Mistakes Make For An Irate Public

To the Editor:

“The government is not run by an irate public” — quoting Mr Borst. He’s correct — it’s run by a few incompetents! Why would the public be irate?

The public is irate because: the town didn’t follow it’s own policy and spent $48,000 to defend their mistake.

Because residents wasted time and Ms Mason needed an attorney to return her to work.

Because the town has no guidelines to follow for the training they said she needed and expect her to follow how exactly?

Because a second employee was fired incorrectly, rehired, and exposed the taxpayers to not one, but two, wrongful termination lawsuits.

Because we don’t see any investigation, public humiliation, or lost jobs and pay for those who made those mistakes.

Because those making the mistakes appear to have an inflated sense of ego, supervising employees in a way that makes their working days miserable and fearful of losing jobs if they file complaints.

Because we see jobs awarded to unqualified people because they have the right connections.

Because Ms Mason’s mistakes were correctable and after two months of so-called training, she’s offered a demotion.

Because she was faced with outside influences complaining about the way she wanted to run the pound and chastised for making small improvements to her miserable workplace conditions.

Because the decision to update her training for which her superior claims there is no format to follow and then return her to the job of animal control officer, was not adhered to according to the decision of the selectmen.

Because now if she makes one mistake, she can be terminated because she dared to go up against the wrong decision and caused those in charge to be publicly embarrassed just as she was.

Perhaps many town employees don’t really feel it’s Nicer in Newtown.

Perhaps we’re now irate enough to call for an investigation as to why this happened at all and worry it will happen again unless consequences are applied fairly to all employees, regardless of their political or friendly connections. It cost Carolee and the public a great deal to correct her mistakes — her superiors should be subject to consequences also, otherwise we will be facing more time and expense, won’t we?

Any superior worth their paycheck, should aspire to help those they supervise do their jobs correctly and efficiently. A superior who is overbearing, incompetent, and egotistical toward those employees creates a work environment that serves no one fairly, the employees or the public they serve. Poor employee performance usually reflects the abilities of the supervisors to hire the right people and train them as well. We should now all be looking not only to Ms Mason to perform her job properly, but to others in charge of hiring employees and supervising them and how properly they are performing their job descriptions.

$48,000 to defend incompetence

Uncovering that incompetence—Priceless.

Lee and Barbara Field

Serenity Lane Sandy Hook                                     September 2, 2009