Mayor's New $70,000 Appointment Presents Email as Resume, Lists Blog Posts as Pertinent Qualifications

Mayor Ron Littlefield today announced a much belated plan that will attempt to finally deal systematically with gang violence across the city of Chattanooga. The Mayor is seeking to implement a program based upon the Comprehensive Gang Model, and is to be led by Frederick Houser and Boyd Patterson. These two men have been hand selected by the Mayor for appointment to two new positions he has created within city government specifically for them to head this initiative. These men will report directly to the Mayor and their appointments will not be approved by the City Council. In fact, tonight was the first the Chattanooga City Council had heard of the Mayor's plans for the creation of two such positions that will be paying between an estimated $70,000 to $90,000 a piece. No job description was provided nor created for these two men, both of whom will begin drawing their paycheck tomorrow.

So what are the qualifications of these two men? Well, their resumes were presented to the City Council tonight. Except one of the resumes was not so much a resume as it was an email to his wife.

Boyd Patterson, who again is going to be paid upwards of a cool $70,000 to $90,000 by our city government, has a section in his "resume" entitled "CHRISTIAN PUBLICATIONS" which lists titles such as "God's Legal Advice for Attorneys" and "The Action Commandment". What is interesting about these "CHRISTIAN PUBLICATIONS" is that we can only assume that Boyd Patterson has specifically placed them on his "resume" because he wishes them to be taken as qualifying considerations for his new job. Also of interest is that these "CHRISTIAN PUBLICATIONS" are not really publications. They are blog posts. Seriously. Blog posts about Jesus and lawyers. If blog posts are meaningful qualifications for office, then Joe Lance should be made Anti-gang Czar.

What are the other pertinent areas of work history that qualify Mr. Patterson for his position in city government? Well, another section of Boyd Patterson's "resume" is entitled "ENTREPRENEURIAL HOBBY" and lists the IPAD application he invented for jury selection. 

Mr. Patterson's other qualifications (graduating from a private fourth-tier law school and prosecuting gang members in his work for the Hamilton County District Attorney's Office) do, admittedly seem more pertinent to his appointment. However, the lack of public scrutiny and oversight of the Mayor's selection of appointments (appointments that are not approved by the City Council, are not subject to a broader national search, and are not the result of a larger process of public deliberation) is particularly disturbing in the wake of the Mayor's efforts to defend General Services Director Paul Page, a man who had been fired from at least four previous government jobs, after he sexually harassed at least two city employees and then retaliated against them after they reported it. Paul Page, like Boyd Patterson and Frederick Houser, was appointed by the Mayor to a position he created in city government specifically for him and reported directly to the Mayor with little to no broader oversight or scrutiny and, ultimately, accountability.