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November 30, 2004
How To Help Stephen Gardner (Update: Millenium Responds)

Many people wrote to me after the post about Stephen Gardner's financial woes about how they can assist him during this tough period. I'm sure the best solution would be a good job, but to tide him over -- especially during the holiday season -- Stephen has a PayPal account to which you can donate. Simply log into your PayPal account and send whatever you can afford to this e-mail: sgardner5@carolina.rr.com. You can also snail-mail a check to this address: P.O. Box 908; Clover, SC 29710.

The Power Line guys and Tony Snow are the ones who got this information. (Hey, Trunk's getting a signed photograph -- how does he rate, anyway?) Big hat tips to them for staying on this story. I've already sent my donation; hopefully, many more will follow.

UPDATE: I've corrected the e-mail address, and re-sent my donation accordingly. It's correct as shown now.

UPDATE II: Via Instapundit, Gardner's former employer has responded to the Mary Laney article:

Millennium Information Services is a small business that has been wrongly stigmatized by the Chicago Sun-Times article about Steve Gardner. The article is clearly meant to create the impression that Steve Gardner’s layoff was politically motivated. That just simply isn’t true. It is also important to note that the Sun-Times reporter, Mary Laney, never contacted us regarding this article.

Here are some key facts that correct missing or inaccurate statements made in the Sun-Times article:

For purely financial reasons, we had to reduce management expenses. A decision was made to consolidate field management from five managers to three. The two affected field managers resided in the areas where our business had the most significant decreases. Mr. Gardner was one of those managers. Two additional corporate managers were laid off on the same day. No one in the company’s management was even aware of Mr. Gardner’s connection to John Kerry.

To help offset the elimination of Mr. Gardner’s supervisory position, Millennium offered Mr. Gardner other non-supervisory work, which he decided not to take. Since that time Millennium has offered Mr. Gardner additional work opportunities, which he has also declined.

The Sun-Times article states that Mr. Gardner was terminated via email. That is also incorrect. Mr. Gardner was informed of the layoff in a personal phone conversation with his supervisor. The
email referenced in the article was simply a formal follow-up, not the primary means of informing Mr. Gardner. The only reason he was not contacted face-to-face was because he was an out-of-state
employee.

In the Sun-Times article, Ms. Laney stated that Mr. Gardner had “seen the company advertising his old position.” A simple check of the facts would have shown that to be false. The advertisement placed by Millennium was for a non- supervisory position.

The Sun-Times article does not accurately reflect what occurred with Steve Gardner in regards to his employment with Millennium. It creates an erroneous perception that he was singled out for his
political involvement. That is false. Three other employees also lost their jobs on that day for the same economic reasons.

Millennium as a company does not endorse or support any political position or candidate. We leave those personal decisions to individuals.

We sincerely hope this helps to clarify the truth[.]

Since I've made space for one side of this argument, I felt it fair to provide space for the other.

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Posted by Ed Morrissey at November 30, 2004 5:14 PM

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» Expensive Speech from L'Ombre de l'Olivier
Stephen Gardner spoke out against John Kerry - he was the only crewmember of Kerry's boats to do so - he was fired from his job and now he's broke. [Read More]

Tracked on November 30, 2004 11:24 AM



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