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Virginia Suspends Worker Over Blogging

The Virginia Department of Business Assistance this week suspended a worker for 10 days for blogging on agency time, the Richmond Times-Dispatch and Martinsville Bulletin report.

The Richmond-based employee, Will Vehrs, told AP that the suspension was for "excessive casual use of the Internet." But he has been blogging from work for a while now and only recently landed in trouble when he took some jabs at the economies of Martinsville and Henry County in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. His comments were part of a caption contest.

The comments -- for which Vehrs later and repeatedly apologized, even inviting Martinsville and Henry County residents to post comments -- prompted outrage from some state lawmakers. Delegate Ward Armstrong of Henry County even wrote a letter of complaint to Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, asking him to call for Vehrs' immediate resignation.

Vehrs blogs at Commonwealth Conservative and addressed the suspension in an entry there.

"I think the punishment is unduly harsh and doesn't do anything to allow me to atone in a positive way for my mistake," he wrote. "It also doesn't address in a broader way issues with economically distressed areas or blogging by state employees. But that's their call, not mine. I had a three-part resolution to offer, but they never gave me a chance."

Vehrs also is blogging for the Martinsville paper as a form or penance and plans to make a trip to the area. "I remain very chastened by the ruckus I have caused, and I want people to know that those unfortunate entries I made in that ill-fated caption contest in no way reflect how I feel about your community," he wrote in his first entry. "Perhaps, if you get to know me through my blogging and other potential personal interactions, I'll be able to convince you that I never meant any harm."

Despite the suspension and Vehrs' outreach, the furor has continued. The Times-Dispatch blasted Vehrs in an editorial yesterday. "Quips that offended the region were as clever as typical jests in the blogosphere -- i.e., not very," the paper wrote. "The jokes offend Martinsville and Henry County primarily because of their deficient wit."

But Times columnist Ray McAllister took a somewhat contrary view in a column about blogs. "Some are well-informed, passionate, smart, funny, valuable. ... Some are self-indulgent, sniping, ax-grinding, partisan -- all without adult supervision," he wrote. "Some are simply boring." In that big scheme of things, he said Vehrs' blogging activities are "positively responsible" and his suspension over them "so funny."

Vehrs' blogger friends are upset that he was punished, with some now targeting Armstrong, who was embroiled in a speech controversy of his own a few years ago and is now being portrayed as a hypocrite.

One state lawmaker who blogs with Vehrs at another site, VACostCosting, said the story about Vehrs has been overblown.

"Honestly, if every time a state employee takes a cigarette break and says something negative about their job, vents, makes a joke, will they be called out and asked to resign?" Delegate Chris Saxman wrote. "How do we expect our employees to perform if we intend on overpoliticizing a blog post? It was not anonymous. It was a joke. It was wrong. The man has apologized. Let it go."

Posted by Danny | 07:02 AM