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Marolt Appointment Erodes Public Trust
Posted
1-14-2000
We've survived the change of the millennium and our web site is alive and
well. It also seems that old political faction of Paletta, Marolt, and
friends is also alive and well. If you read the local paper on Saturday,
January 8, 2000 you saw that the Housing Authority, under the iron fist of
Mr. Paletta created a cushy $70,000/year job for my former colleague Terry
Marolt. People are outraged and disillusioned. During my daily travels that
day, every person that stopped to talk, and there were many, had something
negative to say. Since this is a web site available to all ages, I will not
repeat what some people said. But you can imagine it wasn't very nice.
This action just confirms
what I've been saying all along about that crew. They brazenly do not care
what anyone thinks of their actions. There is no justification for making a
job for Marolt. It really brings to light the issue of Mr. Paletta running
the Authority the way he likes, hand-picking the Authority members, and then
having them rubber stamp whatever actions he wants. What I find most
incredible, is that the Authority members were not notified of the action
until they saw it on the agenda, and they still approved the action. People
are suspect about the accountability of Authorities and this event is a
great example of why.
Mr. Paletta claimed the
Housing Authority needed to split its operations to ensure better
accountability. If it had been split and they hired a person based on
qualifications, no one would have noticed. But to simply hand the job to
Terry Marolt, smacks so bad of a repayment for many years of accommodation,
it really calls for greater investigation. Is it an ethics violation for the
Housing Authority Board members, all appointed by Marolt, to vote to give
him that job. I don't know, but I sure would like a definitive answer. Why
will the many off shoot projects under the Housing Authority, the ones that
Mr. Marolt will oversee, be administered by a person without Civil Service
credentials? Every other program the Housing Authority operates is
administered by civil servants. Marolt's position was hand crafted for
Terry. And that stinks!
Why do actions like this one
continue in Westmoreland County? I think it is because we still have people
who believe that what you think doesn't matter. They see the public sector
as an area ripe for their own exploitation. They believe that because
they've worked in the public sector, they are somehow entitled to more and
more. It is actions like this one by Mr. Paletta and Mr. Marolt that
continue to wear away what shreds of trust that are left between us in
government and the public. But actions like this one give me the resolve to
keep on fighting to rid our county government of ethically bankrupt people. |
