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What governor knew of abuse 'irrelevant,' GOP senator says
RAY PIERCE
ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Sen. Doyle Webb of Benton says that what Gov. Mike Huckabee knew about youths being abused while in state custody, and when he knew it, is irrelevant.
It's not an important issue, said Webb.
Huckabee, seeking election as governor, has been criticized by his Democratic opponent, Bill Bristow of Jonesboro, for not doing a more timely job of handling the problems.
Webb, like Huckabee, is a Republican.
Some other lawmakers don't see it Webb's way.
"It's irrelevant only if the governor is irrelevant," Sen. Mike Beebe of Searcy, a Democrat and committee member. "Obviously I don't believe that."
Beebe considered running for governor this year.
He said "I think he [Huckabee] would want to know" who could have informed him about the problems.
Testimony to legislative hearings on who knew about the problems has indicated many people who work for the governor had knowledge, some in August 1997.
Huckabee said he did not learn of it until April of this year, when he took action.
Both Rep. Sue Madison of Fayetteville, a Democrat and committee co-chairman, and Sen. Gary Hunter of Mountain Home, a Republican member of the committee, echoed Beebe's viewpoint.
"If we had a problem in a state agency if I was governor, I would want to know that that information would get to me," Madison said.
Hunter said he didn't think that questions raised about Huckabee are a reflection of Huckabee's management ability.
Some political motivation lies behind work by some on the committee to discredit Huckabee in an election year, Hunter said.
Beebe has said more than once that the problems are the responsibility of Huckabee and former Democratic Govs. Jim Guy Tucker and Bill Clinton as well as the Democrat-controlled legislatures of recent years in which he has served.
"If they didn't hear that," he said of committee Republicans, "then there's something wrong with them."
Webb said the important thing is that the problems are being looked at and cleaned up.
"Whether the governor knew or not, I think it's irrelevant," Webb said. The problems in the Division of Youth Services weren't the fault of any one person, he said.
"It looks like a series of nonintentional mistakes. I think it's institutional problems that have occurred since 1993 that have not been remedied since that time," Webb said.
Webb said it was conceivable that people would tell the governor's staff about matters and then it might not get to the governor.
Some witnesses told the legislative hearings that they either told Huckabee aides about problems as early as August 1997 or tried to contact Huckabee directly, only to get no response.
A summary of what witnesses have said:

Sandra Winston and Larry Toller, Huckabee's liaisons to the Department of Human Services, were briefed by former Youth Services Director Ruth Whitney and her deputy Lloyd Warford. Winston sent Huckabee a report of that meeting in August 1997 saying there were "founded cases of abuse." She and Toller refused to elaborate.

Rex Nelson, Huckabee's former communications director and now campaign manager, spoke with Human Services spokesman Joe Quinn three times about an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette investigation of problems. Each man said their discussions were not about any unresolved abuse allegations.

Bud Cummins, Huckabee's former chief legal counsel, who had been asked by Warford to help deal with problems that prevented disciplining of employees in the youth services operation. Cummins, citing lawyer-client privilege, has declined to comment to reporters.

Bill Hardin, a former FBI agent hired by Huckabee to supervise a government fraud and abuse hotline, talked to Whitney in January about some lingering problems at one of the division serious offender camps. Hardin said Tuesday that he only spoke with Whitney about some old abuse allegations at the East Arkansas Wilderness Institute in Colt and directed her to an FBI agent handling civil rights violations. He said he didn't see any reason to tell Huckabee..

Col. Ed Rolle, the state Employment Security Department director who was on loan to the Department of Human Services from February through June and who was instructed to tell the acting director of the youth operation to resign. Rolle said Tuesday that during his tenure at Human Services he was trying to help former department director Lee Frazier with "staff relationships." He had no authority or reason to "dig around in" the youth services operation, he said. He said he learned of the specific abuse allegations either the day of or the night before April 24.
On April 24 of this year, Huckabee called an impromptu news conference to announce that he had just learned of the specific abuses in the division and that some division officials were trying to keep news of the allegations silent. He said the information he received came from a year-long investigation by Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Associate Editor Mary Hargrove.
Huckabee said at that news conference that he was taking immediate actions to clean up the problems, including asking for the resignation of the division's then-acting director Larance Johnson and asking the state Correction and Health departments for their assessments of security and sanitation at the division's facilities in North Little Rock and Alexander.
In subsequent weeks, Huckabee named Paul Doramus of Benton, a former state representative, as Youth Services Division director, and announced the closure of the facility in North Little Rock, a former city jail plagued by overcrowding almost from the time it received delinquent youths in 1995 and the focal point of abuse-and-cover-up allegations.
Huckabee's spokesman Jim Harris repeated what Huckabee has said since April 24, that Huckabee's staff was told the problems were being corrected, and that when the governor learned of the specific problems and that they weren't being corrected, he acted.
Harris said that the governor's office staff, especially agency liaisons, have to use their own judgment to decide whether to call Huckabee with information. He said that there is no policy, expressed or implied, to keep information away from the governor.
But Harris said some changes were being made among the governor's office staff. "Liaisons won't be as trusting as in the past in taking others' words that problems are being fixed," Harris said. When asked if that meant liaisons would do their own verifications, he repeated the same statement.

This article was published on Wednesday, September 2, 1998

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