Saturday, November 21, 2009

Win-Lose-Win Situation

Mayor Carey (is his alias magoobird on the comments section of the PC?) has defended the pay raises, especially the pay raises he has given to his political appointees, by stating that you need those salaries to have competent people working for you. But if you buy that argument, shouldn't you at least get some basic competency from those folks? I agree with Assemblyman Gary Knopp, that there probably wasn't an intent to violate any laws when Scooter Chumley sold equipment to the borough without filing the proper conflict-of-interest paperwork, but it is not too much to expect that a highly-paid appointed political official might suspect that one should at least appear to be above-board when turning a personal profit from the government he is suppose to serve. He should have checked to make sure there wasn't a problem. It's just simple common sense.

So now the borough must figure out how to deal with the mess...should charges be filed?...should a fine be imposed?

I have the perfect solution. Scooter's fine should be the exact amount of the pay raise that he received. We obviously didn't get the competency Mayor Dave said we were getting.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are being very kind (or obtuse) in your evaluation. If I knew who you were and put an exact description of you, including your birthmark and goofy tie, on craig's list, and then you answered and were the perfect person, would that too be happenstance? The need (for CES) perfectly matched what one person had to sell and was a single source ask, and the paperwork disappeared and didn't reappear until months later when someone outside noticed it and started to look. Come on. This is more than a few degrees off in the moral compass realm. And putting other borough employees at risk for following orders is negligent, immoral and a very poor example to have in "leadership."

Wolfe Tone said...

SOL,

Ah, but if Scooter gave up his entire paycheck (as in resign), he'd have NO conflict doing business with the KPB!

Just sayin'.

Wolfe Tone said...

Anon@2:33, you have a very valid point.

The sole-source memo penned by KPB Purchasing Officer Mark Fowler was dated August 6... but it didn't show up in the Mayor's report until the November 10 meeting. You can verify this by looking at the Assembly packet at the KPB website.

My belief is that Carey & Co. were hoping it would fly under the radar and no one would notice... but someone did, dang it!

KittenStCyr said...

Charges? Yes,and a fine or dismissal to follow if the investigation warrants it. One thing I can certainy draw from this is the Carey is not a reliable judge of competence...but I kinda knew that already.

Anonymous said...

I'll go with obtuse.

That's in keeping with what we've seen so far.

Souldotna said...

Obtuse?!?

And I thought I was acute all of these years...

Glad I am annoying at least one reader...and that he keeps coming back for more.

kodiakgriff said...

Just found your blog, thanks to a link from the mighty KoKon.
Likin' it! Hold their feet to the fire! Sounds like your local politico's are not that different from the ones in sunny Kodiak.
Keep up the good work.
Peace


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