Volunteer charged with indecent liberties

Last month, I was called by two concerned county residents who had heard that a 17-year-old female volunteer might have been hazed by other volunteers at the county’s new fire and rescue station in the Courthouse area.

At that time, I was informed that the Sheriff’s Office was investigating the matter.

Today, a 20-year-old volunteer was charged with a Class 6 felony as a result of the investigation.

Steven Tyler Perry, of Spotsylvania County, has been charged with one count of custodial indecent liberties. A second suspect, a 17-year-old male volunteer, has not been charged because prosecutors are hoping to use him as a witness in the criminal trial, according to a press release from the Sheriff’s Office.

A total of nine volunteers were terminated from the Spotsylvania Volunteer Fire Department.

Similar problems plagued Stafford County’s combined system of volunteers and paid personnel in the early 2000′s, and resulted in the Board of Supervisors hiring Ron Brown as chief of the entire combined system.

County Administrator Doug Barnes said today that it is a “no brainer” that the county’s combined system needs to move toward having one person in charge of the entire system. He also revealed some other changes that are brewing, most of which come from the two separate internal and independent reviews of a fatal fire on Feb. 5 on Spotswood Furnace Road that claimed the life of Sandy Hill.

Mr. Barnes is forming a plan of action that he will release to an expanded Fire and Rescue Commission at its July 14 meeting.

In a story likely for Saturday’s paper, Barnes talks about some of the changes that might take place as the combined system attempts to move forward from the painful exercise of examining that fatal fire, and now trying to bring accountability to the three volunteer agencies that are not completely comfortable with having such strict regulations put on them because of the fear it might scare current and potentially new members from volunteering.

Permalink: http://news.fredericksburg.com/spotsygovt/2010/07/02/volunteer-charged-with-indecent-liberties/

bhaas

That is precisely the answer I suspected, but seriously hoped would turn out to be not true.

Well, this issue now lies in the hands of Mr. Barnes and the BOS. Let us hope they move with alacrity.
LarryG

just curious – how is a Vol ….”terminated”? Who actually “fired” the guy who was supposed to be in charge and what employment rule did he (and the others) violate?

If the “fired” Vols contest their dismissal because they say they violated no written rules or conditions of employment.

Is there a Rules of Conduct?
Sam

Sure there’s a Rules book. They aren’t public though. Remember these are private incorporations. They have an internal board that governs and regulates the enforcement, an example would be if this kid was a Chief officer and did this, they would rein down on him.
Yes they can terminate someone for an infraction, usually that will be done in exteme cases. Lesser issues involve a few days of ‘suspension of riding time’.
Though your point about contesting his dismissal is taken and understood. You have to keep in mind every member is voted on by the entire company, in this case Company 1,
I don’t think this fella would reapply, but if he did I think he’s caused enough poor light to be drawn on them that he’d not recieve enough votes to become a member again.
Got it

I see that a 20 y/o was placed in charge of the station, if you cant trust him to make the right choice at the station how can you trust him with your emergency. There are Vol. that are good and really take it serious and there are a lot of them that use it as a hang out place. I just have an issue with paying someone to do these actions, as a county citizen I just payed for those 9 people and who knows how many more to break the law. I wont get that money back, I am not sure, but I know there are a lot of 24/7 career dept. that still has vol. to help run the calls, but they also all go off the same policies for there actions.
LarryG

re: ” I don’t think this fella would reapply”

your implication is that each Vol group is a separate entity with their own hiring/firing/promotion/demotion standards, correct?
Got it

I think there is at least 4 different chiefs in spotsylvanina , the spotsy vol. fire dept., Career chief, chancellor chief, and the rescue squad has there own. I have to think that is too many, and I saw before that someone stated the promotions for the vol. was done from internal. I got to think there is to many hands in the cookie jar and really no one to hold the final word.
http://MAVRICKinc7@msn.com Martin (Marty) Work

That’s SAM just said. The RULES are not public because they were constructed within the business framework of a PRIVATE CORPORATION…and can conduct business with its associates any way it wishes, without public knowledge or oversight. Simply said, a member can violate the law, get fired for cause and then reapply back to the same knid of job, somewhere else.

Anyone ever hear about a member of the health care community losing their license to practice medicine in one State and being granted privledges in another?

Why are we having so much trouble with the notion and reality that what goes around, comes around, again and again, along tjhe same lines suggested previously by curious bloggers. “WHO’S IN CHARGE?”
bhaas

Who’s in Charge??? Therein lies the crux of the whole problem.

