KACo Needs to Get a Clue
Last Friday, we read that KACo would wastefully hire two consultants to teach them not to spend taxpayer money at strip clubs. We thought the action itself smacked of corruption, deciding to waste more tax money on expensive consultants to provide the leadership of KACo with the common-sense it so sorely lacked.
The most direct and economical route would be to fire its leadership, no? As a commenter put it on the Herald-Leader:
"You clean house and start over again with a group of people with a strong set of ethics and a willingness to work against the status quo."
We became more concerned when we read that the first consultant would be Paul Patton's Inspector General for the Transportation Cabinet. While most people remember the Tina Conner - nursing home home scandal, you might forget the tie in to transportation where traffic tickets were "fixed", cronies got raises, and the Office of Minority Affairs was implicated in falsely certifying Connor's company as a 'disadvantaged business'. These are the ethics violations that Patton admitted to.
Robert Russell was definitely KYTC's IG during this time. What we at the KyCFG don't know is what role the Transportation IG played in uncovering these violations: whether he was the hero that pursued them, or whether he was a part of the problem until Patton cried in DC. It seems an obvious question, but no one has yet reported on it.
So we don't know if Russell is he a good hire or just another member of the good-ol'-boy system hired to help KACo pretend that people shouldn't be fired over all of this.
Today we learn that Mr. Russell has some current troubles as well:
Robert "Bobby" Russell, the lawyer hired by the Kentucky Association of Counties to do a management review of the organization, is the subject of a state ethics inquiry stemming from his work at the state Transportation Cabinet.
...
The subpoena, obtained by the Herald-Leader through an Open Records request, also asks for documents related to Russell's hiring of former Circuit Judge William W. Trude, Jr. in the cabinet's legal office, as well as the promotion of staff attorney Jesse Rowe.
The Louisville Courier-Journal first reported in April that those personnel moves were voided because Russell and the personnel panel assigned to screen applicants didn't follow the proper procedures.
The Kentucky League of Cities' director has already resigned for similar but lesser troubles. KACo needs to get a clue and stop wasting our money.
