“Not a penny of severance. Just stone-cold silence. “
This is My Davis California bringing you one of our most curious unsolved mysteries to date. In recent news, our little newspaper made some huge changes. If you didn’t know, this is the Davis enterprise. This local newspaper has been around sinc1897. It’s been held in relatively high regard until very recently. Bob Dunning, a top contributor who has been writing for the paper for 55 years, was recently terminated with no warning.
Here’s what Bob wrote in his farewell column. “There was no thank you. No goodbye. Not a penny of severance. Just stone-cold silence. They even refused to pay for my accumulated sick leave.” 55 years, gone. Just like that.
Also, he was not allowed to transfer the massive collection of emails he exchanged with his followers over the years. He was denied the opportunity to thank all of the people who supported his career up to that point and to give them a proper goodbye. Weird, right? But wait, there’s more!
After this shock to the Davis world, another enterprise superstar, Wendy Weitzel, the author of the popular comings and goings page, also left the enterprise to show solidarity for the unfairness in how they treated Bob. That’s how tight this community is!
You can ask just about anyone in town and they’d say that Bob and Wendy were the top two contributors to the paper.
So why did the enterprise let Bob go? They were paying him $26/hour so it’s not like it was a massive financial burden. After 55 years, you’d think the man would be treated as family. Especially if he’s a top contributor.
Did they know that Wendy would follow suit? Surely there were internal conversations, right? How will they handle the massive loss of readers and subscribers? Will anyone ever spill the beans?
They recently were featured in the June edition of The Dirt but the history remains the same. This will forever be one of the biggest mysteries in town.