These Volunteer Company’s sound more like “secret fraternal organizations” than non-profit corporations set up to be “chartered” by the County to provide fire and rescue service.

Pandora’s box has, indeed, been opened here.
ramshead89

lol, there is nothing “secret” about the organization, anyone can join. and i mean ANYONE. the part that really cracks me up is how some people continue to be accepted into this field after being kicked out of other departments. Now kicked out i don’t mean actually let go, but there are several cases where members have been pressured to leave because of conflicting attitudes, or behavior, so they just switch to the other side of the county or to a new county. It seems that people not wanted by SVFD end up at CVFR and the other way around. And the best part is the same person brings the same problems they had at the other department.

theres a good article from june 30th 2007 of a problem stafford volunteers had, where are they now?

i also remember a few issues the county has been having with live ins… someone should really look into that again.

From the inside looking out you i understand the pressure our management has trying to keep up the demand for the staffing this county requires. the system is broken, we need to get rid of such a high demand for staffing. I totally support a mixed system, but we need the staffing in place before we can integrate the 4 systems used in spotsylvania.
LarryG

To be fair here – Vols have a proud heritage. Not that long ago, Spotsylvania was not a rich county of about 15,000 people and could not afford it’s own fire and rescue system and the parts close to Fredericksburg relied on their system and the rest (most) of the rest of Spotsylvania was rural and depended totally on people in their local communities joining together and running fund-raisers to buy very basic things like hoses and pumpers and trying to do the best job that the could given their resources.

From that perspective they have come a long way and the people who did it – deserve respect and thanks.

There was no BLS or ALS – there were drivers of gussied up station wagons… and the like and quite incongruously some were chain smokers of Camels… and the like!

I’m quite sure also that there are quite a few very responsibly people who really take this work seriously who are not happy with the guys that screwed up nor the public who thinks all the Vols are a bunch of screwups.

I don’t think too many of the public or the vols wants what we have right now but the devil is always in the details as to how to fix it and many of the Vols are not going to buy into the idea that they need to be working for someone other than their own local organization – and that’s a problem that has to be overcome or else it’s going to destroy our VOL system like it did Stafford.

And maybe.. we’re destined to do that anyhow but I hope not.
Got it

I would like to see the county learn from the other counties mistakes, there are other people that have gone through these growing pain and we don’t learn anything. I would also like for the county to be able to tell me that when I get home from work I have the same level of services as the people who are in the county during the day have. I feel everyone is making it into a vol or paid issue when it really is a maturity and discipline issue. If we look at other places and learn from them we would be ahead of the game! Are the same level of training required during the night as during the day. If it is then I see we have to move to the supervision that is done. If not then we nee to start getting in line to make sure the citizens are getting what they pay for.
Got it

I also think we could learn from ourselves, I am sure no one remembers, but spotsylvania lost what land is now called central park due to lack of fire coverage, so Fredericksburg annexed it from soptsy because they could provide fire coverage. Spotsy lost out big on that deal…all due to fire coverage. We haven’t learned a thing!
ramshead89

growing pains is the best way to describe it. again other places not so far away are lucky if a fire truck or ambulance shows up in the first 30 minutes of an emergency. the problem is we are now demanding more than the county can do and it’s really started to piss off a lot of people
Sam

The Volunteers are contracting service in a sense to the county, allegedly for free.
Some/Most have good intentions and are doing the public a service.

I think the animosity they are feeling toward anyone that questions them comes from the fact that;
it is true they have been here longer than the county Fire Service and they are struggling to gain respect for the job they do. As Steve Thomas constantly points out, the lions share of their calls are successful and go wholly unnoticed. For that I thank them.
But the system does need a new direction for them to continue (IMO). They can’t have anymore incidents…they need immediate accountability for every member and every call, and they need it like they are on borrowed time.
LarryG

re: ” … the problem is we are now demanding more than the county can do ”

how do citizens and taxpayers know this?

this further illustrates a disconnect that in part is attributable to a lack of posted standards …. for communities our size, some comparative data of peer counties and then our own statistics, the good bad and ugly – and finally a ballpark estimate of how much it would cost to upgrade the system – in stages if necessary.

This goes back to the idea of who owns the system – the folks who operate it or the folks who pay for it.

You can’t blame the public for being ignorant on the facts if you don’t provide them with at least some of the information.

right?

