Opinion : Reason 1,472,358,234,7453,189 to have a county job

At today's Benton County Board of Supervisors Meeting, I found that I might just need to go back on blood pressure medicine. Today's meeting left me frustrated and wishing that as a teenager someone would have said, "Get a county job, or state job, basically any government job will do." In a government job the rules are optional, doing things that should not even hint at being questionable is normal, sometimes. 

I know some of you hate mixing the bible and government, but I think one verse should be above every government office, I Thessalonians 5:22,  "Abstain from all appearance of evil." Basically, it means don't do anything that remotely LOOKS suspicious.

There is one thing I hate to hear, "well it's not illegal.." No, but often it looks hinky, questionable, suspicious, not above board, etc. and our officials are fine with that...as long as it's not illegal. 

So this is reason 1,472,358,234,7453,189 of why you should be a government employee.

Did you know that Iowa law says that a closed session can be held, "To evaluate the professional competency of an individual whose appointment, hiring, performance, or discharge is being considered when necessary to prevent needless and irreparable injury to that individual's reputation and that individual requests a closed session." Today the supervisors held a closed session to assess the performance of the HR Director. 

The government body must keep detailed minutes and must tape record the closed session. These records can only be opened under a court order. 

Supposing that the laws are followed by our supervisors, yes it's okay to laugh here, the only thing that can be discussed in this closed session today would be, "professional competency, performance, or discharge" aka firing.

There should not be ANY OTHER discussion of other matters.

I mean, I suspect as long as the meeting was, there was more discussed. How long does it take to say, "Good job!" or "we think you need to change something..." or "You're fired?" not long. 

At the 1:07 mark of the video, Supervisor Primmer says, "I know this going to be out of the ordinary..." then he asked the Auditor to leave the room. The auditor is basically the secretary/bookkeeper for the Supervisors as well as taking care of elections and bookkeeping for the entire county. 

So I found it odd that they asked the auditor to leave and NOT take notes like she always as Primmer said, "out of the ordinary."

When I asked at the 1:15:18 mark who recorded and took notes of the evaluation, as required by law, Primmer said that the HR person had. Another member of the public asked to clarify that. "So Sue was taking notes on her OWN evaluation?" Primmer said, "Something wrong with that?"

I answered that for everyone in the room. "To the general public, probably." I mean I MIGHT be wrong, but from the chuckles, I don't think I am.

Primmer then contradicted himself, "This is not unusual. We have had evaluations before, without an auditor." The resident asked, "Doesn't Hayley serve as the secretary to the board?" Primmer answered, "There are some issues I needed to address with Sue, and so I asked Hayley to step out."

So yes, if you work for the county apparently during your job evaluation you can go into a closed meeting, and be in charge of recording and taking the official minutes of your evaluation. 

Makes perfect sense to me.

Tell your kids to get into government jobs, seriously.