Historically Good leaders make tough decisions, even if unpopular, gut-wrenching, against popular political pillars or even against friends. Truman and McArthur come to mind.
Despite it causing every bone in his body to shake and ache, Governor Beebe needs to make a tough decision. I suspect that he never read the Military’s Manual on Leadership. Actually, he probably never read anything on the subject. To a certain extent you can’t rally fault him.
You see he’s a career politician, and that requires special skills unrelated to getting the job done and making tough decisions. He stumbled into or formulated, if you think that he’s that cunning and sneaky, the political career enhancement strategy of “don’t do anything to upset anyone, cause a controversy, or force serious consequences. Just float and do a few popular things”. Like, for example, reduce the grocery sales tax. (And thank you very much for that.) Meanwhile the departments he’s to oversee as the Chief Executive of the State are running amok! But to address these things might cause some controversy or impact some political cronies.
Nevertheless, he needs to “man up” as they say. He should ask each Game and Fish Commissioner to immediately submit resignations.
Despite the fact Beebe appointed some of them, he needs to take them all out and start over with a batch that at least starts with “clean hands” and, well, maybe even no state cars. (OK Shirley, I’m dreaming on that.) They have, as a group, demonstrated on a consistent basis that they operate “out side” the laws. (In the old west that was called an “outlaw”.) Whether the laws are State Statues, their own Commission’s procedures, or just plain old laws of honor, integrity, and sound judgment.
To review some of their recent actions:
1. They had more vehicles than employees. To overcome this imbalance one Commissioner took TWO home to his farm.
2. They had their lawyer figure out how they could ignore the Freedom of Information Law. What better way to avoid the embarrassment of having folks discover that they have poor business practices, to whit:
3. Now its been discovered that as a matter of normal business practice they pay out monies without contracts, prior to contract awards, and over the contractual limits. $800,000.00 in “mistakes” in one year may not seem like a lot of money to you, but folks, that could buy the G&F commissioners another 20 cars or so.
Governor Beebe didn’t cause this mess. Perhaps some of the members he appointed have not even been part and parcel to these activities. Nevertheless, the public has lost confidence in the Leadership at the G&F. As Julius Caesar once noted, “Caesar’s wife must be above suspicion.” None of the current commissioners reach that pinnacle of trust. The Governor should step in and demand the immediate resignations of ALL on board.
Two things might result. First it just might send a signal to the next batch to be appointed. Second, it might be a wakeup call to the other departments in the state to get their act together ASAP! Actually a third thing might happen, The Beebe might turn into a real leader. (OK Shirley, I know that I’m reaching).
Sadly, this action requires a leader; a leader who is willing to make tough decisions and tough actions.
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