On February 4, Benol emailed all members of Barron's staff, conveniently leaving the Controller himself out of the loop. "I do not understand how someone can be elected to lead your office without a basic knowledge of what you do or the standards that guide your decisions and findings," he complains
"I am not doing this as a reflection on the current Controller," Benol lies. Of course he is. Barron is up for election this year, and Benol is one of three Council members who supported a resolution calling on him to resign for contacting County workers. Benol does precisely what he condemned and warns Barron's staff that they might be "mismanaged and/or misdirected" by Barron, "due to an inability to understand each of your job functions ... ."
He promises to keep their conversations "private and confidential."
And the check's in the mail, too.
Benol is clearly looking for ammunition that Barron's opponent can use. Dissension in the workplace would be red meat.
What Barron's staff did, immediately upon receipt of this email, was to inform him. I believe one member of his staff has responded to Benol, noting that Barron is actually qualified to conduct an audit and has conducted several on his own.
Amazingly, Benol goes on to tell Barron;s staff that he himself has no "background in accounting or finance." Though he's no expert, he plays one on Council.
Up until now, it's been a toss up whether Mat Benol or Tom Dietrich is the stupidest Council member I have seen.
I think we have a winner.
38 comments:
since when does county council have no right to ask questions of employes?
If Benol wants input he should ask council to institute an "upward" evaluation process. That would allow employees to evaluate their superiors, including council members and the exec.
Benol doing it the way he did had him acting without the approval of the council to go on a fishing expedition, and possibly without approval of His Majesty, John Brown.
Such evaluations (at least in the private sector) are usually used to guide the managers toward improving worker relations. They are not used as evidence of poor job performance, as all of it is based on "opinions" from subordinates.
just giving barron von footinmouth a taste of his own medicine. as you revealed, barron is a dishonest sneak. payback is a beach.
3:04,
Bernie is as fickle as they come
The thing that is missed that I think Bernie should point out is that the controllers staff is not supervised by council or Brown. They are under the direct supervision of the controller. Just like the courts and the DA. Benol is infringing on the controller's powers and that of an independently elected official. Council does not have absolute power.
It gives insight into how this guy wants to operate. I'm glad this was exposed. Benol is as sneaky as they come.
He did this on his own without the approval of a majority of council? Not so certain that this represents good government.
Didn't I just read in the paper that Council failed to find almost another 8 million dollars in the budget? Council has a lot on their plate and most of it can make Northampton County more efficiently run and the County a better place to live. For example: when are these lazy bastards going to get involved in what is happening at our airport? Mismanagement is rampant. They must sell off assets in order to pay operation costs? Our prison is more that 200 years old. One job at the prison costs one and one half million dollars over the life of that employee and with todays medical costs even more. Save 20 to thirty corrections officers positions when staffing a new prison and the prison would actually pay for itself. Get prisoners who are in prison for nonviolent crimes to do some work in our parks and snow removal etc and we can save a ton of money. Better yet, get the Judges to so some work and we can cut back on the number of judges in Northampton county by at least two. Take into consideration their staff and the number of deputy sheriffs needed to keep them safe and the savings would be over one million a year. Better yet, Utilize the Constables more efficiently for serving court papers. They only get paid when they provide a service and deliver on that service. You don't need 60 deputies. There is plenty for Peg Ferraro to do besides run meetings. She is the leader. Matt Benol needs some guidance. His political rhetoric will get him defeated next time around.
Mr. Benol should try to find out what his hero Brown does. Does he or Ms. Allen know what they are doing? Hey, Matt send an e-mail to all the employees, I bet some would be glad to give you some information. @ 8:20 a.m. you make some very good points!
It is Mat with one "t" dammit!
Benol and Vaughn are Tweedledum and Tweedledummer. They should find a better use of their time than looking up Barron's kilt.
"since when does county council have no right to ask questions of employes?"
Since they work for an independently elected official, Mr. Dumass.
"The thing that is missed that I think Bernie should point out is that the controllers staff is not supervised by council or Brown. They are under the direct supervision of the controller. Just like the courts and the DA. Benol is infringing on the controller's powers and that of an independently elected official. Council does not have absolute power."
Bingo.
8:20,
1) Brown just appointed someone to the authority who is pro Braden. All they care about is the loudest voices, not what is best for the long-term health of the airport, if there should be an airport at all.
2) That was part of the idea behind West Easton, and it may yet come to fruition. Just remember that if you want a new jail, it is going to cost a great deal of money.
