Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Irony is.........

Irony is – when a Fall River City Councilor, who is a civil servant by day, votes to do away with the civil service process in hiring a fire chief.

City Councilor Tom Kozak, a veteran civil servant with the Department of Transportation, voted without hesitation, to do away the civil service process for hiring a fire chief. Councilor Tom Kozak, who has enjoyed the benefits of a civil service process, was ignorant enough to take that same benefit away from the fire department chief. Tom Kozak can’t dislike the civil service system too much if he is willing to accept over $105,000.00 a year from his job as a civil servant.
Click here for Kozak's job details

He is an air traffic controller with the Federal Department of Transportation. Although different positions, a federal air traffic controller is still a member of the same governmental civil service system that the fire chief was.

Is it just me? I don’t get it…If Councilor Kozak feels that civil service is a bad idea, wouldn’t he stop being a civil servant?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Does he really live in Fall River and work in RI?? Or does he too,
just have a convenient address here?

Thanks Irony, every one of those
councilors shoule be exposes.

Does Joe Camara still work at ABC
Supply? He lost his job in the DA's office. After last weeks display as President of the CC ,
I am waiting for the new job
he is offered coincidently by the
mayors croanies

Anonymous said...

I will be sure to fly out of boston from now on- he was asleep
at the council meeting, he already
sleeps at one job.

Anonymous said...

Why did air traffic controller and civil servant Tom Kozak ignore the wisdom of the warriors who fight the fires in order to side, instead, with co-mayors Correia and Silva? Is it possible that Kozak can’t grasp the concept of risking one’s life for others in the name of duty?

You see, the firefighters fear that a contract chief won’t demand safe staffing levels because such a chief will be more concerned about protecting his job than protecting us. But when there aren’t enough firefighters to battle a blaze, who is more likely to die — the chief or the people engulfed in flames and the firefighters trying to rescue them?

Similarly, if, in his line of duty, Kozak can’t guide aircraft safely because air traffic controllers are understaffed, who dies in the mid-air collision? Certainly not Tom Kozak. He’s safe, sheltered and secure in the splendid isolation of the control tower. Much like a princess in an ivory tower — above it all, out of reach…and completely out of touch.

shamrock said...

Regarding Tom Kozak's residence: yes, he unfortunately is really a Fall River resident. He obtained a variance from the zoning board to split a lot and build a giant house on the tiny lot.

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know where the Fall RIver Community blogspot went???

It has been removed

Anonymous said...

COINCIDENCE????

fallrivercommunity blog was removed,

does it have anything to do with a similiar article about civil service being posted???

Just google Boss Tweed or Tammany Hall for all the info....

Here is an exerpt:

The beginning of Civil Service Boss Tweed" and the Tammany Hall Machine David Wiles, Eaps 760

There is little question that the Tweed Ring were outright thieves and that Tammany Hall did have a series of reoccurring scandals. An estimated 75 to 200 million dollars were swindled from the City between 1865 and 1871. Yet, there is more to the story than a confrontation of the machine form of city government and the ideology of reformer exhortations.

Tammany represented a form of organization that wedded the Democratic Party and the Society of St. Tammany ( started in 1789 for patriotic and fraternal purposes) into an interchangeable exchange. The weave of city politics was the triangulation of the Mayor's office, the Democratic Party and the social club organization. During the Civil War era, the Society of St. Tammany became the Democratic Party equivalent to the Union League Club and the Republicans. The difference is that the Democrats won control of New York City and "The Big Apple" was, perhaps, the most important government structure in the United States for more than seventy years. In 1854 Fernando Wood became the first Tammany Democrat mayor of the City. 1860 William March Tweed became chairman of the New York county Democratic Party and the leader (called the Grand Sachem) of the Tammany club. For the next seventy years ( until the 1934 mayoral victory of Fiorello La Guardia) the anti machine reformers only held the mayor's office and control of the City for a total of ten years. Given the present day infamy of the "Tweed" identity to disgrace it is curious that the "rascals took so long to be thrown out." The success of Tammany Hall to control City politics and persist in power until the years of the Great Depression is better appreciated by understanding Samuel Tilden George Washington Plunkett. Samuel Tilden was the Chairperson of the New York State Democratic Party during the Tweed era and ran for President against Rutherford Hayes in 1876. He, more than any other politician, is given credit for bringing down the Tweed Ring in New York City. The problem was that he worked on the task of identifying and bring down the Tweed ring for more than a decade. Republicans charged that length of time amounted to a cover-up; Democratic argued that length of time was necessary for state power to isolate and weaken local government control. In short, Samuel Tilden was a reformer who found himself (in the early l870's) caught between the reformer desires to clean up the criminal excess of the political machine and the practical implications of gauging probable success. As he gathered information to prove Tweed criminality beyond a shadow of a doubt Tilden also wanted the state Democratic Party to not be accused of corruption or covering up. He knew the general movement for municipal reform was growing but he also knew the underlying strength of the political machine form of local government would remain regardless of the reformer success with the Tweed phenomenon. George Plunkett was made famous by writer William Riordan who described Tammany Hall as "a series of very plain talk on very practical politics delivered by Tammany philosopher from his rostrum-the New York County Courthouse bootblack stand." When we remember Ellis Island was in New York harbor (with the Statue of Liberty) and it is estimated that two fifths of the American population have relatives that were processed through that in migration site, the Plunkett "plain talk" starts to make sense. "Think what the people of New York are. On half, more than one half, are of foreign birth. They do not speak our language, they do not know our laws, they are the raw material with which we have to build up the state....there is no denying the service that Tammany has rendered the Republic. There is no other organization for taking hold of untrained, friendless men and converting them into citizens. Who else in the city would do it? There is not a mugwump who would shake their hand." For that city context Plunkett advises those concerned with local governing; " Don't go to college and stuff your head with rubbish; get out with your neighbors and relatives and round up a few votes you can call your own. Study human nature and make government warm and personal." For the way the political machine routinely operates, Plunkett states, "What reformers call 'machine' we call organization. In New York City the smallest unit is the election district committee, headed by a captain. The election districts overlap with the assembly districts headed by leaders who, in turn, constitute the county executive committee. Assembly leaders are elected in primaries and elect their own party chairmen." Author Riordan points out that the New York City Democratic organization in the l920's numbered 32,000 committee men spread over five counties. The amount of patronage in l888 (when Woodrow Wilson was publishing his famous piece) for just the city county containing Manhattan and a slice of the Bronx was 12,000 municipal jobs and a payroll of twelve million dollars. At the time this was a bigger resource distribution than the Andrew Carnegie iron and steel works. When George Plunkett dies in 1924 he was eulogized this way;" He understood that in politics honesty doesn't matter, efficiency doesn't matter, progressive vision doesn't matter. What does matter is the chance for a better job, a better price of wheat, better business conditions. Plunkett's legacy is to that practicality."

FRC said...

FRC is still alive and well.

I'm hoping to restore it soon, but for now the URL is:

www.frc-fallrivercommunity.blogspot.com

shamrock said...
This comment has been removed by the author.