Joe Shump wasn’t president of the United States, but, he sure thought he was. And in his death, apparently some of our public servants think that he deserves a $28,000 gift of our tax dollars. Not only that, to remember a supposed “public servant” we’re going to stop serving the public- who may have very important things happening on Tuesday. Sorry, you can’t transfer your deed today- we have to honor a man who was driven from office for either graft or ineptitude.
Even if Keith, Rice and Blackshear paid their employees out of their own pocket- they have no right to shut their offices and give their employees a 4 day weekend. It’s not their right, and it’s not right. If they do this, they should be charged with theft in office, and brought up on felony charges. No namby pamby plea bargains, no anything else- straight to the clink. As to Mark Owens, current Dem chief, you’ve only been in office a few months- and already, you are supporting cronyism in office.
Some county offices closing to honor late official [1]
On Tuesday three county officials, all Democrats, will close their offices to the public to honor Joe Shump, 83, who died Wednesday. Shump was chairman of the Montgomery County Democratic Party for 25 years, ending in 1994, and county treasurer from 1975-87. Shumps funeral is Wednesday.The closed offices are run by County Auditor Karl Keith, Treasurer Carolyn Rice and Recorder Willis Blackshear.
Keiths decision will cost taxpayers $20,800. Rices decision $4,502. Blackshears another $2,789.
Montgomery County Democratic Party Chairman Mark Owens sees no problem with the offices being closed for the day.
“Joe was a county official, in addition he obviously had a lot of influence in this community,” said Owens, who is also Dayton Municipal Court Clerk. “To say that you cant take time to honor somebody thats passed away, thats kind of cold.
Public service is supposed to include some bit of humility and sacrifice- you do it because you want to serve the people. This isn’t my idea of service.
What do you think?
I thought Shump was just a big daddy but he did hold office for awhile in the 1970s (as treasurer).
But, yeah, hand to the myopia of the Democratic hacks here. I don’t think I’ve heard of this before…or if it did happen (like for the first Mayor Daly) the boss also had a track record of winning elections at the top of the local ticket as well as having the clout. Shump apparently just had the clout.
At least the county commission has some perspective on this, as they are not closing. But we can see three Dems whos seats are now “competetive”, if the GOP can run some good candidates against them.
But to be honest, Shump was somewhat before my time in Dayton, or was on his way out when I moved here. I posted at the DDN blogs that the paper should do sort of a retrospectie on the man, both his union history and his political biography, for their readers who dont’ know who he was.