Some on the City Council pushed back against the Mayor's very forceful and domineering actions. City Council representative Deborah Scott asked for a job description from both gentleman. Mayor Littlefield told her to "just Google it." Apparently, he was not kidding. The next morning Mayor Littlefield sent out an email that he literally admits to simply ripping off the website from the National Gang Center.
So apparently we are suppose to believe that these two men are completely qualified to organize and execute a city-wide government initiative to combat crime, even though there was no public vetting, no oversight, the head of the initiative did not even submit a formal resume and his qualifications seem to suggest questionable professional sensibilities, and the Mayor did not bother to ask either of them to submit their own job descriptions or even to have a member of his staff write them. Instead, they "Googled it".
I have to wonder, did the same level of oversight and vetting go into the Mayor's other hand-selected appointees, like Paul Page? Paul Page was hand selected by Mayor Ron Littlefield to head the Divison of General Services, a position created specifically for him. Paul Page had previously been fired from FOUR other municipal governments prior to being appointed by Mayor Littlefield with no oversight by the City Council. Paul Page resigned from the Chattanooga city government in October after the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission issued a report detailing his sexual harassment of city employees and subsequent retaliation against them for reporting it. To date, no public investigation of the supervisors, Paul Page or the Mayor has taken place. The Mayor publicly defended Page in his comments.
I think that the public, myself included, are more than justified in having a healthy skepticism of Mayor Littlefield when he tells the citizens of Chattanooga and their representatives on the City Council "just trust me!" when appointing new hires.
Also of interest in the Mayor's email is the delegation of "duties and responsibilities" between these two men: 1. Suppression and 2. Prevention and Intervention. We can imagine why "Suppression" is listed as number one. Missing all together from the list is the 4th point of the model that Boyd Patterson promised would be "central" to his work and the focus of the initiative - opportunity. Seems like the Mayor is again saying one thing and doing another. Paying lip service to prioritizing social programs to uplift areas of concentrated poverty in our city and provide real employment opportunities for struggling families and then only implementing more of the same old tactics that have historically proven to only result in failure - trying to incarcerate our way out of crime.
As one of my friends said, the gangs are in the real racket. If you want to go where the money is, just make friends with the Mayor.
UPDATE 1.12.2012: James Mapp, former NAACP chair, wrote a Letter to the Editor in the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the growing levels of systemic racism in our city and the Mayor's budding gang initiative:
Also of interest in the Mayor's email is the delegation of "duties and responsibilities" between these two men: 1. Suppression and 2. Prevention and Intervention. We can imagine why "Suppression" is listed as number one. Missing all together from the list is the 4th point of the model that Boyd Patterson promised would be "central" to his work and the focus of the initiative - opportunity. Seems like the Mayor is again saying one thing and doing another. Paying lip service to prioritizing social programs to uplift areas of concentrated poverty in our city and provide real employment opportunities for struggling families and then only implementing more of the same old tactics that have historically proven to only result in failure - trying to incarcerate our way out of crime.
As one of my friends said, the gangs are in the real racket. If you want to go where the money is, just make friends with the Mayor.
UPDATE 1.12.2012: James Mapp, former NAACP chair, wrote a Letter to the Editor in the Chattanooga Times Free Press about the growing levels of systemic racism in our city and the Mayor's budding gang initiative:
"Filling two new positions as outlined (in a Times Free Press story, Jan. 4) may be good propaganda but a very weak approach to solving our problems."You can read the rest of Mr. Mapp's letter HERE.