Amy's New Job: Credentials Being The Smaller
Of The Two Red Flags
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The general consensus around the lunch counter today seemed to be the possibility that local newspaper writer Amy Revak has to
be nuts if she shows up for work Monday at her new job as the chief county clerk -- you know, after all the controversy surrounding
her credentials.
In spite even of an unsuccessful, surprise-out-of-nowhere attempt by a private citizen to ask a judge to intervene to stop Revak from
starting her job, she still wants to start her new job the day after next.
Some reader mail these past two weeks has been more critical than usual -- i.e., that we've not yelled loudly enough, that the most
qualified person was not hired from a group of applicants that included a lawyer, a comptroller, two degreed accountants, an MBA
degree holder and a courthouse beat newspaper reporter with an English degree.
To be fair nobody here interviewed the candidates. We do not know whether they fell asleep during the interviews, picked their
noses, yelled at interviewers, took cell phone calls or texted at interview, were fired from most, all or way too many previous jobs...
or whether any or all of the other candidates interviewed flawlessly and presented themselves perfectly.
We can just assume, safely, that if bookies took bets on which in the group of applicants would be hired, the betting odds that Revak
would have got would have made a few daring gamblers with inside information some sweet, easy money.
That Fayette County Commissioners Al Ambrosini and Vince Zapotosky hired Revak is their right. If hers is a civil service position and
they had to run her credentials through civil service approval process and got it, so be it. Thy will is done.
But here's why they were wrong to hire her, even if all of the other six applicants didn't interview well and the county had to re-post
the job.
It's OK for private companies to be eccentric and hire budget preparers with Humanities or English degrees over an MBA degree
holder and take a chance that the right person was hired.
It is not OK fo public-funded operations to hire someone less qualified for a key financial position if more qualified persons applied.
It's not illegal (unless there's discrimination shown), but it's an unwise practice.
But of even greater importance than the issue of the clerk's qualifications and credentials -- or the much, much larger of the two red
flags we see -- is the infamous, shameful, unshakable flashback from last October -- i.e., when the new clerk, as a reporter, printed
an account of nasty allegations made against a commissioner close to Election Day, without any sense of follow up or moral
obligation to her news readers or the accused, to at least ask the woman making accusations for proof and note in publication
whether the paper did or did not receive such proof.
That Revak did not ask the woman for proof of those allegations is much bigger red flag about the choice that Ambrosini and
Zapotosky made when selecting the new chief clerk. It's an ethics-type concern that we hope to be proven wrong for having. But it's
such a gnawing concern that someone, who wrote about sensationalized allegations about one commissioner, without even asking for
one shred of proof, can turn it around and be an effective liaison among all three of the county commissioners.
This column sincerely wishes Revak all the success in the world in her new job, even though it may seem that we do not.
We just urge her to remember that she lost respect and public trust as a reporter by not asking for that proof last October. She
needs to earn it back, and can do so only by working openly and cooperatively with all three commissioners.
We so hope that happens. Maybe then, we'll lose the gnawing concern that she was chosen as an easy mark to manipulate as a
liaison, to widen the communication gap between the two Democrat commissioners and the Republican minority commissioner.
jt
11 May 12
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