Common Sense on the Rise

It seems common sense is on the rise.

This county has done the "unthinkable". It elected someone with common sense. Dar Leaf has now signed his political death warrant by exposing himself as a rational person. What could he have been thinking? He had to have been aware of the repercussions of his actions. I wonder if he just got tired of keeping his head down for so long.

Seems Dar is now at the end of his rope with the powers that be concerning contract negotiations for his troops. Who could blame him? I would not have been able to last as long as he has. It appears the county has hired an attorney supposedly skilled in negotiating labor contracts to negotiate one with the deputies in the Sheriff Department. To bad this guy only has experience negotiating with the Teamsters. His heavy handed negotiating tactics will only further erode the already low moral currently being experienced in the department and remove another reason for these good people to work hard keeping us safe.

Why on earth would anyone want to work a job like that anyways? They are verbally abused by criminals, forced to work weekends and holidays, work the night shift forever, have their already low pay be cut by reductions in hours, work short staffed, handle the human grief that we would rather not, be told by a past prosecutor that their work is for nothing, and many other painful truths that would keep a sane person from doing what they do.

So why do they keep working for us? I have known a few of them over the years and have found a few common traits among them. First I have found they carry a very deep desire to work hard and to help people. They will all hurry to the scene of an accident in the hope of saving someone severely injured or to ensure no further grief comes to the parties involved. How many of us would hurry to the scene of a domestic dispute? I know I would not. I do know that many a deputy has intervened to help an abused person escape the situation and then help them to stay safe if the abuser is unwilling to cease their actions. And how many of us would want to spend every waking moment to search for a drowning victim? Our Sheriff Department spent over a week plying the murky waters of Thornapple Lake this past summer to bring back a father and child to a grieving mother/wife while many in our community just stood idly by and spread stories of infidelity on the father’s part or claimed he kidnapped his son and left his marriage. A second common trait I have observed is a strong desire in deputies to “fix” the wrongs in life people have experienced at the hands of others. I have been thankful for this in the past when one of my children were kidnapped by an ex spouse. The deputies involved entered a known drug house and were assaulted but were finally successful in gaining the release of my daughter from her kidnappers.

I would suggest here that this very desire to help others is what Dar is currently demonstrating. Like he claims, he has been on both sides of this situation and finds the actions of the “hired gun” the county retained to be the major problem with obtaining a successful contract for all. Do we want to kill another reason our deputies have for working such a crummy job? What is the problem that our current county board has to just push this off? And why is there such an adversarial relationship between our county board and the deputies?

Let’s look into this more and fix this before it develops into something that will scar our county forever. Listen to Dar. Support the Sheriff Department now before you need their help and you wish you had.

The Wymers are at it again

Melissa Wymer has went to court again. How she does this is anyones guess. This costs much money and she is only working part time grooming dogs and currently is way behind in her support of her children. Could their horticulture business be back in operation?

Her current court action is to revisit the last court ruling (only 2 months old at this time) concerning her supervised visitation with her children. She is again demanding her supervision be eliminated and her drug dealer husband be granted full access to her children. Why in heavens name is she so intent on providing her drug dealer husband access to her children?

It would be nice to hear from anyone with a realistic solution to this mess. It seems it is her "right" to file motion after motion in an attempt to harrass her ex husband. This only reduces the standard of living for her children by burning up money that could send them through college in the future.

"Does anyone know of another case like this and what was done to stop this constant filing by one party?"

Flotsam Cast Out

Here is the latest.

Tom Evans has already jetisoned some flotsam from the prosecutors office. I guess on his second day in office, as per the Banner, he has fired an assistant prosecutor for her being unable (or more likely unwilling) to communicate with him. As reported in the Banner the firing was "without cause" but then goes on to report the cause. Great reporting Banner! I am guessing the woman will return fire at tom with a lawsuit as it is very apparent the fired party was a loyal supporter of JNP. This will be their sour grapes chance to rock the boat for Tom. It won't help their reputation any but at this point they can't understand that. they are too busy pouting.

I see Tom's office is taking a hard line with Harry Doele over his theft of narcotics. I understand this and know it is necessary as what he admittedly did is so very wrong (for more reasons than is reported) but because Harry was such a personable guy it is hard to go along with. Good luck to you Harry. We are in your corner for a full recovery and return to our county. Now I wonder if the Pennock Board is going to clean out the remainder of the trouble at Pennock or are they going to leave the rats nest alone and let it return to "business as usual".

A Random Sampling

Seems Harry has decided to plead guilty to stealing at least 100 bottles of meds. I am trully saddened by this as I do believe he has much to offer this county. lets see just how good our court system is. It is up to them just what direction Harry's life goes now. Harry, I am in your corner, work hard. We will be here when you get through this.

I attended the swearing in cerimony for Tom Evans this past week. Judge Holman was his charming self. It will be a sad day when he retires. Tom, no, we all enjoyed the swearing in. Several attorneys attended. I find it puzzling that at least a couple of those attending would not publicly support his run for office but did attend his swearing in. Shmoozing maybe? whatever reason, I just found it amusing. Myself, I have a difficult time respecting people like this. I equate them with used car salesmen. come on folks, take a position and run with it. Why do you just follow the winner? How can we ever improve things if we just have a bunch of followers/yes men/butt kissers?

Tom, Work hard. Listen to the people in this county. We will support you if you do.

I worked treating inmates in the Battle Creek lock up today. They have a much larger system than we do in this county but I still wonder just what we do for medical situations in our lock up. The size of our jail is about a tenth the size of Battle creeks but we still need medical support for these men and women. I will have to ask dar what we do have in place to treat inmates.

Budget cutting has adversly affected the school system in Nashville. I am hearing and witnessing moral drops in the band program among students a staff. they have been dealt several crushing blows this past year with the burning of their uniforms and the removal of their assistant band director. He was loved by the students and added instructor time to the students that Mr. Vanderhoff just doesn't have. Lets keep an eye on this valuble program. Letting it fail because we needed a new bus garage or some other fancy addition to the system would be criminal to say the least.

and finally, I have a summer home in Lake county and have had the pleasure of interacting with the local constbulary there. To anyone complaining about our police department - go elsewhere! One month in another county will have you crawling back here begging forgiveness, lol. I have nothing but pride in our force, espeacilly our sheriff department. To Dar and all of our deputies, you are doing a great job. it shows. Thank You.