a student in the Northfield school system and this story has interested me greatly.

My thoughts on the larger subject brought up in this thread are as follows. I do believe that there are some applicable points and criticism for the blogging community in these posts.

The point “…the blogosphere is going to be the end of modern, responsible journalism as we know it” is one I don’t agree with.

Bloggers as reporters are people. Responsibility lies with the person who is disseminating the information. The mainstream press makes mistakes and bloggers will make mistakes. The nice thing about a blog site is that you can question a story in front of the whole readership. Newspapers print retractions on incorrect or misleading information only when a group of people decide it needs to be corrected, and then the retraction or correction can be days later or hard/impossible to find.

Responsible journalism or blogging doesn’t just “happen.” It has to be done by responsible people. If the mainstream reporter is found to be irresponsible, he’s fired or forced to retire. A blogging site, if found to be irresponsible or publish false information, will be ignored and the site will lose favor with its readership and become irrelevant.

As to the liability of what is written here or said anywhere in public: it’s really not up to anyone to censor what someone says or posts. We are all liable for what we say publicly and this blog has a larger audience than most conversations. So if Locally Grown wishes to post information that they believe is relevant to their community (Northfield, MN), that they have a vested interest in, more power to them.

A criticism of the site is the moderated censorship that is done to “protect” the readers from what I am assuming are harsh words. Would it be possible to publish a warning with a link to the uncensored comments so the information is complete?

This is a community blog with information about the community and a format for discussion. I appreciate the information provided and the effort made here.

“Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.” A.J. Liebling

Having been directly involved in more than 800 heroin related arrests (mid-70′s) I offer this comment. The arrests were made by one of two teams, each with two Officers, in a community of approximately 100,000 residents & 3 of 4 high school’s likely having a higher student body total than Northfield’s. One major university in the county. The second team was probably very close or exceeded their own “800″ total also.

The indications in this report are, in my opinion, there is likely a major heroin problem in Northfield. I’m concerned about the numbers involved, 15/250 “users” if my memory is correct; depending on either the Chief or school superintendent’s numbers.

I’m most concerned and suggest a “major” problem due to the reported heroin involvement by high-school-age persons. During six-years involvement with heroin related investigations, I can only recall two (2) in which junior high school (middle school) age persons were involved; no high school or university age “users.” I’ll agree, some persons in this category may not have been identified, investigated or arrested. Given the type and size of community involved (Northfield), even if only 50% of the reported totals are accurate, there’s a problem!

How many heroin related (arrests) have been made; either in Northfield or throughout the county? This is only an indicator of the extent of the Northfield problem but will give us an idea on what has been occurring. As we all understand, property related crimes, aside from being conducted by drug users, are also perpetrated by many other types of persons/criminals.

I don’t know the preferred method of heroin ingestion today, but, take a look at inner arms and the back of hands. These are the decades old preferred (injection) sites that will leave visible puncture marks or “tracks” (numerous puncture marks in line indicating extensive use). For the most part, heroin is not a drug (opiate) you use once or twice and stop using. It’s very likely once a person starts using heroin they will continue until voluntarily submitting to an extensive drug treatment and counseling program.

Until there’s evidence the reported numbers are inaccurate, full support should be given to the Chief and all Officers in the PD. Even if the report is flawed, correct the error and continue to support all Officers. Who are you going to call for assistance, a “junkie?”

Thanks…..

Heroin is back in our community and isn’t a “gateway” drug. Let’s ask: What can we do about it?

This should have been reported at the same time, this is what John Thomas is talking about. This could be the reason Gary is taking a leave of absence.

Why is Roder being investigated? Does anyone know? Also I wonder if Gary leave of absence was forced.