Colleen Bridger (CMO)

From: Colleen Bridger (CMO)

Sent: Wednesday, June 24, 2020 10:35 AM

To: Lori Steward (HR)

Cc: Andy Segovia (City Attorney); Erik Walsh (CMO)

Subject: documentation on Dr. Emerick

Attachments: Documentation on Dr. Emerick.docx

Lori – after our call yesterday where you told me Andy was working on a written warning for Dawn for

insubordination I realized nobody had the full picture of the extent to which Dawn is routinely insubordinate nor the

extent to which she is rude and demeaning with her staff.

I have jotted down some examples of what I have documented over the last 5+ months so that you have all the

information. I have emails to back up a lot of this and am happy to share, but that would have taken a lot more time

and I’m not sure what the disciplinary action will be so you probably don’t need all of this any way.

I’m available if you have any questions.

Colleen M Bridger, MPH, PhD

Assistant City Manager

City of San Antonio

Desk: 210-207-8706

Cell: 210-722-4237

Documentation on Dr. Dawn Emerick

1) Insubordination

From the first week, Dawn rebelled against any attempts I made to coach her about things she

didn’t know. After two coaching session (one where I asked her to not put her hands on me and

interrupt me during group meetings and another where she said she was “feeling some kind of

way” about not being appreciated, but couldn’t give me examples) she and I met on a Saturday

at Panera near her apartment. During that meeting she was rude, refused to make eye contact,

kept her foot up on a chair and her arms crossed the entire time. She also claimed she never

knew what would “piss me off next” and that I told her I was “hard to work for”, but she didn’t

know this was what I meant. I asked her for specific examples of each of these claims and she

could not provide them. I asked her to please keep track of examples moving forward so we

could discuss specifics. She said she would. To date she has not provided me with one example.

Specific examples of her patterns of subordination:

 At an early Council meeting, Dawn gave the wrong information to Council or didn’t

know an answer and I either corrected her or answered the questions. This upset her

and she sent me a text during the council meeting that she wasn’t feeling well and

needed to go home after council. I told her if she was sick she needed to go home now.

She resisted multiple text requests and when I spoke with her about my insistence she

leave she glared at me and said “you really are a piece of work”. She left the chambers

in tears which caused multiple people to ask me (and her) what was wrong. The next

day when I called her and asked her if we needed to talk about that she apologized. This

began a pattern of inappropriate, disrespectful comments that she would sometimes

apologize for saying later.

 On multiple occasions when I would share additional requests from the Mayor/Manager

Dawn would yell and cry about there being too much on her “fucking plate”. I asked her

to let me help her with some of the load and each time she refused. A pattern emerged

where each time I asked her to do something she would (with attitude) either tell me it

was a dumb request or that she couldn’t do everything I asked, or that my expectations

were unreasonable, but she never allowed me to sit down with her to look at all her

tasks and figure out what was priority.

 In response to her multiple statements of feeling overwhelmed I strongly encouraged

her to take time off to rest. She refused, but did leave work abruptly or call in sick on

three occasions. One time she did not call me, but rather sent an unsigned NOL at 4:30

am for that day. She did not respond to my multiple texts or emails, except for the email

I sent telling her that employees were expected to notify their supervisor when they

were out sick and that she hadn’t signed her NOL. She returned her NOL with one word

“Signed” in the body of the email.

 During multiple meetings, Dawn (who told me she was meeting daily with Unified

Command) would appear to be unaware of changes to process shared by either STRAC

or SAFD. When I would ask her why, she would (with attitude) either blame “all the men

in the room” for making unilateral decisions without her, or tell me I was wrong to

 expect her to know everything that was happening. She regularly responded to my

questions by forwarding them to Anita or Junda. I told her multiple times that I needed

her to understand their answers too. She was speaking to the media and Council and

couldn’t explain things I could because she wasn’t interacting with her staff or learning

from them and I was. She railed at being told she was wrong, but then didn’t work with

her staff to understand the correct information.

 Multiple times she would ask me to review something and would either blindly accept
all my changes without understanding them (as evidenced by continued misstatements)

or would instruct her staff to meet with me and “just do what Dr. Bridger says” in a

passive aggressive way. On other occasions, she would not incorporate my changes, but

would not tell me why. This resulted in a poorly written Watch Assure Expand plan to be

submitted to Maria and Erik. I sent in additional revisions which were then blindly

accepted.
 Frequently in meetings with me Dawn will check her phone, her email, her nails and

refuse to make eye contact with me. She often sits in an unprofessional manner,

slouched, with her arms crossed and a leg up on a chair.

 In multiple meetings with others she has been rude, condescending, defensive and

insubordinate. She would also schedule meetings with outside partners to “update” me

on issues and would then turn to me and with no prior notice say, “Dr. Bridger you’re so

good at ___, why don’t you share with us what your thoughts are about the best way to

do ___”. This happened multiple times with no advanced warning and felt like a

deliberate attempt to make me look bad. After these meetings people would comment

to me about her behavior and ask why I was letting her get away with it.
 After multiple requests that she please run things by me before sharing them with the

City Manager and to run things by the City Manager and me before sharing new ideas

with Mayor and Council she continues. Specifically, she continues to push her ideas

about racism as a public health issue with the Mayor and Council after I asked her to

stop until we could both check in with the City Manager on if this is a direction he wants

to go. When she provided an example from Dallas of their resolution to on the issue, I

replied that I wanted her to hit pause while we figure out if this is the best approach and

if it is, what the vision and meaningful change we would seek would be. She replied all

with one sentence: “that’s what I provided, a vision”.

