The favorite fire board candidate of Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder stands defiant. As related earlier, voters in West County have fought for years to first regain and then hold the Monarch Fire District away from control of the union felt betrayal when several Republican lawmakers endorsed the union-backed Swyers. While Kinder, Auditor Schweik, and State Reps McNary and Gosen insist they endorsed the right guy, the suicide of Chief Fred Goodson may have been an attempt to jog minds to see the horrible destruction the union is perpetuating in their blood coup.
Chief Goodson Attendees received the stunning revelation that the excuse for the firings pertained to the alleged mismanagment of the sexual harassment allegations is contradicted by the revalation that the firings were promised over a month in advance of the court ruling. So it appears that were the leaders who were not even accused, then fully vindicated, they still would have been fired. When all you have ever done is lead a fire house, how do you make that career change at 60 plus years of age, especially when you have been fired without so much as a hearing?
So let's recap the record of the "Republican," "Taxpayer Candidate,""independent of the union" Swyers.
1. He has voted with the union favorite Kim Evans in a perfect block against Robyn Harris on every major decison.
2. He successfully voted to pass a tax increase.
3. Swyers, the certified public accountant actually voted for the tax rate increase before he even knew what the budget would be. Standard procedure is to vote a budget and then set the rate to meet it.
4. Swyers, embarrassed by the backlash over the tax increase then voted to undo his tax increas while complaining publicly that the lower rate would make the budget complicated to design.
5. Swyers, again in a block with Evans voted to fire virtually the entire leadership of the Fire District and do so without even giving any of the accused the opportunity to have a public hearing.
Why were the accused not given the chance to defend themselves?
6. Finally, Swyers the CPA voted to install a new fire chief hand-picked by the union who is not even minimally qualified. I repeat, he does not even meet the qualifications to be hired as a private. He has zero experience in a multi-house department and does not even have the requisite college degree.
7. Almost worse than the offense of hiring a union shill for chief, Swyers and Evans voted to waste money hiring an outside search firm to look nationwide for a guy they knew locally. So what did the firm do? Did they come up empty?
The unfortunate reality for Swyers and Evans is that former board member Gans has decided to not quit caring. Gans went from active citizen in the early 90s, to union-endorsed candidate for the board, to union-opposed board member amassing incredible institutional knowledge and connections. He predicted almost before the search firm began, that Vinyard would be their choice. This would be laughable if not such a shameless abuse of the public trust.
The combination of these embarrassing revelations and violations of the public trust lead Director Robyn Harris to take the extraordinary step of asking his colleagues to resign. They refused. Perhaps the Republican lawmakers who endorsed the clearly union-corrupted Swyers will ad to the pressure and join the departed Chief Goodson and demand justice.
