When the owner of a Seattle beauty salon had her application for a loan from the Rainier Valley Community Development Fund denied last year, that was bad enough. When she later received what appeared to be a second rejection letter for the same loan application, she discovered that the reason for her inability to get the loan was that she is a "crazy ass bitch."This in a letter from her government. You see, they had torn up the street for some sort of boondoggle "improvement" (likely an improvement to some Government Official's cousin's construction business), but had provided grants to businesses impacted by the disruption. Our heroine had a beauty parlor, and most of her clients couldn't get to the shop anymore. And so she applied to her Benevolent
Be sure to click through and RTWT - they have a copy of the letter.
At this point, it's fair to ask what would happen if this were a business that had turned her down this way. The employee responsible would have been dismissed for cause, probably the same day. Instead, what happened at the Government agency?
The letter was the product of the fund's Executive Director, who was subsequently suspended for one week without pay. She also penned a follow-up letter to the applicant in which she apologized for her actions, but stopped short of calling herself a crazy ass bitch ...An Executive Director is, of course, politically connected. She's still there (you saw the part about "politically connected", right?).
A business that treated its customers would lose clients to other businesses that treated them better. This? If you don't like the service provided by your Government, you can take your business to another Government.
Oh, wait - you can't. No wonder government services stink.
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:Via The Antiplanner.
Look on my works, yeMightyLeftie-Statists, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.- Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias
6 comments:
Suspended for a week without pay? Very likely will use "sick days" and personal days to make up for it. Why would they ever actually fire her, you know, like in a real business?
I also like how she can identify with the victim, as she too, lived in a "majority minority" community!
There are legal reasons for this, and it goes like this:
A public employee has the same rights to Due Process under the Constitution as anyone else. This means that a government agency cannot violate their rights, any more than they can violate yours. Since terminating someone is a punishment, when a public employer seeks to terminate an employee, that employee enjoys all of the Constitutional Rights that an accused criminal does: speedy trial before peers, rules of evidence apply,the right to legal counsel, etc.
There are quite a few court cases that have ruled this way. Bishop v. Wood, 426 U. S. 341, 345-347 (1976), Laney v. Holbrook, 150 Fla. 622, 8 So.2d 465, 467 (1942)
Here are some examples:
"A non-probationary municipal employee has a constitutionally protected property interest in such employment entitling him to protection against unjust and unlawful job deprivation." City of Palm Bay v. Bauman, 475 So. 2d 1322 - Fla: Dist. Court of Appeal, 5th Dist. 1985
"As the Supreme Court has noted, "[p]olice officers do not give up all their constitutional rights by putting on a uniform. . . . [They have] once employed and attaining seniority, an employment status entitling [them] to protection against unjust and unlawful job deprivation." Farmer v. City of Ft. Lauderdale, 427 So. 2d 187, 191 (Fla. 1983).
I am not saying that I fully agree, but those are the rules that we currently live by.
Except this would not be a case of "Unjust and unlawful job deprevation." Firing would be fully justified by the government employee's action.
That depends on a number of factors:
1 What is the employer's policy on this?
2 Was this mailed to the lady by the employee being terminated? Or was this, as claimed, an internal joke that was mailed by another employee that was hoping to use the incident to damage the boss and perhaps gain advantage?
3 What were the actions taken in the past for similar incidents?
There are a number of factors to be considered, and the employee is entitled to due process. This is the same reason why the guy who burned the Koran in NYC will likely get his job back.
But seriously - was she really a crazy ass bitch?
They say truth is the best defense. It's not libel if they're telling the truth about you.
Less like defamation of character, more like definition of character.
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