More MCSD Mismanagement!

Gus Philpott
Woodstock Advocate
May 9, 2014

Is it really true that Undersheriff Zinke (the man who wanted voters to make him the next Sheriff of McHenry County) authorized five (that's f-i-v-e !!! (5)) deputies to go to Texas to pick up their new toy, a mine-resistant ambush-protected (MRAP) vehicle???

How great a fete of mismanagement is that? Maybe there's an award MCSD can claim for Worst Waste of Taxpayer Dollars in the month of May!

Among those who are known to be making the trip are Patrol Commander John Miller, Deputy Hildreth, a corrections officer, and two others.

Why five? How are they traveling? Did they drive? Get a room for five at Motel 6? Or does it mean five separate rooms?

One deputy (and a lower-paid one, at that) could have flown to Texas, picked up the MRAP and driven it back in two days, plus the one day to get there.

Or it could have been trucked back on a semi. Heck, maybe RITA Corporation could have saved a little room in a tractor-trailer unit for it.

Will the lack of professional and organizational management at MCSD result in huge, unnecessary expenses, most of which will only be uncovered after December 1st? That's when there will be a new sheriff in town.

I recall my days as a volunteer deputy sheriff in Colorado. At the time I held a Commercial Pilot's license and an instrument rating. Occasionally, the Department wanted a pilot to fly to a distant location in Colorado on Department business and I'd volunteer. Of course, there was no pay for it, because I was a volunteer.

But who got the gravy flight? A lieutenant (employee). Sure, "rank hath its privileges". But it cost the Department for that guy to bore holes in the sky that day, instead of doing his job behind the wheel or at his desk.

The concepts of efficiency and economy certainly do not exist at MCSD!