Beleaguered FEMA Chief Reassigned
Questions Raised About Brown's Resume, Experience
By PETE YOST, AP
APMichael Brown's lack of experience raises questions about how rigorously the White House vetted him before he got top FEMA job.
WASHINGTON (Sept. 9) - Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown is being removed from his role managing Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, The Associated Press has learned.
Brown is being sent back to Washington from Baton Rouge, where he was the primary official overseeing the federal government's response to the disaster, according to two federal officials who declined to be identified before the announcement.
Brown faces questions about whether he padded his resume detailing his experience in emergency preparedness.
A 2001 press release on the White House Web site says that Brown worked for the city of Edmond, Okla., from 1975 to 1978 "overseeing emergency services divisions."
Brown's official biography on the FEMA Web site says that his background in state and local government also includes serving as "an assistant city manager with emergency services oversight" and as a city councilman.
But a former mayor of Edmond, Randel Shadid, told The Associated Press on Friday that Brown had been an assistant to the city manager. Shadid said Brown was never assistant city manager.
"I think there's a difference between the two positions," said Shadid. "I would think that is a discrepancy."
Asked later about the White House news release that said Brown oversaw Edmond's emergency services divisions, Shadid said, "I don't think that's a total stretch."
Time magazine first reported the discrepancy.
Separately, Newsday reported another discrepancy regarding Brown's background. The official White House announcement of Brown's nomination to head FEMA in January 2003 lists his previous experience as "the Executive Director of the Independent Electrical Contractors," a trade group based in Alexandria, Va.
Two officials of the group told Newsday this week that Brown never was the national head of the group but did serve as the executive director of a regional chapter, based in Colorado.
Brown has become a primary target of criticism that the federal government responded too slowly to Hurricane Katrina, with many calls for his dismissal.
Regarding the discrepancy about his job in Oklahoma, Claudia Deakins, head of public relations for the city of Edmond, said, "According to our personnel records, Mike Brown was an assistant to the city manager from 1977 to 1980. I can't speak to his role in the organization or the structure of the organization at the time because I wasn't here."
A longtime acquaintance, Carl Reherman, said Brown was very involved in helping set up an emergency operations center in Edmond and assisting in the creation of an emergency contingency plan in the 1970s, while Brown was working for the city manager. At the time, Reherman was a city councilman, and later became mayor.
Reherman said the emergency plan that Brown worked on dealt with potential natural disasters such as tornados and manmade disasters since Tinker Air Force Base and a commercial airport are nearby and a rail line passes through the downtown.
"From my experience with Mike, he not only worked very hard on everything he did, he had very high standards," said Reherman, who also knew Brown when he was a student taking classes from Reherman, who was a professor of political science at Central State University.
"I'm an old Democrat and Mike's a Republican, so we got into a lot of discussions," said Reherman.
Nicol Andrews, deputy strategic director in FEMA's office of public affairs, told Time that while Brown began as an intern, he became an "assistant city manager" with a distinguished record of service.
"According to Mike Brown," Andrews told Time, a large portion of points raised by the magazine are "very inaccurate."
White House press secretary Scott McClellan referred all questions about Brown's resume to FEMA.
McClellan said the White House's earlier statements that Brown retained the president's confidence remain true _ but he declined to state that confidence outright.
"I'd leave it where I left it," McClellan said. "We appreciate the work of all those who have been working around the clock to respond to what has been on the worst natural disasters in our nation's history."
Associated Press reporter Richard Green on Oklahoma City, Okla., contributed to this report.
9/9/2005 13:15:35
