Conflicted Commissioners

For all the “fingers on the pulse of the people” balderdash that escapes the mouths of county commissioners they sure can be a tone deaf lot.

This was on wrenching display last week as two county commissioners worked with and collected paychecks from the contractor staging boom lines in the event that oil from the Deepwater Horizon leak enters county waters.

And these commissioners seemed to care not a whit about the hypocrisy of their turning this effort to protect and preserve the county’s precious ecosystems into a money-making exercise, demonstrating for all the arrogance, defiance toward naysayers and bullying skills they have honed in office.

The commissioners, chairman Carmen McLemore, and Commissioner Billy Traylor, were hired by contractor SWS at wage rates many in the county would crawl a mile to receive.

Particularly the 12 percent of the county’s workforce currently unemployed and seeking any paycheck possible.

Now, Mr. McLemore and Mr. Traylor are certainly entitled, like any working age man or woman, to seek a job.

They underwent the training through the programs offered by BP. As alleged leaders of the county their involvement in any boom operations or clean-up would be commendable under other circumstances.

But according to BP’s guidelines for the Vessels of Opportunity program, Mr. McLemore’s rate of pay to do little that anybody noticed was $1,200 per day, or $100 per hour for the 12 hours that was a typical work day for the boom staging.

That was also roughly $88 an hour more than that earned by workers doing the heavy lifting of booms from vessel to shore.

Further, what made Mr. McLemore the right man for the job?

Why not so many others who would be far more experienced and savvy boat captains for work on St. Joseph Bay?

Given the potential impacts on their businesses from this leak, $1,200 a day would surely help.

On another front, it was Mr. McLemore who cast the deciding vote last week for the county to hire outside legal representation to pursue damage claims.

How might that action be compromised by having elected officials working for British Petroleum, which would ultimately be the target of any lawsuit to recover funding or damages?

Apparently the words conflict of interest are unfamiliar to commissioners because voting to sue a company at the beginning of the week and ending the week by working for that company pretty much defines conflict of interest.

Conflict compounded Tuesday night when the same three who voted to sue, and who secured jobs for themselves for relatives, abstained from a successful motion to rescind the litigation agreement.

But the most repulsive part was the response to questions about the propriety of working for a company the county intended to sue, and at such high wages while so many are out of work.

Mr. McLemore asserted it was just a few “jealous” people complaining and Mr. Traylor attested he was just working for the people of the county.

Yes, at $400 a day.

No, Mr. McLemore, nobody is jealous. They are angry.

That is the meat on this plate, commissioners not knowing or caring about the perception of securing well-paying jobs while many in the county lack a steady paycheck, buckle under mounting bills – including county tax bills – and are sent to the back of the line because they lack the connections or admittance into the good-old-boy club commissioners enjoy.

Commissioners who “earn” over $26,000 a year for being commissioners, making them already employed and for this county, not badly compensated.

One resident called what Mr. McLemore and Mr. Traylor were doing double-dipping and that is spot on; dipping into the public trough for a decent salary, health and retirement benefits many working folks will never realize while dipping into the deep pockets of BP at a time of turmoil to further fatten their wallets.

While so many wallets grow cobwebs.

Commissioners should be ashamed, but, of course, are not because like spoiled athletes and entertainers, they emit the stench of entitlement, a bearing that the cushy seat on the commission dais negates normal rules of human decency.

At least in part, voters are responsible for that sense of entitlement by returning these self-loving individuals to office, but the guess here is that voters’ patience has expired on elected official from the Robert Moore Annex to the White House.

If Mr. McLemore and Mr. Traylor, or any other commissioner, is truly expending his time and energy for the good of the county and the money they are earning is secondary, here is a suggestion.

Cut a check for the amount earned working for BP and donate the dollars to any of several local charities and outreach programs providing for the needy and unemployed of the county, including those left behind by commissioners’ sense of entitlement.

That won’t deodorize the whiff of favoritism and conflicting agendas, but it seems about the only lipstick that can be applied to this pig.