Unless you get your news only from The Spokesman-Review or the Coeur d’Alene Press, you know the story of Dr. Farid Fata, the highly-respected and revered Michigan oncologist who late last week received a 45-year prison sentence for administering poison — cancer chemotherapy — to 550 “patients” who either didn’t need it at all or needed different and often less frequent dosages.   Some of his “patients” died because of Dr. Fata’s admitted lust for money and power.

Fata’s conduct was despicable, but he had help from fellow doctors and state regulators who knew in April 2010 that what Fata was doing was harmful to his “patients” but who consciously avoided doing their professional duty to expose and stop him.  Their failure of duty was almost as despicable as Fata’s greed for money and compulsion for power and acclaim.

Nurse Angela Swantek received little encouragement after her efforts in 2010 to expose Fata’s willfully administering treatments that harmed his victims.  But OpenCdA is completely unsurprised by the State of Michigan’s unwillingness to act.  Fata was a highly-respected oncologist who had trained at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York.  Why would a state regulatory agency take the time to investigate the factually-supported allegations of a “justa” (as in, “She’s just a nurse”) over that of someone who was clearly her better, in this case, a medical doctor prominent in the community?

But it’s fair to ask:  If the state of Michigan’s investigatory department, now called the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), had taken nurse Angela Swantek’s well-documented facts seriously in 2010, could the suffering and pain Fata inflicted directly on his “patients” and indirectly on their families have been stopped sooner?

OpenCdA hopes that during the inevitable civil lawsuits that will follow, the misconduct and clear failures of duty of other medical professionals and public officials will be fully and completely revealed.  Their actions and failures to act are almost as despicable as those of Dr. Farid Fata.

This week we learned that Coeur d’Alene’s urban renewal agency, which some affectionately refer to as The First Unregulated Bank of Idaho, will officially change its name from LCDC to “ignite cda”.

That same article from the local skews paper also reported that the LCDC/burnout board decided to spend just under $55,000 to tell the public about the change.  That reminded us of the cartoon the legendary editorial cartoonist Jimmy Barona did in 2011.  It first appeared in Mary Souza’s OpenCdA post entitled Stall Tactics in October 2011.

As far as we at OpenCdA are concerned, the LCDC can call itself ignite cda or whatever it chooses.   The result is the same:  Same pig, just a different shade of lipstick.

But, in the spirit of support your local bucket-o-cash, we think ignite cda needs a slogan.  We’d humbly suggest that as we approach  the 50th anniversary of the 1965 Watts Riots, “Burn, baby, burn!” would fit.  Or maybe we should say “Berns, baby, Berns”.

ignite cda might decide to emulate Spokane’s Pig Out in the Park, only ignite cda would call it “Flame out in McEuen Park”.

Anyone else want to suggest ways the LCDC/ignite cda can transform the pig into a beauty queen?

Our post on June 15, 2015, entitled More Questions – Few Black and White Answers raised our own questions about Rachel Dolezal’s strange statements.

Today, the City of Spokane released a document entitled Report of the City of Spokane Whistleblower Committee.  It provides additional information and allegations about Rachel Dolezal’s conduct on the Office of Police Ombudsman Commission.   The Report asserts that the “… investigation substantiated [complainant’s name redacted] claims and revealed additional violations of law and City policies.”  The complaint had been lodged against Commissioners Dolezal, Berkompas, and Dominguez.

We assume more information will be forthcoming.

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Like many others in our area, OpenCdA is intrigued by the news, skews, and views stories about Rachel Dolezal.  We have not formed an opinion about her behavior because we’re not at all clear what the issues are.

However, we have some questions of our own for which timely, factual answers would help us be (1) better informed or (2) more confused. (more…)

OpenCdA highly recommends that you read Idaho Statesman reporter Cynthia Sewell’s article headlined Officers allege interference, retaliation at Idaho State Police after crash probe.

Briefly, lawsuits have been filed against the ISP by some former and present ISP officers who allege they were ordered to change accident reports to protect a Payette County deputy sheriff.  They further allege that they were retaliated against by members of the ISP command staff when they refused to change the reports.

If you’re going to read Sewell’s article, we also suggest you read the sidebar hyperlinks in “Other Related Content.”  Most of those hyperlinks are court filings, however they are merely allegations and observations, not conclusive evidence.   The allegations would have to be supported by evidence at trial.

The public wants to believe our law enforcement officers are honest and that their investigations will be objective, factual, and complete.   In this particular case, the ISP investigators assigned some degree of fault for the accident to the Payette County deputy.   The documents linked in Sewell’s article suggest that the ISP command staff may have encouraged subordinate investigators to slant the reports to avoid the deputy’s being criminally prosecuted.  For example, ISP Deputy Director Lieutenant Colonel Kedrick Wills allegedly told one of the investigators who had assigned fault to the deputy that “… he could not believe ISP was going to send a deputy to prison.”  (If Wills’ name sounds familiar, it might be because his father, Richard Wills, is an Idaho state legislator and retired ISP Corporal.)

We hope the Idaho Statesman continues its excellent reporting on a matter of statewide interest.