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Thursday, March 12, 2009
News City officials must wait six days before hiring friends.
Posted By Rhiannon Fionn-Bowman on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 10:33 AM
Yesterday, mayoral candidate Anthony Foxx and his wife Samara were on the defensive (read his statement here and hers here). They even sent a letter to Anthony's Facebook friends. It is true, Samara was hired last year as a division director for business affairs, for $100,000 per year, in the Department of Social Services during a hiring freeze after the job was only posted for one day. But, according to this Mecklenburg County press release, everything is on the up and up.
In a statement issued after its public policy meeting, the Board said Samara Foxx, Hollye Monroe and Tracey Evans each appears to meet or exceed the minimum qualifications for their jobs. Foxx was hired in July 2008 as a division director for business affairs within DSS. Monroe was hired in January 2009 as a management analyst, and Evans was hired in February 2009 as a manager of the DSS customer service unit.
Read the rest of the press release here.
Was the county's response due to QCityMetro.com aptly pointing out the obvious? Only the African-American new-hires created a stir and, as we all know, finding a good job is often all about who you know:
Samara Foxx is a cum laude graduate of UCLA with a degree in political science and holds a law degree from the University of Michigan, according to her husband’s statement. She and [DSS head Mary] Wilson had previously worked together at KOSA, an industrial products company. Wilson was the company’s general counsel and Samara Foxx reported to her.Wilson has said it was that past relationship that caused her to hire Samara Foxx. As Wilson took over the troubled DSS, she said, she wanted someone with whom she had worked.
[County Manager Harry] Jones, the county manager, told the Observer he questioned why the three hires -- all African Americans -- had caused such a stir. He said DSS had hired white employees since July as well. Jones also is African American.
Read the rest of this article here.
But, as The Charlotte Observer reports today, the issue isn't so much the fact that Wilson and Samara Foxx knew each other — because Jones was well aware the intention was to hire her — it's that the public might think something fishy was going on.
Jones said the county allowed Wilson to post the special assistant vacancy for a shortened period of time because it was part of a reorganization of the department. Wilson also had indicated she preferred to hire someone with whom she had previously worked.But Jones said he didn't know at the time that the job would only be posted for a single day, and wouldn't have approved that.
The short posting “presents a public perception issue for us,” Jones said. “And the conclusion that many have drawn is that it doesn't look good. So you need to clean up those practices where there is a potential public perception issue.”
Read the rest of this article here.
In other words, it's business as usual in Uptown Charlotte. The rules were adjusted, so, with the situation reversed, Wilson would have to wait six whole days before hiring the person she totally intended to hire anyway, the person Jones knew she was going to hire: Samara Foxx.
What's more disturbing, that Wilson hired someone she knew and trusted for a government job or that Jones is so concerned about snowing the public? (I vote for the latter.)
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