House candidate Kim Kendall has long maintained that her work as an air traffic controller was preparation for public office, but documents obtained by Florida Politics show she was forced out of the job due to concerns about her mental health.
According to court documents, Kendall worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) from January 1990 to November 2000. Records show that her employment ended in 2000 when she was deemed “medically unfit” to continue working for the FAA.
According to internal agency correspondence, Kendall received a copy of the document on or before May 24, 2000. The email did not give a specific reason for the disqualification, but other FAA documents show that Kendall had met the previous day with FAA officials Chris Klein and Irving Washington.
According to notes of her conversations with Washington, she detailed her distrust of her superiors and her belief that individuals were making bomb threat calls and other violent threats specifically targeting her.
Kim told Washington he contacted the Accountability Committee because there had been “threats against me.”
“I know it’s real and I can’t stand it another day,” she said, according to the memo. “I’m tired of this cover-up.”
She spoke of the nasty looks she received at work. She said she filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against her superiors, but nothing was done. She specifically raised concerns about the superior on the floor where she worked.
The most unusual concern she expressed was about a bomb threat she had heard from a colleague, after a friend had informed her that “there had been a cover-up” about the reported threats.
Her husband, Kelly Kendall, also a former FAA employee, approached his superiors and said he was concerned about his wife’s safety and that “there are people here who will harm her.” The superiors agreed.
“Everyone is really scared of the danger,” Kim Kendall said, according to the memo. She believed violent threats were reported because of her, but that certain people with direct knowledge were withholding information. She also told of a colleague who claimed she had received death threats if she didn’t drop her complaint against her supervisor.
In the interview, Irving asked Kendall if he would be satisfied if a court investigated the case and found Kendall’s concerns to be unjustified. Kendall responded that he would not be satisfied. Around the time of the interview, Kendall was barred from continuing to work for the FAA for health reasons.
Kendall’s personnel file also lists the disciplinary action she received for taking a free flight with her husband rather than waiting separately for their flights to Jacksonville.
Letters in her file indicate that in 1993 she lied in a report about a flight.
“You represented yourself as being on a familiarization trip in a jump seat on American Airlines Flight 684, when in fact you were in the cabin of American Airlines Flight 1008,” Superintendent Paul R. Knight wrote. “Your actions were an abuse of the familiarization trip program and a complete falsification of the government’s report.”
She later filed a sworn statement as part of a lawsuit involving the FAA in which she explained her actions and acknowledged that she had been disciplined.
“On the return journey to Jacksonville, I was allowed to take a later flight than the one my then-fiancé, Kelly Kendall (now spouse), was scheduled to take,” she wrote.
Kelly Kendall, who also worked for the FAA at the time, said Kim Kendall accompanied him to the airport to see him off.
“At this time, I spoke with the pilot of the flight on which my fiancé/husband was cleared for FAM travel. The pilot encouraged me to board his plane and sit in the back seat rather than wait for a later flight on which I was cleared for FAM travel. I sat in the passenger seat on the plane. I did not receive any FAM training on this flight.”
Kendall said the gate agent objected to the flight change, but the pilot called and approved the change. But when Kendall later submitted her paperwork for the flight, she incorrectly reported that she was on a later flight. “This information was neither accurate nor true,” she wrote.
Florida Politics has reached out to Kendall for comment.
Kendall will face Nick Primrose in the Republican primary for the 18th Congressional District on Aug. 20. The winner will face Democrat Keith Matthews in the November general election.
Kendall interviewed by Jacob Ogles on Scribd
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