Keep the Civil Service Commission

We mentioned "Republican" Senator Scott Jenkins in an earlier article, and how he "killed" his own eminent domain revival bill when it became apparent his fellow Republican senators thought him to be "nuts." This previously obscure and relatively unknown senate hack has suddenly come to the public forefront recently, with a flurry of pro-neoCON bills.

We have no idea what's recently driving Senator Jenkins, nor why he's come to the neoCON forefront. Maybe it has something to do with Mr. Jolley, the Ogden City Council bagman lobbyist who, for unknown reasons, still remains on the Ogden Council payroll, despite the swearing in, a month or so ago, of a whole new non-rubber-stamp council group, who were elected to clean up Ogden City's dysfunctional city government.

At any rate, suburban Senator Jenkins still has another bill on the table which is designed to foul up the proper function of our city. Here's a link to his SB 229, which is a true marvel of "intelligent" neoCON draftsmanship. What Senator Jenkins did, in all his brilliance, (with the helpful assistance of Ogden City's Mark Johnson, we understand) was to take a magic marker to an existing statute, and cross out a word or two.

The purpose of this bill, of course, is to punish firefighters and police officers, the people upon whom we depend most primarily for our safety. The object is to remove an objective civil service board from public safety employee protection, and to reduce elite firefighters and police to "employees at will," just like the employees who cut the lawns in the parks... or the employees in the Ogden City recorder's office. What this bill will do, if enacted, is to give tyrannical Utah city administrators unrestrained hiring and firing authority over our professional and primary Ogden City public safety employees. If all goes well for the aparatchiks in the Ogden Administration, Public Safety employees will be grovelling VERY SOON.

I talked with Republican Utah Legislative District 8 Representative Joe Murray today. He knows more than a little bit about the firefighters, having served for about thirty years with the Ogden City Fire Department, before being elected to the state legislature. He's sympathetic to the firefighters, and also VERY sympathetic to the Ogden City Police Department, and their impending plight.

He pledged to me today, that he'll fight with all his effort to kill neoCON Senator Jenkins' ill-conceived SB 229, and to prevent the neoCON drones from reducing our Ogden City Police and Fire Departments to the equivalent of "parks" employees. Joe Murray understands that the layer of protection afforded by a civil service commission is essential to preserving high quality and professional public safety in larger Utah cities; and I'm assured he will not let our firefighters and police down on that.

Please email Rep. Joe Murray at this address, and offer your support for his efforts in this regard.

You can also email your other legislators from these sites:

State Senate

Utah House of Representatives

Let's stand up for the men and women who risk their lives every day to protect our freedom and safety.

Tell your legislators to vote "NO" on neoCON Senator Jenkins' radical SB 229.

Reader comments are welcome as always