I’d suggest that it’s not up to the FEMS folks – career or volunteer to determine what the appropriate level of service is – without at least having the citizens who pay the bills have a major say in it.

Stafford now that hey have one system actually posts their statistics – county-wide on their website.

where are ours?
Sam

Larry,
Please forgive this and I mean it with the utmost respect. You have no control over those things, just like Robert B. Payne does not feel the need to post his statistics, financials, or other information, nor would anyone at RBP step up and answer your questions to those inquires. Sad but true.
I think this could best be solved by contacting if you haven’t already your area Supervisor and demand a mechanism to change this.
LarryG

Sam – here’s Stafford’s FEMS Statistics (these are May):

.staffordfirerescue.com/content/numbers/file/MonthlyCallSummaryMAY2010.pdf

Robert B. Payne is not receiving taxpayer dollars and his accountability is determined by customers who will be return customers if they decide his services is worth the money.

That’s the difference between a tax and a voluntary fee for service transaction.

you’re right. What is done (or not) with regard to statistics and other issue won’t be decided by one or blather-butts pontificating about what ought to be – however, if enough folks feel similarly and make their wishes known to their elected – we may see it.

Mr. Barnes also seems to be someone who is committed to at least some changes and responsive to input.
bhaas

Larry is right…Mr. Barnes seems to have come full tilt on board with a commitment to change. I was very pleasantly surprised when he told Dan T. that it was “no brainer” that the County had to move to having a Chief in charge of the entire system. The BOS also seems to be supporting Mr. Barnes.

As i said earlier…the ball is now in their court.

I also agree regarding the difference between “RBP” and these non profits.
Lookin

If you know the fire system you will know that Spotsy has a chief in charge right now. They have 1 chief that is responsible for the entire dept. Unfortunately He has not been given that power from the board. I saw before that FEMS is down over 15 people I can see why if that is the stuff that happens at the firehouse it is sad. But i also know that there was a large amount of money turned in by the career staff to the board which is a bad thing because now they are down too many people and are loosing good people to other counties some is the money and some is the stuff the vol. do at the fire stations that dont’ like the politics and having to be a cleaning service for other people. I saw that the other dept. did not turn back in a single penny that is strange. They have gotten away with a lot of things around the many different firehouses right now in the county and still more will come out. thsi is not the end it is the beginning. Its not a vol. bashing thing its a do what is right thing. Living in the county i want my family safe and if people are offended and don’t want to hear we need paid people then they obviously havent need the fire or EMS service. That will change your mind!
holla

What about the rest of the nine? Why were they terminated?
LarryG

we’re down 15 people with the current economy? wow! There’s not 15 folks in Spotsylvania county that would jump at a chance for a decent job with benefits?

hard to believe…..
LarryG

In the Internet Age – want to see real change happen in Spotsylvania?

Here’s how.

You have a website when you key in your street address and it returns the average response time to 911 – sheriff, EMS and Fire and it compares it to the State and National Average.

then the phone/email contacts for the BOS.
Lookin

Down over 15 people and from that I hear you can’t just hire someone to fill it, you have to wait for the board to approve it then when they finally do they are hiring 3 people and 5 more have already quit, doesn’t seem like they will ever fill it at that rate of process, seems if someone leaves you should fill there spot? The current board doesn’t want safety they want happy people, which works until they need safety. This is all open because of a man breaking the law and tarnishing the name of spotsy and firemen everywhere. Everyone should be upset with this county and how this are done wake up!
opiniontoshare

Larryg – you keep referring to how the Stafford volunteer system was “destroyed.” Are you under the impression that Stafford County doesn’t have volunteer fire departments?
ramshead89

Larry any idea on that web site? searched for about 20 minutes on several sites with no luck.
LarryG

@opiniontoshare – Nope…placed under a single chain of command.

“destroyed” was too dramatic a term, I agree – but changed in many ways from what they preferred because at the end of the day, they could not operate as autonomously as they wished because they could not correct the problems.

