Matt Jones Update

Officer Jones' status changed to "unpaid leave;" administrative hearing to be scheduled

Last Update: 1/10/07 10:19 a.m.

One of the more persistent queries in emails and comments from our gentle readers over the past 5-1/2 months has been "What's happening with the Matt Jones case?" Except for the release of the November 3, 2006 Mark DaCaria report, which exonerated Matt Jones of any criminal misconduct, the answer to that query has been exactly "nada." For the most part, Officer Jones has languished in a "paid administrative leave" limbo since his original suspension from duty on July 27, 2006. Some of the more cynical amongst our readership believed Matt Jones would ultimately retire from the O.P.D. a decade or two down the road, still on paid administrative leave. To date, this situation has been politically far too hot to handle, even for the ever-petulant and vengeful Boss Godfrey. As we'll explain in the following paragraphs, the situation has now changed.

As our gentle readers will recall, Officer Jones was suspended from O.P.D. duty, and placed on administrative leave late on the evening of July 27, 2006, hours after being spotted by Boss Godfrey in the vicinity of the infamous van which launched the "vangate" controversy . The administration has maintained since that time that officer Jones' suspension "had nothing to do" with legally-protected off-duty political activity. The Vangate event was merely coincidental with the timing of other disciplinary action, Boss Godfrey has said, supposedly with a completely straight face.

Rather than provide a tedious re-hash of the facts of the case, we incorporate here our newly-compiled Quotagate/Vangate/Matt Jones Collection, consisting of a selection of Weber County Forum articles, and materials from other sources, most of which were produced contemporaneously with the vangate events. A quick scan of these articles ought to refresh the recollection of our regular readers, and even bring new readers up to speed on this topic, we think.

In this connection, we'd like to direct our readers' particular attention to a newly-obtained and previously unpublished document, the Weber County Investigators' Report, which is also linked at the bottom of the above collection. This document is the report upon which County Attorney DeCaria apparently relied for the preparation of his November 3, 2006 findings. It fully describes the complaints forming the basis for the Jones' continuing disciplinary action; and we're sure our readers will find it most enlightening. Many of our readers had expressed their suspicion that Boss Godfrey would dredge up whatever dirt he could find to justify the firing of Officer Jones on grounds other than his political activity. These suspicions are conformed by this report, we think. We believe our readers will agree from a careful reading of this report that Boss Godfrey has scraped the bottom of the barrel.

We learned late last week that there has now been a change in Officer Jones' status. As of last Friday, Officer Jones' employment posture has now been reduced to "unpaid leave," according to a highly-reliable source. Not only that, officer Jones has been informed that an O.P.D. administrative hearing will be scheduled imminently, (possibly as early as this week,) for the purpose of determining his future employment status.

That's right, folks. It's apparent that Boss Godfrey now believes that the "heat's off." The story has grown cold in the public mind; and we speculate that Boss Godfrey now intends to follow through, and give Officer Jones the axe, just as he originally intended back on July 27, 2006, when he told Chief Greiner, we infer from the reported facts, to "take care of the problem."

We'd be particularly interested in hearing our readers' impressions of the Weber County Investigators' Report. The entertaining of thoughtful reader analysis is half the fun, we think, here at Weber County Forum.

Comments, anyone?

Update 1/10/07 10:19 a.m. MT: Scott Schwebke reports this morning that Matt Jones' administrative hearing has been calendared for this coming Friday. January 12, 2007. Chief Greiner will reportedly act as hearing officer. Although Officer Jones seems to be resigned to the fact that his termination is a fait accompli, we suggest that this hearing presents an ideal opportunity for Chief Greiner to exhibit leadership, and to defuse a situation that's needlessly spiraled out-of-control -- so far.

A decision exonerating Jones would go a long way toward mitigating Emerald City's damages in any lawsuits which might spring from this unfortunate cahin of events. Perhaps a lawsuit could even be avoided altogether, under the "right" set of facts. Our examination of the above linked Investigators' Report indicates that the accusations against Jones are pathetically thin, even by the preponerance of evidence standard of proof which would be applied to an administrative hearing of this nature. We accordingly call upon Chief Greiner to exercise prudence and thoughtful discretion in this matter, and to demonstrate a level of wisdom that has been heretofore conspicously absent in Boss Godfrey's choreography of this matter.