 I have documented multiple examples of Dawn lying about what happened or why or

where she was or what she was doing. Often these lies “I’m meeting with ___ right now

and can’t talk to you” have been verified as false and serve no real purpose. Other

times, she lies to make partners look bad or make herself look like a victim.
 Unless I put an item in an email with a specific due date, she regularly forgets what I’ve

asked and doesn’t provide it. When I do give her a deadline she often asks for more time

or misses the deadline without saying anything.

2) Rude, condescending behavior with staff and partners

Early on I received complaints from staff and partners about her moodiness, rudeness, name

calling and publicly demeaning her staff. Dawn does not like to be corrected or told she is wrong

and will work against or penalize staff for doing so. Specific examples:

 Staff reported that after a council meeting where she gave a lot of wrong information,

multiple employees texted her the correct information. She returned to the office and

ordered them to stop telling her she was wrong.

 At a (recorded) Supervisor’s meeting, Dawn frequently used a condescending, scolding

tone. At one point she referenced criticism she had received from employees that she

wasn’t engaged enough with employees and said essentially if employees thought their

jobs were hard they should do her job for a week to know what a hard job was.
 On multiple occasions when I asked for clarification on an inconsistency or an error, she

would blame Epi staff etc…and claim they were intentionally give her the wrong

information or that they were withholding information to make her job harder or make

her look bad. Often she would tell me that the information they gave her didn’t make

sense or she couldn’t get a straight answer and when I would call I would get a simple

straightforward answer. On those calls I would hear that Dawn was unclear in her asks

and blamed “Dr. Bridger” for the fact that the questions didn’t make sense or revealed a

lack of understanding of basic math.

 Multiple employees expressed concern about Dawn being rude, condescending and

demeaning of Epi staff on calls with multiple people. Staff have complained of being

called “victims”, “passive aggressive”, “manipulative” and working behind her back with

Dr. Bridger to get her fired. She has mentioned to both staff and partners multiple times

that either “they” want to fire me or “Dr. Bridger is trying to get me fired”.
 She has accused Eric Epley and his staff and Andrew Estrada and his staff of lying to her

and about her on multiple occasions. At one point she claimed Andrew threatened to lie

to a public board about her actions if she didn’t do what he asked. Third party

verification disproved that allegation.

 Staff and partners both complain regularly about Dawn’s lack of attention during

meetings (on her phone or laptop), her inconsistency in doing what she agreed to do

and her inability to inspire confidence and lead her team during a difficult time.
 GPA/area reporters regularly reach out to me with concerns about her interactions with

the media. On two occasions she cried with reporters (for no known reason) and on

multiple occasions she gave either inaccurate or inappropriate information to the press.

She also regularly provides inconsistent or inaccurate information to GPA who spends

an inordinate amount of time trying to track down correct information.

 After hearing about these concerns for months, I invited Renee Frieda to join me at a

meeting with Metro Health Leadership to discuss how to address the need for more

people to do case investigation and contact tracing because I saw the need for team

building and knew Dawn felt comfortable with Renee. I emailed Dawn the reason for

inviting Renee to the meeting so she could share it with her staff. In spite of questions

 from staff she did not address their concerns about why they were being invited to a

meeting with HR, so they called me scared that they were going to get in trouble.
 Multiple staff have told me that staff morale at Metro Health is at an all-time low and

that people are afraid to speak up or speak out because Dawn will then put them on her

“list”. Also, employees who receive praise from me are also put on the “list” and in at

least one instance and employee who is my mentee was told to stop all communications

with me for “the sanity of the organization”. That employee was then publically berated

multiple times.
 Multiple staff have told me that Dawn has repeatedly said she isn’t interested in “what

Dr. Bridger started”. She went on to say she will have her own priorities that are

different from that. I have heard her say this as well.

3) Lack of basic understanding of epidemiology/public health science

If the problems were simply her inability to get along with people who disagree with her we

could try to get her a coach and do team building etc…however, there is also a glaring deficit in

her ability to understand and explain epidemiology and basic public health science. Her

responses to questions from elected officials, partners, staff and me are either parroted

information from her staff and/or patently wrong. She relies on people she likes rather than on

subject matter experts and repeatedly gives misinformation to media, elected officials, the City

Manager and me. I spend several hours a day verifying, correcting, fielding phone calls from

people trying to double check her information because they’ve all learned she can’t be relied

upon. I frequently get text messages from council members asking me to explain an answer she

just gave them and media regularly verifies her information with me.

She also struggles to design or adhere to a plan designed to address a problem. I’ve asked

multiple times for a Gantt chart or at the very least a plan that identifies “who will do what by

when” and have yet to get one. When I develop the plan she doesn’t follow it. I don’t know if it

is intentionally or if she can’t. She regularly calls me in a fit of mania claiming “we’re gonna need

a bigger boat!” for a problem she hasn’t analyzed nor developed potential solution to address.

I’ve asked her numerous times to do this and the only time this happens is if Craig does it for

her.