Response – Fire the Whistleblower
Cristal M Clark
Crazy happenings early this morning when now former Head of Denver Civil Service Commission Niecy Murray who elected to blow the whistle on the hiring practices for Police and Fire personnel since Mayor Mike Johnston took office.
The cities response was to ask her not to return to work.
Niecy claims that the city has been cutting corners in the hiring for police and fire personnel due to a quota put in place by the mayor’s office. She said that the minimum score that police and fire recruits must meet was lowered in 2020 and that it has been lowered again since the Mayor took office. She was joined by three Denver City Council members on the steps of the City and County Building Tuesday morning for a news conference on the matter.
“The public’s trust is placed in us to ensure standards for safety are being met, the role of the Civil Service Commission is far too important to be diminished to one which is strictly performative.”
According to Niecy there had been a fairly steady push to ignore certain red flags of potential candidates, and was told to give each the opportunity to try to figure out later whether these individuals will be successful. Basically, kicking the can down the road, because we all know that the Mayor is about numbers and meeting his goals by any means necessary and by any cost necessary.
What concerns the public and current officers is whether or not potential problems are being allowed to join police or fire departments within the city. Ignoring red flags is not really intelligent yet that also depends on what those red flags are and I would venture to guess that they have more to do with psychological concerns, some could be physical but the bottom line is whether or not someone is mentally capable to serve in the role of a public servant.
Obviously this is a huge black eye for the City and the Mayor, asking Niecy to refrain from returning to work was probably not the brightest move. Regardless of what she should have done, you know going through proper channels to blow the whistle or the proper chain of command, it paints the Mayor and the City in a terrible light. What it says to voters is that we cannot trust the Mayor or City here. It makes it appear that they are hiding something or that they want to keep the truth from us.
She went to the media first and as upsetting as I am sure that was for the Mayor and the City it is all about being eloquent and appearances if you want the public to trust you and what happened just destroyed whatever credibility they could have had regarding the matter.
The ball is back with Niecy since the city and the Mayor asked her to not return to work, which leaves the optics looking not so good for the Mayor and the City. It really begs the question about what other corners that will cost us in the long run, has the Mayor instructed the city to cut in an effort to meet the Mayor’s political agenda?
Cristal M Clark
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