Anyone standing on the outside looking in would have to admit it’s been a seven-day stretch for Westlock County.
There’s no denying it.
Check out the headlines. A long serving employee is fired at the side of the road, the off-again, on-again relationship with fire chief John Biro is back on again, a 3,700 per cent fee increase for the Summer Village of Larkspur and constant speculation about the future of CAO Peter Kelly.
We’re sure county officials would put a different spin on the last week, but from where we stand, on the edge of the floorshow, it looks like a mess.
The callous termination of 76-year-old grader operator Bill Chapotelle is a good place to start.
We have the family’s story and we’ve been able to glean some information from the county and we can’t see how the county can justify its actions.
We have run hypothetical after hypothetical and we always end up at the same point — it’s unacceptable to fire someone on the side of the road and leave them to their own devices to find a way home … in this case a 14-mile hike home.
What could have the employee done that was so heinous or offensive that it warranted instant dismissal?
Or what about John Biro? Seven days ago we ran a story on how everything was fine with the rotating fire chief system the county was operating and then two fires later, Biro is back.
Trying to get a clear reason as to why Biro was rehired so quickly is like herding cats — everything is going every which way and the reason for the act makes zero sense.
But ultimately we get it. Everyone is allowed to have bad days, hell, we have bad days and even bad weeks here at the Westlock News. But we pick ourselves back up and try again, always attempting not to repeat the things that caused the problem in the first place.
Because if we don’t, things that first seemed like an aberration fast become a pattern.
It’s not our job to fix issues at the county. Our job is to hold the people we elect, and the public servants employed to improve our lives, to the highest possible standard.
This week, the county seemingly failed to meet that standard. We can take a bad week, but we can’t accept multiple bad weeks because that’s habitual failure.
