Man, did
HeraldStandard.com get under the skin of Uniontown police chief Jason Cox, with
its Dec. 7 editorial “Shame on mayor,” which you can read it its entirely here:
The newspaper took
Mayor Ed Fike to task – and rightfully so – for his unilateral imposition of a
two-minute speaking limit for council member to address, of all things, the
city’s 2013 budget. In so doing, it described as “heavy handed” Cox’s
intervention as a lawman when councilman Gary Gearing proceeded to exceed Fike’s
two-minute rule with his comment.
Said
the newspaper: “Suggesting that council
members have a time limit is one thing, having the chief of police step in and
play time cop is another thing altogether. Need we remind Fike that being mayor
is not the same as being a dictator. And Cox isn’t Fike’s personal servant. Cox
works for all the residents of Uniontown, including Gearing. He’s supposed to
dispense justice evenhandedly not siding with one public official over another
one.”
It would be
ridiculous to limit members of the public to two minutes of speaking time, let
alone a duly elected member of council. Like Gearing or not, regardless of his
motives or the validity of his comments, he has a right to be heard. The public
will decide if his comments have merit, if he’s merely grandstanding, or if he’s
a candidate for the loony bin. But it’s not up to Fike to arbitrarily and
severely limit how much he can say, or how many questions he may ask.
It is impossible
for any member of council to address something as complicated and far-reaching
as a city budget, in less time that it takes to hear your favorite song on the
radio.
Enter police chief
Cox, who submitted his own rebuttal commentary, “Police chief defends actions
at meeting,” Dec. 7 (we couldn’t find it online, by the way, which leads us to
wonder if that’s because it prominently took aim at editor Mark O’Keefe).
Cox bristled at the
notion that anyone would imply that he is a “heavy-handed time cop” or a “personal
servant” of Fike. A main bone of Cox’s contention is that O’Keefe, whom he
portrays as the author of the editorial, wasn’t even at the meeting to view
firsthand what transpired.
Well, O’Keefe wasn’t
in Dallas when Oswald shot JFK, either – but that doesn’t mean he can’t
formulate an opinion on the assassination of President Kennedy.
Cox claimed to have
been at the meeting as a department head, one who it just so happens does not
leave his badge or his authority at the door when the meeting begins. He said
he works directly under the mayor, and was only fulfilling Fike’s directive to
bring order to the situation.
If his Marshall Matt
Dillon skills were necessary to defuse a volatile situation, we’d like to know
why Gearing wasn’t charged with any crime. Is speaking more than two minutes at
a public meeting something that could land a councilman in the hoosgow? Was
Gearing disturbing the peace? Making terroristic threats? Engaging in
disorderly conduct?
Cox may have just
been doing his job and following the boss’s orders, and we’ll give him the
benefit of the doubt on that count. But that does nothing to alter the point of
the editorial, which is that it doesn’t look good when one elected official
tries to muzzle another, or when the police chief gets involved as enforcer.