The point I was (and am) trying to make is that Spotsy Vols can maintain a high(er) level of autonomy and avoid the experience of Stafford if they have a commitment to be a part of a unified system whose goal is to provide seamless and consistent service.

am I wrong? Anyone?
ramshead89

you’re right larry, but good luck getting the egos to work. i remember one night where a (volly) fire station had while one was unstaffed, so instead of the extras going to that station they took a truck from their main station and went to the unstaffed one with it and staffed the second engine at that station. now you could say that was because they didnt want to all POV there, but really it was because there was too much station pride to use a different number, and they wanted to show off the dedication which that extra staffed station’s members had to their home station. now that doesnt happen with career staff because they go where they are told or they dont get paid, but the amount of pride most have in their station is unbelievable. Personally i feel public safety trumps station pride, and a lot of people feel the same way that are in the system, but good luck dealing with that other portion that doesnt leave their “home” station.
soldiertype

@holla- there are seven others who were expelled, not all directly related to, but stemming from the incident. They have the option to appeal the decision and it will be interesting to find out who does and who doesn’t.
LarryG

@ramshead89 – I’d like to see such a website… ha ha

@soldiertype – who do they appeal to?
soldiertype

@ramshead-SVFD Board of Directors
LarryG

if you meant the Stafford Statistics..you need to take the link and put a www. in front of it.
soldiertype

*oops*
@larryg-SVFD Board of Directors
Sam

My analogy of Robert B. Payne, First let me say I am sorry RBP for throwing you under the firetruck, I needed a name people knew.
Secondly I stand with the analogy, but should have provided a better storyline.
Lets say RBP contracts to service the county facilities…THERE get it now???,
The Payne corp is gonna tell you all “none of your business!” or not feel accountable. To further that, you have no say in the people RBP hires,fires, or RBP’s rules. Clear as mudd???
LarryG

@Sam – sort of clear. The contractual arrangement with RBP allows to county to not contract for the service in the future if they don’t like the service.

If we had a true contract with the Vols – we’d be specifying standardized county-specified SOPs and statistics reports as deliverables and acceptable response times, etc.

Now, you might have picked our franchise contract with Comcast as a better equivalent because in that situation.. the county has a lot less latitude than with a RBP contract for service.

but the county could probably opt out of an Vol agreement also if push came to shove and then have career folks take the work.

Who owns the communication dispatch system?

That’s where you’d tell them to call the career folks and not the Vols – right?
ramshead89

response times in the county are so variable, imagine how long it takes to drive from harrison road all the way to the end of Spotswood furnace, and add traffic, it can be worse during the career hours than volunteer hours just because of the crap on 3. my suggestion about that (no matter the time of day or staffing) if you live on the country i hope you know cpr or the county gets some magic funds that put more stations out there. and the national response time from all the places i checked were between 6-9 minutes which at stations like 4 and 6 thats reasonable, while our roads that are limited access and in the middle of nowhere could have up to 15. I remember one day where i had to respond from the hospital all the way to a dirt road off morris the fire truck from 8 made it there in 15 minutes while it took us nearly 30. luckily the guys had the the situation under control and even started my paperwork (when we had the paper system) that was because every ambulance in the county was tied up with a call (all 10 of them were staffed during volly hours)

As for SOP’s it’s kinda crap that we all keep talking about that, because those don’t effect the essentials of RECEO VS or the way you help a patient. there is no cookbook way to run an emergency

though i know someones going to say “but there are proven methods that work a greater percentage of time” to which i say yeah, no duh. but it’s a work in progress.

I just have a hard time understanding the agendas, is it about politics or safety. I would rather sit on an ambulance and never show up to one of those meetings than have to deal with political bull that we have here.

How many people really care about the politics? i see about 10 people active on this out of the projected 120k in spotsylvania. The average person doesnt care about the politics, the government could be as closed or open as it wants and maybe 50 people would notice? i do enjoy the educational aspect of this stuff though.
LarryG

keeping statistics tells you much about where to locate stations and how to assign the calls. Response times tell you where geography gets trumped by other factors and you need to adjust accordingly.

Keeping metrics helps you better understand what are needs and what is more important and less important.

It basically means you actually want to know how your system iw working and what needs to be done to improve it – and gives an idea to citizens what the issues are and what the costs will be to make it better. Once citizens understand that, they may well be in favor of putting more money into the system – and they did prove this in the last referendum and with approval of revenue recovery.

They did not approve that money for nothing. They were expecting meaningful – demonstrated improvements in service.

Saying that you added 10 people is not the same as saying that you got a 10 or 20% improvement in average response times or that you trimmed the worst response times substantially, etc.

