The Standard-Examiner describes the latest episode in the long-simmering Jon Greiner Hatch Act Saga,with this morning's Scott Schwebke story, which reports that our Ogden Police Chief/State Senator is now mired in the midst of a multi-day administrative hearing, wherein it will ultimately be determined whether Ogden City's carefully-crafted Hatch Act Compliance Program, (whereby Chief Greiner has been formally insulated from duties and authority related to federal grants) is sufficient to remove the matter from Hatch Act jurisdiction:
• Hatch Act hearing puts senator/Ogden police chief's future on the lineCuriously, and despite the Godfrey administration's otherwise scrupulous efforts to distance Chief Greiner from any official acts related to application, management or disposition of federal grant funds, Mr. Schwebke's morning story reveals that the administration may have nevertheless clownishly dropped the ball, by allowing Chief Greiner to affix his signature and/or initials to a number of grant applications and/or other grant-related documents. This slip-up of course thus provides the federal Office of Special Counsel a seemingly significant angle of attack -- a circumstance which could have been easily avoided. In that connection, it seems to us that it it would have made better sense for the administration to have required Ogden CAO John Patterson or Assistant Chief Tarwater to have signed off on these documents. Why they committed this particular bone-headed blunder we'll never know, although we will snarkily suggest that it does seem consistent with the general level of incompetence we've come to expect from "Boss Godfrey's Gang that Can't Shoot Straight."
We're posting this article mainly for archival consistency, inasmuch as we don't reasonably anticipate any real news about the outcome of this week's hearings for at least a few more months.
Nevertheless, we'll open the floor for any appropriate reader comments.
