Info on Stamey is matter of public record

Star Editorial

It has come to our attention that Ravalli County Treasurer Valerie Stamey, aka Valerie Scott, aka Valerie Addis, has told the members of the South Valley Pachyderm Club that the Bitterroot Star obtained her social security number and drivers license and her personnel file from County Chief Finance Officer Klarysse Murphy and used that private information to obtain all the other information published in our newspaper about her. Not true. Not a word of it.

We do not know, nor have we ever obtained, this woman¹s social security number, nor have we ever seen anything in her personnel file at the county.

Another thing worth noting is that personnel files are not kept in the finance office. They are in the possession of Human Resources Director Robert Jenni and we can assure you that he doesn’t show them to other county employees or the press.

Every bit of information about Stamey published to date in the Bitterroot Star came from easily obtainable public records.

She calls herself Valerie Stamey. Someone told us she was being paid under another name. So we went to the finance office and checked. There are a few bits of information that Montana law explicitly allows the public to know about government employees upon asking, including the name of any employee, their job title, their job description and how much they are paid. We simply asked at the finance office for the name of the person being paid to serve as Treasurer. Valerie Scott was the answer. We looked at her job application form and saw in her resume that she once worked for the Missoula County Public Schools as food services director. Once again, an employee’s name is not a secret. It was Valerie Addis. Her resume also mentioned working in food service for a school district in South Carolina.

This is the extent of the information required, three names and a connection to South Carolina, to obtain all the information published about her in the Bitterroot Star. No social security number is needed and no peek into any personnel files. All the information is contained in court files and other public files obtainable by anyone upon request. If you don’t believe us, try it.

Stamey seems interested in casting aspersions on the Bitterroot Star for publishing her unflattering public record. She also seems to be interested in doing whatever she can to cast aspersions on CFO Klarysse Murphy. Don’t be misled by Stamey. In this instance she does not know what she is talking about and anybody can prove her wrong if they care to. Simply take the three names and do some checking into court records in Missoula and Ravalli Counties and in Greenville County, South Carolina. You will find what we found, at least six separate instances of failure to show up in court to answer for her actions. Her failure to show up and answer to the county commissioners about her past actions and her delinquent reports is, apparently, just par for the course.

When she does speak up it is simply to blame everyone else for wrongdoings without showing us any evidence. She wants us to believe that four employees in the tax office, along with CFO Murphy, along with Commissioners Iman, Chilcott, and Burrows, along with County Attorney Fulbright, are all conspiring to sabotage her efforts to do her job. But until she produces some evidence, who can say?

She has not bolstered her credibility at all by alleging her rights to privacy must have been violated in order to gain access to her public records. In this case anybody who cares to can prove her wrong. We hope any members of the South Valley Pachyderm Club who want to believe her in this regard will take the time to do the search.