You’re right about the politics. Most people don’t give a rat’s behind about the politics but they do care about how long it will take after they call 911 for their kid to get medical care and transport or if their kitchen is on fire that they can save the house.

sometimes, I get the impression that there is a total disconnect between wheat the Vols think their job is – and what citizens think their job is.

there literally needs to be a meeting of the minds on this. Some citizens may well have expectations that are not reasonable. On the other hand, the Vols need to understand that citizens are not dumping money into the system so they can just buy fancy pumpers and have cool exercise equipment.
ramshead89

now if only we could get people to use that cool exercise equipment…. but i didn’t say that
ramshead89

actually i have more to add i guess. No matter how many statistics the fact is this is the emergency field, you never know what is going to happen. one day there could be 0 calls the next there could be 10 at one time all in rural spotsylvania. with that said response times and call volume are variable but there are ones that do stick and need to be addressed.

I feel strongly about ALS coverage. my opinion is strategic QRV (quick response vehicles) which by cutting down rural stations to 3 man crews (so you pull the piece that is needed or able to take both to a scene) so you have 2 slots that open up to be used as QRV’s. yes there is more but the basic idea works.

i agree with the statement you made just wanted to expand on it a little more.

or we could just pawn it off on a private company to do it, such as PTS or Lifecare. I hear it worked well for richmond with their RAAS. that would make it easy to set standards….
LarryG

well that’s why you have AVERAGE statistics but you could also look at it from a mean and standard deviation to get an even more accurate feel for how your system is working – on average.

I note looking at some fire stat sites that they show the total numbers of calls broken into two groups – those that met the standard response time criteria and those that did not.

Many of Virginia cities score in the 90% range, I noticed but suburban and rural are much worse (understandably perhaps).

I note also that some organization has first responder motorbikes…. where there is traffic. I thought that made sense in areas where there is heavy traffic…

A bike could carry AEDs and other life-saving equipment and perhaps .. call in a copter if the traffic is bad and the patient critical.

and I like the thoughts about at least considering some private .. but that would require a much more sophisticated management organization I suspect…

The whole point is that if you don’t keep the metrics – then you really don’t have a motivation to see if things can be improved.. so you just drift … doing what you’ve always done… the metrics compel you to pay more attention IMHO.
WideOpenSpaces

This is just another great example of how the county should reconsider having volunteers. In no way am I defending Mr. Perry but if you have ever been around a firehouse in this county and seen how the females act, she is not as innocent as she is being made out to be. People like this have no busiess being in or around the fire stations. When will the county wake up and see that the volunteers are doing more harm than good and that a paid staff would eliminate these issues. When will they see that males and females absolutely can not be there together and that letting children into the building like that is dangerous. When will Spotsylvania and Chancellor become one force in this county, it’s rediculous to have then seperated like that. The arrogance of these incompetent, stubborn hot headed people we call volunteers needs to be adjusted. How can the people of the county depend on them for protection when they are causing problems like this. It’s an embarrassment. The firefighters around the county I know are upset and angry because this is giving them a bad name, well they deserve it if they are going to act like this and let fellow collegues run their names into the ground. I’m tired of hearing people say “They should use this as a learning experience” . . . . well how many law suits and idiotic things are going to have to happen before they learn something. They deserve no breaks, punishment and humiliation is deserved to all involved. Obviously nothing was learned by some of them because they are too busy trying to defend themselves saying “They were permanently suspended for other reasons”, they seem to be too busy trying to cover up what they were obviously involved in or covering up something else major that was done to be removed from the system. You can’t even call the people who run in Spotsylvania “volunteers” when some of them are being paid thousands of dollars in reimbursement from the county to be there. They are a waste of our money, I’m tired of paying taxes for disgraces like this. The television remote alone at one of the firehouses cost over $150.00, can’t money be spent on worthwhile things like getting the volunteers out of there and having a paid staff. Spend it on a qualified paid staff. Whether school is in session or not, or if it’s a weekend or not, no one under the age of 18 should be staying the night at a facility like that and under no circumstance should males and females be sleeping in the same room. It’s not just an embarrassment to the firefighters but to the county in general. Way to represent yourselves and others. I hope everyone involved is no longer allowed to run as a firefighter or EMT anywhere as long as they live.
Lookin

Well spoken, paid vol. how is that even possible. Sound like a part time job and with a job there should be punishment! The county keep putting band aids on things, but the injury is still present!
opiniontoshare

There are people who complain about stations being unmanned, but try to pay somebody money for gas and other expenses, supposedly to encourage them to help keep the stations manned, and the same people complain about that too.

