Morale

For John, BLUF:  Town employees want to think their civic leaders have their back, are there to support them as they do their job.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Out Of All Patience

From The Chicago Boyz, by Sgt. Mom, 25 July 2022.

Here is the lede plus one:

I read the various news and commentary about the regular police force; five full-time officers and a chief strong, and a couple of other city employees resigning in a body from their jobs in Kenly, North Carolina, in protest over the hostile work atmosphere generated through a new city manager hire.  Details on this are all obscure about the personalities and specific incidences of workplace hostility involved.  One can sort of fill in the empty spaces, just applying what can be deduced from the personal details and past employment record of the city manager involved, and suppositions regarding the civic employees who have resigned.  That and reading the comments appended to the news stories about this interesting happening from those who seem to be familiar. All the parties involved seem to be tight-lipped about what set the whole thing off.  The town council was supposed to have held a closed-door meeting on Friday to resolve the situation, but there has not been anything new in the news media that I can find.

I did not grow up in a small town like Kenly, but in a suburb on the distant outskirts of Los Angeles, a suburb so remote from the urban core when I grew up there, that it might just as well have been a small town.  There was only one high school – a largish one, as semi-urban/suburban consolidated high schools go – but otherwise a semi-isolated, tight, and cohesive community, a community only cracked, dispersed and amalgamated to the larger urban core when the 210 Highway went through, making the place an easy commute to the larger city.  I have since made a study of small towns, doing books about them, visiting such towns regularly, participating in regular celebrations (mostly book-oriented), absorbing local history, gaining a sense of places where everyone knows each other, or is related, even at one or two removes.  Look – these places are tightly-woven with personal and familial ties.  Screw around with them at your peril, as all those folk tales about the country folk and the city slicker will attest.

We need more information on what has been happening in the town of Kenly, North Carolina.  However, the signs point to a leadership problem within Town Government.  It could just be a case of racial prejudice, but I am doubtful.  It could be the introduction of CRT into the workplace.

It could be like Minneapolis School System, which has agreed with the Union to lay off Caucasian teachers first, violating both the Constitution and Title VII.  At best, this is disrespectful to a portion of the employees, both by the Union and by the School System.

Regards  —  Cliff