Blame Game

We now have a new standard for absurd excuses from Fairfield’s County Council. Monday past, two council members, incredibly, blamed the citizenry for Council’s two year failure to address the county’s Safety Teams’ staffing crisis. That’s right, the citizens, are at fault for not giving our Safety Teams appropriately competitive salaries, thus, creating dangerously low staffing levels and costly employee turnover. Further, this misguided slander was made despite the fact the citizens were not made aware of the crisis until last Monday. Clearly, Council’s self-accountability sank to a new low on Monday night.

The aforementioned rationale begs the question-when has council listened to citizen input on anything significant? We certainly, were not involved in the establishment of the infamous double secret $50,000,000 shell entity called Fairfield Facilities Corporation. Certainly, the $500,000 fiasco known as the Drawdy Park leaning football field was not a byproduct of citizen input. The unnecessary and insider driven $400,000 cost of the latest Strategic Plan was yet another example of sharp detour around the citizens. Yes, Council has a long history of bypassing citizen input, thus, cannot make a believable statement blaming citizens for their failures.

To be fair, the “Manpower Initiative” is a sign that our government may be finally understanding our longing for an efficient and effective government. Perhaps this initiative will provide us with services which are more commensurate with Fairfield’s high taxes and extreme spending ways.

We also must acknowledge Council did FINALLY air this important problem. Plus, Council gets praise for wanting to address the Safety Team’s issues both short and long term, FINALLY. Maybe self-accountability and citizen inclusion are just around the corner. Is that a light I see?

Randy Bright

Ridgeway