The resignation of Johnson County Emergency Services District Executive Director Joey Reed was a great start, but as I pointed out in a previous post some more changes in the lineup need to happen.
In the Joshua Star's coverage of Reed's resignation last Thursday they delve into the actions this year by ESD board Treasurer, Keith Kelly. In August Mr. Kelly left a rather telling voice-mail message for Joshua Fire Chief, Wayne Baker. It came after Mr. Kelly learned of a second open records request for a previous year's financial audit of the ESD. Earlier that week the City of Joshua formally requested the 2008-2009 fiscal year audit which we would learn later had not even been submitted to the auditors until May of this year and would finally be completed and submitted to the commissioner's court some 100 days late. The Emergency Services Disaster was unfolding quickly at that time and we learned that they were having trouble reconciling their books.
With no completed audit of the previous year's finances, internal bookkeeping strife and an impending new year budget process looming the ESD board were able to decide on $800,000 being the magic number for paid fire fighter staffing for the district to improve services promised to the voters. Mr. Kelly was apparently the architect of that proposal and it certainly wasn't hard for him to find the cash in the budget since he successfully campaigned for the 100% tax increase just 3 months earlier - kind of an interesting move for a board member of a TEA Party organization, but I digress. One would expect that the ESD would review all the call data from the last few years to determine where the limited paid staff would benefit the most people, but I guess that wasn't the procedure based on Mr. Kelly's message to Chief Baker. "if Joshua doesn’t want to play Joshua’s not getting the staffing" he states which certainly doesn't seem like statistics were driving the decision making process. Sounds more to me like departments or cities that don't rock the boat would be more in line for paid fire fighters. Is that good stewardship of our tax dollars and the best way to improve public safety? Is it how any of us would want an appointed official who decides how our tax money is spent to act? A return call from Chief Baker to discuss this was "really going to matter how I’m going to present this daytime staffing", Kelly said. Wait a minute here, if Keith Kelly wasn't satisfied with the outcome of the conversation then he could change his mind on how he presented the staffing solution to the rest of the board? Sounds to me like a threat to manipulate tax payers funds from one recipient to another. That's some mighty fine politics there. He was convinced he was "the best advocate" the City of Joshua had to "get this fixed" though so he was well aware of the ESD issues at that time. After being on the ESD board for a year and a half of his current two year appointment all of a sudden when the eyes were upon their failing organization he had a cape on as the superhero of straightening out the ESD. What was he doing before we all found out how bad things were over there?
So with Mr. Kelly's appointed term coming to and end on December 31st it would make sense to go ahead and turn over the position to a fresh face not associated with any of the bad things uncovered this year, right? Not according to his appointing commissioner, Jerry Stringer. As he was quoted in the Joshua Star, "That appointee is going to stand. I'm proud of the fact my appointee has worked to improve the ESD." I'd be open to hearing about Mr. Kelly's supposed improvements, but they would have to be pretty remarkable to outweigh calling a city fire chief and making threats. I hope Commissioner Stringer will reconsider this decision and replace Mr. Kelly to ensure the ESD board operates with the utmost credibility and accountability to the tax payers.
A.J.
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