Also, what is your answer to my comment that if we just let this happen to our office, we are likely going to be stuck with a political hack as the next PD? You don’t respond to that. You simply say that no one should bother to go to the meeting. I am assuming, you like me, would want a high-quality PD (hence this whole search committee idea that you came up with). You don’t want somebody hand-picked by politicians looking to add to their patronage army, do you?

Think about it or take a hard look at it, as you say in comment 17. This whole ordeal has been probably pretty embarrassing to Ed (i.e., being accussed of dereliction of duty in the press). Could not the same thing happen to the next PD too? Assuming the next PD wants to act with some independence, as Ed expressed that he did. With this kind of track record for Stroger and the county commissioners, would a really good candidate want this job? If Stroger and the 9 who signed this proposal can get away with this garbage (and it is clearly garbage), wouldn’t high-quality applicants be cautious about accepting this job? If they are cautious about accepting the PD position, what will we end up with? A second-rater? A lackey? A hack?

Ed is not the champion of all union members, but that’s not his job either. That could be your job though.

My position is that at least Ed let me do my job within reason. He let me be a lawyer. Would a second-rater hand-picked by Stroger do that? Would a lackey do that? How about one of the hacks he has placed in other positions? Could the back door to this office be opened up to a patronage army of workers because the new PD turns a blind eye to it? What is the damage that they could do to the office? Your career? Our clients? What’s your response?

We called the meeting for the purpose of allowing the membership to air it’s views on the matter and to ask questions. Membership meetings are not a new thing. I don’t how long you’ve been a Public Defender assuming you are one at all. So instead of proselytizing behind an alias, why don’t you show your face Monday 4p.m., auditorium of Juvenile Court, and report back to us what your Commissioner said when you called him or her about this matter. I’d be more than glad to tell you what my Commissioner’s response was when I phoned his office several weeks ago about the issue.

I respect anyone’s right to have an opinion, but your opinion should be rooted in fact. Have you been down to the County Building and looked at the job postings. Let me know if you see any for Assistant Public Defender, Lane 1.

Notably, that post stated:

To say that the public defender is responsible for the lack of staffing is insulting. Human Resources, under President Stroger, controls when someone is hired by the office. (See April 4th posting on this website).

Pragmatist, I like your search committee idea, but isn’t there a problem with advocating for a search committe now? Isn’t the first question that the prospective applicant will ask is: “what happened to the last Public Defender?” Yikes! Then you have to explain about how Ed got fired because he filed a lawsuit, wanted independence to do his job, complained about people on the payroll that didn’t actually work for the office (ingrate that he is), and then when he worked with major universities about fixing problems in the system, he got blamed for the problems, and, oh yeah, there were 34 cases that were on the docket for more than five years that just had to be all Ed’s fault and Ed’s alone. After the applicant picks his or her jaw up from the floor, you can go over the benefits package.

Yes, a search committee may a good idea, but not now. No high quality person would want this job under the current circumstances. A political hack would want the job however, and I fear he may already be hand-picked. So, if we don’t stop the commissioners from doing what they are doing, even if it aggravates them or alienates them, as Pragmatist contends, what will we get? A political hack as the next Public Defender, who is in the current administration’s pocket.

That’s how this proposal to remove Ed hurts us, if you need a good reason to fight for it. So I hope you join us and fight this proposal to remove Ed, buy some time at least, keep Ed under his current contract (he probably ain’t gonna get another one), and then conduct a search for a new PD, with input from the union, the current supervisors, and possibly the judiciary. We might be able to convince a high quality candidate under those circumstances.

Lastly, it is not out of loyalty to Ed Burnette that I make my comments. I hardly know Ed. He strikes me as a competent and friendly chap though. But I really do appreciate his showing of loyalty to this office, by filing a lawsuit and trying to keep political and other influence from making the hiring and firing decisions in the public defender’s office. And, if you think about it, Ed did not have to file this lawsuit and make it so hard on himself. He could have played ball with Stroger. Instead he chose to fight for the office, and that is admirable. That takes guts, so I will give him credit for that.

I think Stroger hitting Ed is the same as Stroger hitting us because we all have to work together. On that note, I urge you, Pragmatist, to be “pragmatic” and come to the meeting on 4-28-08.

Is it a good idea to potentially alienate some of the same Commissioners who passed the ordinance to recognize our union for the sake of a Public Defender who could be replaced anyway in less than a year? Wouldn’t we be better off advocating the Commissioners to establish a search committee for the next Public Defender?

Many of the people commenting on this issue assume that an attack on Ed Burnette is an attack on us. However, the substance of some of the resolutions does not support that point of view. And before we leap in, we should take a hard look at just what interest we would have in the allegations against Ed.

The first allegation in the resolution is that Ed did not make the attorneys at Juvenile Court work enough hours. Whining to the County Board that we shouldn’t have to work hard would display, in Justice Cardozo’s words, all the political acumen of rubes on a cabbage truck.

The second allegation is that Ed failed to fill vacant Grade III and Grade IV slots by promotion and thus failed to create room for more entry level hires. It also alleges that Ed converted 5 Grade I positions into clerical positions. If these allegations are true, we should be leading the charge against Ed instead of defending him.

The third allegation involves failure to dock the supervisors for furloughs. We do not represent the supervisors and this is not our issue.

The fourth concerns the lack of appropriate discipline for a support staff member who was arrested for delivery of marijuana to the office. Again, we do not represent the support staff and this is not our issue.

The fifth allegation is that Ed is violating the Shakman consent decree. The Shakman consent decree protects all of our union members from political discrimination. If the allegations of violation are true, it would not be in our interest to argue that the Public Defender need not respect the constitutional rights of his own employees.

The sixth and final allegation is that Ed misled the Board with respect to the lawsuit he filed. From many of the posts, it appears that there is a misconception about the actual claims for relief in the Complaint filed by Ed. The Complaint was not filed in federal court and does not seek any relief for our caseloads or relief on behalf of our clients. Instead, the complaint was filed in Chancery for injunctive relief and the bulk of those claims involve the proposed furloughs for supervisors. Again, we do not represent the supervisors and this is not our issue.

In short, there are potential political downsides to getting involved here and very little of the matters raised in the resolution either involve our members or could be construed as an attack on our members.

Don’t you think that the resolution will be heard in closed session as are all personal matters and as is indicated in Item #88 in the link in Comment #6 in the Blog under “Proposed Resolution Concerning the ….. of the Public Defender?

Ed’s not perfect, none of us are, but I will take Ed over any of these signee/commissioners anyday of the week. Dereliction of duty? Ed? Come on let’s get real. I don’t see that at all. I have not been around that long, but long enough to see a guy who has been walking a tight rope trying to do his job. Hence the lawsuit from Ed. I think we should all cross our fingers and hope that Ed wins.

I really want to hear what our union’s Executive Board has to say on 4/28/08 about what action is being required from us. As for now, I plan on attending the county board hearing.