Un-Clean Hands

Unfortunatley, I missed the special called meeting that was held the other night. It seems the board is looking to add yet another expense onto the citizens of the City of Lumberton. The meeting was held to hire Carolyn Lee to take over the duties of the city clerk. It seems that Carolyn turned down the job because of her husband's health issues. I think it might be more to the story than that, but that's what I heard. Now, this brings to question, why do they need hire someone to do the day to day work in the city clerk's office? If I'm not mistaken, Susan Guidry has been employed by the City of Lumberton for almost eight years. She should now how to do everything from operating a bulldozer to book-keeping. As a matter of fact, when they termiated the employment of Betty Speights, who actually attended training and was going through the certification process, they decided to keep Sue because she was there the longest. Betty had more certification, but they said Sue had more senority. Now that the city clerk is either on vacation or family medical leave, they need someone to carry on the duties within the office of the city clerk because the deputy clerk is not trained. So, what has she been doing for the last eight years? Running the copier machine and taking cigarette breaks. Well, that's unacceptable. So, I guess the board is going to have to bring back JoAnn Ladner to get the city back up and running. After the last board meeting, you know the one where the board neglected to terminate the employment of our city clerk, I said Stephanie must have some dirt on the aldermen and that's the reason why they're unwilling to terminate her employment. Well, I've come to the realization that there is more to that notion. It seems that since they have dirty hands, they're not willing to do what's needed because they relied on the Law of Stephanie instead of the law of the land. They are not concerened about the citizens and they are not concerned about getting an investigation. They realize that they have unclean hands. For those of you unfamilair with that that term, it essentially means that a party who is asking for a judgment cannot have the help of the court if he/she has done anything unethical. And that my friends, is the quagmire. This board has spent the last four years doing everything they can to discredit the Mayor and now that their hands are not clean, they don't know what to do or they're not willing to do what needs to be done because the person that advised them has convinced them she is in the catbird seat. So, they don't care how much more debt they have to hurdle onto the citizen of Lumberton. They think by delaying the inevitable, they are also delaying their fate. They have the opportunity to make this right but they are continuing to drag their feet. I was hoping they would man up and do what needed to be done to help move this city forward but it seem like they plan on being lame all the way to the end. Not only will the citizens have to pay for the investigation, we are still paying for a clerk and a deputy clerk that are not working. And to add injury to insult, the board is looking to hire another clerk, at the citizen's expense, because they can't/wont' do what's necessary for the fiscal integrity of the city.