Also, I didn’t realize that Spotsylvania County could refuse to hire career female firefighters.
Sam

@WIDEOPENSPACES,

Ummmmm she’s 17 and a Minor, last time I checked the legal age was still 18. How she “acts”, is called “social-coping”. If he is the superior (supervisor/officer) and he sets a basis of sexual inuendo and other rediculous horseplay, she may feel acting similar is the only way to survive or get out of that situation.
She said NO and he persisted, enough there for me. Sorry if you didn’t get that memo.
WideOpenSpaces

You must be the mother they got that part of the story from. I don’t for one second believe that she said no.
WideOpenSpaces

Sure, 17 makes her a “minor” but 18 is not some magic number that makes her think and act like an adult. She’s close enough to 18 to not have to hide behind the excuse of “socially coping”. I’m not taking pity on the Volunteers nor will I have pity for the girl involved.
ramshead89

@wideopenspaces thats a horrible over generalization of the system and how it works. first of all probably close to 600-700 members of the volunteer system every one of them is a different personality. how exactly do you justify saying that this girl never said no? unless you know something that will defend these people, and in that case you’re putting your information in the wrong place.

Sam, that statement is true, 17 is illegal, which is really a stupid law because clearly these 20 year olds were not acting like “adults” so clearly turning 18 didn’t make a bit of difference in maturity level.

lookin and spaces you really need to look more into that “paid volunteer thing” because though SVFD and SVR offer it not all members take it. there are volunteers out there that do it because they love it, maybe instead of saying get rid of perdium money we set caps and require justification other than times to pay it, one such thing would be travel or meal costs. there are other options that are more practical than just getting rid of the volunteer system….

to reply please use the new post…
http://MAVRICKinc7@msn.com Martin (Marty) Work

The COMMITTEE of 500, through their Board Member, Bill Blaine, have invited us all to attend one of their meetings on SUNDAY, July 11, 2010, 2-4 p.m., at Salem Church Library, to allow THEIR keynote speaker, Doug Barnes, provide them with up to date on the budget, economic development activities, smart-growth efforts, REDISTRICTING and other points of interest to the Committee of 500, or is it now less than 80 active members?

Everyone remembers the Committee of 500. They are the ones who claim to be a non-partisan POLITICAL and COMMUNITY ACTION ORGANIZATION that strives to put the most capable supervisor candidate into office.

Fred Messing chaired the Fire/Rescue Commission and look what we got for our money from the Committee of 500?

Doug Barnes has been employed by Spotsylvania County for more than 30 years. Why has he now become the voice of Spotsylvania County, instead of it elected officials.

Larryg, Bill, Sam and a host of others want US to call or email our elected officials for answers to serious questions that have yet to receive a reply.

If the Committee of 500 wish to conduct business for Spotsylvania County let it be so. However, if they are underwriting Spotsylvania County with their political awarness of what best serves County citizens, let their meeting be covered and recorded by non-partisan attendance and provide the public with the unvarnished exchange of what Spotsylvania County needs to succeed in today’s open market.

Doug Barnes keynote speech to the Committee of 500, this coming SUNDAY, should already be posted on the County website, and if not, I have good reason to ask why not, if indeed he represents the voice of change in the County while our elected officials remain silent.

WE are being asked to become INVOLVED with the agendas of the Committee of 500 and their prescribed mandates in conducting business about our quality of life, without having a clue what that is.

Last time WE were confronted with the aspirations of the Sierra Club on issues of commercial business issues, hardly any member of the Sierra Club showed up, much less provide solutions on how to best market commercial trade in Spotsylvania County.

We don’t need to be “DRIFTING” anywhere. IT doesn’t work. Get used to it, admit it to yourself and stop with the sentimental EXCUSES, because at the end of the day that’s all they are…more EXCUSES.

If 80 people out of 120,000 are in charge of doing your thinking for you, you are not only adrift, your lost. Stop with the detours, distractions and meaningless rhetoric. We have a problem. It needs to be fixed, and if WE can’t change it our elected officials need to come to bat for US and if THEY can’t get the job done, then WE need to step forward and THEY need to step aside.

Scary. You betcha! If YOU don’t want transparency or accountability then join the rest in yet another cattle call that leads to only ONE PLACE.

The thing about FREEDOM, is that you are free to give your freedom away to the lowest bidder and hope everything works out like your handler thinks it should.

Bon Apetite.
Sam

I will continue on the new post.

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Volunteer charged with indecent liberties