Let me finish the yr by saying how terribly improper I used to be concerning the lawsuit in opposition to the Rams. I used to be not simply in opposition to it, I ridiculed it. It makes us appear like losers, I wrote. We’re the previous man whose younger spouse leaves and so he sues her. Is that basically who we need to be?
Whereas I demeaned the lawsuit, Jim Bennett and his colleagues took depositions, devised authorized methods, stuffed motions and got here up with a $750 million settlement.
We instantly have a lot cash we don’t know find out how to spend it. What a wierd —and great — place to be in. We sit across the kitchen desk, grin and bicker. Ought to we purchase a brand new automotive? Construct a deck? Get a sizzling tub? Give cash to nieces and nephew and second-cousins, folks we hardly know? Possibly we will do all this stuff.
Had the area listened to me, we’d nonetheless be the identical sourpusses we’ve at all times been. The previous automotive runs simply superb. It’s too chilly to consider a deck. We’d infrequently use a sizzling tub. Let the kin fend for themselves.
Individuals are additionally studying…
Bah humbug. That was just about our civic motto. Our issues appeared so insurmountable that many individuals gave up and even appeared to lean into our area’s decline. Then got here the lawsuit and our new downside was, Is our huge wad getting sufficient curiosity?
In different phrases, we received the lottery, and I’m the man who argued in opposition to shopping for the ticket. It’s worse than that. We didn’t even have to purchase the ticket. We simply needed to settle for it. The legal professionals did all their work on the if-come. Do you hear what I’m saying? They don’t receives a commission if we don’t win. That seems like a successful formulation for the area.
We have to sue extra usually. I’m not advocating fraud. We is not going to fake to slide and fall. But when we do have the misfortune to slide and fall on any person’s property, we must always a minimum of take into account authorized motion. That’s all I’m saying. Let’s be conscious.
In my private effort in that course, I’d wish to counsel the area’s first lawsuit of the brand new yr. We must always sue the Boulware Group, the search agency town used to search out its new chief of police.
This isn’t to say the brand new chief received’t be a incredible chief. Everybody ought to root for him. The area wants town to succeed and to try this, town wants a very good police chief.
At the least that’s the frequent notion. The civic-minded members of the St. Louis Police Basis actually assume it’s an necessary job. That group simply volunteered to enhance the brand new chief’s wage by $100,000. The previous chief made $153,000. The brand new chief will make $275,000.
We used to depart the number of a chief to the enterprise group. The governor would appoint wealthy and highly effective males to the Board of Police Commissioners, and the board would choose the chief. It was assumed, rightfully, that the enterprise leaders had been involved with holding a lid on issues. That was once the police division’s major job. The system labored.
However St. Louis gained its independence, so to talk, and town is now supposed to select its personal chief. Though you’d assume this may clearly be the mayor’s determination, the personnel director mentioned it was his. By some means or different, the personnel director type of relented and easily screened the candidates. He then offered the mayor with two candidates, each of whom had been white males with years of service within the division.
The mayor was not happy with this, and we ended up hiring the Boulware Group to do a nationwide search.
Oh, I like nationwide searches! Now we have skilled them right here on the newspaper when we’ve got wanted a brand new boss. Morale takes an preliminary hit, after all, particularly among the many locals who thought for years they could sometime be the boss. No one right here is sweet sufficient? However morale rebounds when the brand new boss is available in and doesn’t know which finish is up. Why do you go north towards Chicago to get to the East Aspect? Why do we’ve got dozens of tiny municipalities? This isn’t a straightforward place to study. We’re inbred. The gamers have lengthy histories and unusual tie-ins with one another. Who’s the brand new boss speculated to belief? His new prime aides, most of whom wished his job?
It’s enjoyable to look at, but it surely often ends badly.
However let me get to the purpose of the lawsuit. When the mayor rejected the 2 native white guys, most folk figured she would like a Black chief. And why not? Crime touches us all, however because of years of grinding poverty, Black neighborhoods are most impacted. And when was the final time a metropolis erupted as a result of police shot a white man?
It’s all difficult. Some white males, I’m instructed, have an ideal capability for understanding, however it’s straightforward to see why many cities with vital Black populations select Black chiefs.
So shouldn’t the Boulware Group have discovered a minimum of one viable Black candidate?
They didn’t. Their nationwide search produced two Black males, Larry Boone, former chief of Norfolk, Virginia, and Melron Kelly, deputy chief of Columbia, South Carolina.
Kelly didn’t need the job. He wouldn’t even come right here for an interview. You aren’t a viable candidate when you don’t need the job. Boone was radioactive. He left his job at Norfolk earlier this yr beneath mysterious circumstances. He didn’t attend the press convention at which it was introduced that he was gone. He wouldn’t clarify what led to the abrupt resignation. You can’t rent a person with that type of mysterious baggage. He was not a viable candidate.
The third candidate Boulware got here up with was one of many two white males the mayor had already rejected.
That left Robert Tracy, the chief of police in Wilmington, Delaware. He was “Crime Management Strategist” in Chicago earlier than getting the highest job in Wilmington, so he has expertise coming to a brand new metropolis as chief. That’s promising. However for functions of our lawsuit, I ought to point out that the Wilmington Metropolis Council handed a “no confidence” vote in Tracy’s management earlier this yr, and he had introduced plans to step down even earlier than getting the highest job right here.
Once more, I point out that just for the needs of our lawsuit in opposition to the Boulware Group. Native politics may be nasty and unfair.
It does make me surprise, although, concerning the Police Basis’s determination to throw in that additional $100,000 for his wage. It’s not as if we had been in a bidding conflict in opposition to Wilmington. One of many council members, when reached by this newspaper, mentioned, “Y’all can have him and good luck.”
I think that the Police Basis is run by individuals who head their very own corporations and mistakenly assume that staff are thrilled when the bosses do properly financially. Fact is, town is dropping officers to different departments as a result of smaller municipalities pay higher than town. The choice to pay such a good-looking wage to the brand new chief will not be prone to elevate morale.
I don’t blame the brand new chief for taking the additional cash. Who wouldn’t?
Once more, the fault lies with the Boulware Group. They had been supposed to search out candidates keen to work for fly-over pay, not coastal pay.
So let’s sue the Boulware Group.
And good luck to the brand new chief. He has to grasp this isn’t private, it’s simply the way in which we roll.
