Public Decorum of Public Officials
Guest Opinion by J. J. Estemac
I believe that it is time that we the people say enough is enough concerning our poor choices of public officials we hire, whether they are elected or appointed. If we believe we as a people deserve better representation in our government. The people we elect or appoint to represent us in government should indeed represent us; we choose them, directly or indirectly. When these individuals fail to keep the standard that we accept for our society they should be removed from office. We need not wait for them to commit a crime per se; they quite often violate the common decency code by their action and words. Are we such a community that we have no moral standard or decency anymore? Anything goes?
Many of us know some of the immoral behavior of many of our public officials and still yet we endorse them for public service. Does that mean that we cannot find any other persons of higher standard of behavior? Maybe some of us identify ourselves with the behavior of these individuals. When some of these individuals are spouse abusers, child molesters, absentee parent, fail to provide material and moral support to their offspring, engage in acts of moral turpitude, we know all these things about these individuals, yet we endorse them or elect them to office. Some of us later complain about their behavior after we elected or endorsed them for office. Is that being responsible on our part?
I wanted to commend some members of the Senate for what I thought was improved behavior on the floor of the Senate. But then I began observing the same individuals persist in their obnoxious behavior. One of them seems to always carry a chip on his shoulder, ready to use his martial arts knowledge to defend his “honor”. Then there is another that always want to show the testifiers, particularly those from the government sector, how well informed he is, he takes an adversarial posture most of the time. Then there are others who do not do their homework, but are not that offensive, they just show off how poorly prepared they are on the subject before them. They ask question just to ask question with little or no follow-up.
When we observe their vocabulary, their enunciation, even those that have been in the education system as teachers, they display poor language art, then we know why so many students are as unaccomplished as they are in the public schools. Anybody can get a teaching job. When these teachers turn politician, they leave the classroom, for better pay and the students that they said they cared about are no longer relevant, no longer important to them, and they never go back to the classroom. In spite our shortage of teachers they turn their backs on teaching. There are a number of them out there, that if they were true teachers they would have gone back and help out the school system, if they cared. We have to import teachers from as far as the Philippines. Can we do better? I do hope we can. It depends on us, the people, the concerned citizen, to join together to make a difference. The change we want to see has to start with us.
This is an excellent article, you couldn’t say it any better…especially when talking about the one who proclaim to be this martial art expert (Negative Nelson)
Unfortunately, several of our directors and commissioners as well as those in higher management positions we, the public, have no say in. The administration and it’s departments are responsible for hiring the same old same old for high paying positions.
If our AG would prosecute those who were the subject of audits that revealed corruption and a simple lack of leadership resulting in money lost to the VI, we would have an example of what actually can happen if you fail to do your job.
Instead we reward failed leaders by passing them around to other areas of our government making huge salaries. Louis Wills, a dismal performance and corrupt dealings at IRB for seven years (missed collecting over $268 million in taxes to include gross receipts) is rewarded by Louis King Hill as executive director of the legislature. Paul Flemming, who was audited while at the lottery, granted personal loans out of lottery money, provided no oversight to Southland Gaming resulting in millions lost to the government coffers, is now Director of Applications at EDA. Conrad Francois is up to head the lottery despite a scathing audit during his 12 year tenure at VIHA where his ‘leadership’ results were so poorly executed, the department was taken over by HUD, only the 17th housing arena to be taken over in the entire US!
We can clean out the senators at election time, but we need an AG who will pursue those ‘leaders’ who have had valid audits by our Inspector General and Department of the Interior who have been shown to have corrupt areas for years.
The only other reason the AG may be held back by actually doing his job, may just be deJongh’s direction of NOT pursuing the politically appointed and connected personnel he continues to shuffle around in his administration. Trading corruption for votes if you would.
It was indeed a pleasure reading the article and all of the areas that was touched on is something that I have been saying for years. I’m very pleased to see that there is someone how have the same thinking as myself. I watched with disgust Conrad Francois in the Senate and all I did was shake my head. Then there is Fleming and Willis who should not have been given such as job knowing that they failed. But what is mentioned is the fact that all the buddies look out for each other at the expense of us meanwhile the youths that are coming out of school can’t find a job.
At election time we do our best to get rid of the senators who hire persons in their office who fry chicken legs and johnny cake, and in four years we will do the same for the Governor.
As the above comments we have not say in who get hired, but we have a say in who becomes governor and Senators and I know for sure that there will definitely be changes coming and our satisfaction is when governor goes the high official goes, likewise for the senators.
Maybe, just maybe we will find persons who can perform their jobs correctly and not put rejected/wrongdoers from other section of the government.
Although CIF has provided us with a marvelous forum with which to discuss issues and make good decisions for the future of our communities, rarely do we rise to the challenge.
Instead, we take the path of least resistance and do nothing except complain, point fingers and blame others.
This post and the responders are falling prey to this trap again.
It’s an easy thing to say we must elect the right people for the jobs in government, but if our community continues producing dysfunctional citizens, who else is there?
We have got to get to the root of the problem and fix that.
Everything else is a waste of time. Unless you want to spend the rest of your life complaining and pointing fingers and blaming others…
Hmmmm….. Looks like Estimac predicted Sen. Nelson’s faux pas.
Nevertheless, in this climate of severe curruption, secret plots, serious financial crimes against the people of the VI, and horrific crime out of control, a little tirade is called for at least.