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CITY, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) On Friday, February 08, 2013, KOVC Radio/Newsdakota.com and the Valley City Times-Record ran stories about Barnes County officials hacking into the computer system of Valley City administration.
According to Barnes County State’s Attorney Lee Grossman and City of Valley City Attorney Russell Myhre the 9-1-1 recording that was allegedly “hacked” was recorded on a server. The Valley City Police Department and Barnes County Sheriff’s Office have access to these recordings. This means all recordings, regardless of whether the call was placed to 9-1-1, 845-3110 (VCPD), or 845-8530 (Sheriff).
The phone call recording was accessed by Chief Deputy Don Fiebiger of the Sheriff’s Office. He used a username and password to access the recording. This username and password was provided to the Sheriff’s Office in 2011 by the Police Department when the recording system was updated.
Meanwhile, Jason Thiel, the Barnes County MIS director, had no involvement in accessing this recording. Mr. Thiel was standing in Deputy Fiebiger’s office and was asked how to make a copy of the recording. Mr. Thiel showed Deputy Fiebiger how to make the copy.
Mr. Thiel did not hack into the system to steal a copy of this recording for the Sheriff’s Office.
We are disappointed in both the city and the county in how this entire matter was handled. Instead of allowing officials to investigate if any of the allegations had merit by talking to those individuals who had first-hand knowledge, the worst was assumed. The county demanded an apology by the city for the dispatcher’s comments. The city assumed the county hacked its server to access the recording.
This information was brought up at a county commission meeting on Tuesday, February 5 without a full investigation. Instead accusations were assumed to be truths. In turn the media, using only accusations, not truths, published stories entitled “Possible Felony for Alleged Illegal Phone Call Recording” (Newsdakota.com) and “City Alleges: County Hacked Us” (Times-Record).
It is undoubted that this mistrust has been bred through years and years of conflict between the city and county over 911. This includes tenuous working relationships in the past between the police department and the sheriff’s office and the respective commissions. This mistrust must end now. There are no back room deals or secret late night meetings about the transition of operation of 911 from the city to the county.
Administrations for the city and the county will not tolerate such things. Officials on both sides have been working to build trust between the city and the county for the past few years. However, the moment there is a whiff of dishonesty both sides rush to judgment. It becomes a contest of who can accuse the other faster. As a result the public reputation of the dispatcher and Mr. Thiel are unfairly and irrevocably tarnished.
This joint news release was issued by Lee Grossman, Barnes County State’s Attorney, and Russell Myhre, City Attorney for Valley City. This news release is not issued on behalf of either the county commission or the city commission but rather by the offices of the Barnes County State’s Attorney and the City Attorney for Valley City.
**** KOVC/NewsDakota.com news editor Steve Urness wishes to apologize for publishing a story that had false accusations within it’s text. I felt the information submitted to me by some city and county officials was factual and given the facts contained in the news release above I wish to retract a story I published Thursday and Friday titled “Possible Felony for Alleged Illegal Phone Call Recording” ****