3) The notion that we can reduce by two judges is misplaced. I think we could eliminate one judge, as has been done with magistrates. Or we can keep the judge and get the courts more involved in collecting what is owed to the county.
4) Constables have no authority to serve county court papers under our rules of civil procedure. There might be things they could do. I'll agree with you on that one.
Your blog is floundering big time.
Go back to beating up on the woman.
Blog Mentor > Bernie O'Hare
Barron has taken on an ombudsman role for everybody in county government and shouldn't have a problem with his department's affairs being looked into more closely. Let's air all the laundry. It sure beats inside deals and Sunshine Law violations. nasty, messy, two party government is alive and well in NorCo. That's a good thing. The alternative is Allentown.
There is a difference between looking into his "department" (it's a separate independent office) and slithering around his staff, looking for dirt.
Perhaps, but not much difference between the Benol and Barron approaches. Democracy is unsightly. Totalitarianism is Allentown and urban growth at any cost.
Speaking of transparency, when is the Office of Open Records going to release the Brown e-mails you requested, Bernie?
The recurring theme I see in local government seems to be one of elected officials like Matt Benol trying to tell/run other branches/elected officials how to do their jobs. The irony is that the reason they are sticking their nose elsewhere is because they have no clue about doing what they were elected to do. Benol is clueless as a Council member, so he wants to expand that cluelessness elsewhere. We have several of those in Lehigh County as well. Good to see all things are equal!
Why are you hiding facts Mr. O'Hare? What is it about the truth that you fear?
Hey 4:38 PM, why don't you give up your personal property to pay off your judgment or get a job, instead of collecting unemployment and sponging off the government!
Let us not forget politics is still a 'Blood Sport'
"Why are you hiding facts Mr. O'Hare? What is it about the truth that you fear?"
Why are you babbling incomprehensible nonsense, anonymous?
Tax payers of Northampton County should attend County Council Meetings and also their committee meetings. They should see who they elected into office and how they are running this county. Reading this about the controller appears to be a prerequisite to the next election. Isn't the GOP having another Bangor person run - The Bangor Connection. (Who isn't trained to hold the position?) Hope the tax payers wake up.
who isn't trained to hold the position?
That would be Barron. You can read all about this incompetent and unethical oil slick on this blogs archives.
Barron Vonfootinmouth is a fool. Now he just happens to be O'Hare favorite boy.
Its Mat with one "t" dammit!
Mat Benol is providing the oversight and facts on this controller that we use to get from this blog. That was before O'Hare sold out
Facts? What facts? If he had any he would not need to secretly e-mail the controller's staff and infringe on the province of an independently elected official.
benol is a snake who slithers
Benol should be worried about the medical benefit crisis to the NorCo employee and the ineptness of the Executive who is bankrupting the county while giving useless and clueless consultants all hard earned tax money.
I'm telling you soon there will be no employees left with experience and consumers and tax payers will be left in the cold with inadequate services and possible negligent deaths.
Wait, didn't you back all of these Tea Party clowns a few years back? Dude, it's cool that you have seen the light but you must be see your blatant hypocrisy here.
I never supported Benol.
You were attending tea party rallies and worshipping at the alter of Benol.
I attended several meetings of the tea party about different topics and wrote about them. No one reading what I wrote would call me a supporter. In fact, the tea party tried to have me excommunicated, even though I was not really a member. The only rally I ever attended was this summer and was over immigrqant children. I was there to stand against the tea party and for children. I diod not support Benol wheh he ran for Congress against Dent. I also did not support him when he ran for Council. And I am now convinced he lacks the intelligence to be an effective member of Council.
You wrote about how racist they were but your intentions were to join their austerity nonsense. You went from being an anti-union tax cutting fanatic to being a populist overnight. Don't be revisionist now.
That's misrepresentation of what I wrote. I was at one time opposed to public sector unions, thinkiong they were unnecessary. That feeling changed when I saw Bethlehem gang up on a good police officer. The feeling became more pronounced when two couty workers were wrongly fired. Seeing Brown in action pushed me over the edge.
As for the tea party members, I consider most of them to be decent people who care. I was highly critical of the book ban movement and its stand on numerous issues, including the limited government resolution. I was critical of their attempts to stop government. The leadership in that party has pretty much hated me from its onset. Mat Benol was briefly their chair, and I thought he was a decent guy. A good dad. But I never supported him for anything.
Your statements are just lies. Maybe you should stop lying about people.
How are they lies? You basically confirmed in the last post exactly what I said?
Benol is doing his job and Barron is a tool.
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