The County Commission after two years of a combination of deliberation and stalling recently enacted a Court House Employee Drug Testing Policy. This was done as an act of leadership to demonstrate to the community that the Court House must be seen as believable and as a mentor to others in dealing with the County's serious drug and alcohol problems. The Policy requires testing for (1) New Employees; (2) Reasonable Suspicion, meaning behavior on the job of employees exhibiting drug/alcohol abuse and (3) Random testing of the pool of safety sensitive employees. Safety sensitive employees are those who carry weapons, drive cars for the County or are involved in operating 911.
The Policy can not be imposed upon an elected official.
Believing that "leadership" requires action as well as words, I and Commissioner Fleming voluntarily put ourselves in the pool of people subject to random testing. Several other elected officials including the Sheriff and Prosecutor and have also voluntarily joined this pool as their commitment to the proposition that actions speak louder than words and to the obvious point that if the County can not look to its Court House for real action against drug/alcohol abuse...where can it look?
The best thing Rita can do for this County is to retire her seat. In my opinion, she does nothing but sabotage the efforts of the Council members, and makes no effort to support innovative ideas. Afraid of change?
