In June, we’ve been reporting on a deputy city clerk who used a personal social media account to say Springfield aldermen are “assholes.”

Now, in an email chain WTAX News obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, it’s clear Ald. Kristin DiCenso has little respect for city clerk Frank Lesko. The chain started with concern about a frequent public commenter using council meetings to defame a city employee.

DiCenso gets involved by saying it’s time for a clear policy about social media. Deputy clerk Nicole Cunningham’s vulgar post followed a now-former Springfield policeman’s use of hate speech online. Along the way, Lesko appears uninterested in discipling Cunningham and suggests DiCenso consult the city’s inspector general if she is so concerned about it.

Finding Lesko’s handoff to the inspector general unacceptable, DiCenso writes, “This is a management issue. In my 20 years of managing people, I’ve never seen such inept people skills. Managers are supposed to bring people together, not create division. Truly unbelievable.” What’s more, she is upset that Lesko apparently finds it “ok” for one of his top employees to call aldermen “assholes,” though Lesko maintains there’s no rule against it.

Lesko makes a couple of attempts to end the conversation, which only happens when deputy mayor Kathleen Alcorn gets involved, saying a social media policy is in the works, and urging Lesko and DiCenso to take it somewhere else – like mediation, saying, “I believe that everyone has made their point more than clear. We are working on a social media policy as stated earlier. If there is further discussion needed between both Alderwoman DiCenso and Clerk Lesko, this continued email chain is not an appropriate platform and an in person mediated discussion between two professionals should be scheduled.”

Cunningham answers only to Lesko, an elected official.

Read the email chain here.