Well, it appears as if we’ve screwed up yet again. We — yes, you and I, dear friend — have put someone in office who has risen to their level of incompetence. Armond Budish is not a crook, he’s just a putz.
Of course, Republicans will loudly proclaim they had no part of putting Budish into office, and further, will claim that the way to solve the problem of county government is to put someone from their party in the position. Sure, Republicans really know how to pick ’em — all you have to do is look inside the Oval Office.
If Republicans ran the county jail, given their track record on empathy for those on the bottom rungs of the social ladder, the detainees would be served bread and water every day except for Sunday, when they would get a bowl of gruel as a treat. No, the answer lies elsewhere, outside of politics.
We’ve had a three-commissioner form of county government that worked pretty well and might have continued to work well after the housecleaning. But no, we wanted a new system entirely, so we decided on an elected county executive and an elected board, which hasn’t worked out too well either.
What’s needed is professional management, not political management. Some cities have, in addition to the elected mayor, a city manager — someone who is professionally trained and knows what the hell he or she is doing when it comes to public management. I’m sure the National Association of Counties in Washington has someone who could consult and help us get out of the mess that we’re currently in.
Maybe we’d have to go back and vote on a county manager type of government, one in which the members of the county council, select someone from a list of proven professionals, someone who doesn’t have to become a dancing bear every four years — begging the voters — just to keep their job.
Out with politics and in with professionalism. We certainly can’t screw things up any more than we have so far. And yes, we own this fuckup.
From CoolCleveland correspondent Mansfield B. Frazier mansfieldfATgmail.com. Frazier’s From Behind The Wall: Commentary on Crime, Punishment, Race and the Underclass by a Prison Inmate is available in hardback. Snag your copy and have it signed by the author at http://NeighborhoodSolutionsInc.