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'Lack of diversity' called 'tired refrain'

By Letter to the editor
Published: July 02, 2009

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Editor:

The front page of the June 18 Madison County Eagle had so many delicious ironies.

You have a black woman, Janice Carpenter, being honored as the Madison Lions Club’s Madison Award winner, and you have Mr. Arrington’s complaint about the board of supervisors recently adopted personnel policy that gives great leeway to County Administrator Lisa Robertson in the hiring and firing of upper-level employees.

The irony is that Ms. Robertson would probably not be in her present position were it not for the comments of her predecessor, Mr. Utz, regarding Mr. Arrington.

In addition, Mr. Arrington has brought back that tired refrain of “lack of diversity” in county hiring.

It’s a pretty small county folks. How many employees do you need, and are we now going to get into an area where a fixed percentage of county employees must be members of a certain race/minority?

As a 61-year-old white male (one who has always made his own way, regardless of how many setbacks the federal government has thrown my way), I have definitely grown weary. And, I thought the election of Mr. Obama was supposed to make all these kinds of problems go away.

Joe May
Fairfax and Etlan