If you believe that Pawlowski was color blind when he hired Joel Fritzgerald as police chief, you might as well stop reading this post now.
When the former Allentown police chief's son was arrested for pulling a gun on county detectives, and the chief hired a Philadelphia power attorney to defend him, and then counter sue for racism, I blogged questioning the father's integrity. Apparently, I'm not the only one to question the father's integrity...He has been fired as chief by his current city, Fort Worth, Texas. Those interested in the current issues in Texas can read about it in the Morning Chronicle article.
My issue with Fritzgerald was that he was specifically hired in Allentown to increase racial harmony, not incite discord. The Fritzgerald family had no issues with such affirmative action when senior was hired. They had no issue with favoritism or nepotism when junior was hired as a guard at Lehigh County Prison. Although his son's power attorney managed to get him acquitted from the gun charges, the counter suit was totally inappropriate for the son of this police chief. The court also found the racism charge baseless, and dismissed the suit.
When asked about his dismissal from Fort Worth, Fritzgerald replied that he's hiring a lawyer.
ANNOUNCEMENT: In September of 2007, I introduced Open Mike to the local blogosphere. Readers could comment on any topic they chose. To celebrate this blog's 12th birthday, I am reintroducing the feature this coming Friday. In 2016, to enhance accountability, I eliminated anonymous comments. The Open Mike posts will allow anonymous comments until 7:30PM.
Mike, The school board followed the same model when they brought in a new superentendent for the ASD. The final three candidates were all minorities. What are the odds of that. They ended up hiring a person who was running a school district the size of one of our middle schools that was under his tenure involved in a missing funds investigation. He/Parker is clearly in over his head and his stewardship is leading the district to a state take over.
ReplyDeleteThey are of course many high quality minority candidates, the problem is there is a high demand for them. The ASD lost many of its own excellent minority teachers and administrators to richer surrounding districts.
In the final analysis it is wrong to hire based on race or creed just as it is wrong not to. America is a meritocracy, this over time has proven itself the best remedy for all Americans. We all have talents and those talents need to be recognized and prioritized in schools, the markets, and the work force.
Allentown DESERVES the Government that IT repeatedly elects.
ReplyDeleteThe Fort Worth media has been reporting for months the issues Mr. Fritzgerald was creating for himself.The breaking point was when Mr. Fritzgerald was appointed and un-appointed to the Baltimore job.The man did not play well with others
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