As recently reported in the Commercial, the Pine Bluff Parks and Recreation Commission voted to uphold the two-week suspension of Saracen Landing manager Trudy Redus pursuant to an accident she had on April 28. As a result of the accident, Redus’ son, Tre’ Redus, a passenger in the vehicle, was injured. Moreover, the vehicle, a Toro Workman MDX, sustained damage with an estimated repair cost of $4,042.
The Parks and Recreation Board acted properly in upholding the suspension. Unfortunately, their decision was not unanimous. Given the comments made to reporters afterward, we question why the dissenters felt they had adequate cause to doubt Parks Department Director Angela Parker. In doing so, they reaffirm a broadly held contention that the rules are malleable, if your name or standing is sufficiently great.
Moreover, we should recall that Parker, in adhering to the letter of the “law,” initially asked the disciplinary sub-committee to terminate Redus. Following the rules that allegedly bind all employees, Parker’s recommendation — severe as it may be — was what the rules required. Even so, the Parks board, in its wisdom thought it knew better.
In response, Parker stated very clearly why termination was the appropriate course of action: “My recommendation to the personnel committee was for termination. I feel that this suspension for this particular incident gives me no power to do anything in the future to any employees who fail, refuse, whatever the case may be as pertaining to a drug test or completely misrepresenting the truth to do nothing but suspend them without pay.”
Indeed, make a special case for one and you undermine discipline for all who will follow.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
It’s a grossly overused trope to quote Orwell’s Animal Farm, but in this case, it fits, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” While that’s the best known line, the one that comes next is equally prescient for local concerns, “After that it did not seem strange when next day the pigs who were supervising the work of the farm all carried whips in their trotters.”
It’s one thing to liberally interpret the rules so as to not offend those responsible for your patronage positions. It’s wholly another to pretend that such bending has no consequences. When we give in to little pushes, we validate all subsequent ones. The slope of abuse steepens and becomes more slippery.
Ironically, Commissioner Teki Jimenez voted against terminating Redus because she “didn’t want to set a bad precedent.” Call it what you will, the bad precedent has now been set in stone, cast in bronze and mounted in the public square. As reported, the commission chose to change one thing about the personnel committee’s recommendation, which included a one-year probation period for Redus during which she could be fired by Parker if there were further accidents or incidents. Commissioners Pulliam and Jimenez said they decided to drop the probation period because in an at-will employment state like Arkansas, it is already up to Parker’s discretion to fire Redus, so the probation period was redundant and unnecessary.
This adjustment is among the most asinine elements of the commission’s actions in this matter. The idea that Parker ever would be free to terminate Redus without someone else’s approval strains all credibility. Just in view of the established facts in this incident alone: Redus caused an accident in which city property was damaged and a person was injured. In the wake of it, she failed to take the required drug test and was insubordinate. What more should it take? More equal indeed.
In the days prior to Redus’ foregone selection for this position we vociferously argued that this day would come. Now that it has, none among us should be surprised.