HATCH ACT SURPRISE
The Utah Democratic Party has asked the federal government to determine whether Ogden City’s Police Chief Jon J. Greiner and Chief Technology Officer Jay Brummett can legally run for the state Legislature under the Hatch Act.
The Ogden Standard Examiner explained that the Act named after former Sen. Carl Hatch, D-N.M., the Hatch Act applies to the political activity of state and local government workers if they are principally employed by an agency in connection with programs financed in whole or in part by federal loans or grants.
Those employees, along with all federal workers, are prohibited from being candidates for public office in a partisan election.
Greiner, a GOP candidate for State Senate District 18, told the Deseret News, “I don’t administer any federal grants. … I could be surprised, I suppose.”
“I’m the computer guy,” Brummett, a GOP candidate for State House District 35, said Monday to the Salt Lake Tribune. “I don’t administer federal grants.”
Somebody needs to tell Ogden City budget makers. From the most recent Ogden budget, they boast:
Police
The City has been very aggressive and successful in securing public safety related federal grants. Grant funded positions and technology add significant resources to the City.
Matthew Burbank, an associate professor of political science at the University of Utah, told The Salt Lake Tribune, “If that city police agency is holding grants from the federal government – and virtually all of them do – [Greiner] could be covered by the Hatch Act.”
But political pollster Dan Jones predicted to The Salt Lake Tribune that the potential law breakers best hope was lax enforcement. “I don’t think the office in Washington, D.C., would take the time to fight them. They haven’t been as strict in enforcing the act as they used to be.”
GREINER ALREADY UNDER INVESTIGATION
Of course it has been reported by The Salt Lake Tribune that Greiner is already under investigation by the Weber County Attorney’s Office in the case of an officer who was put on leave.
The officer was put on leave after Mayor Matt Godfrey spotted the officer’s wife protesting a city policy that, as KSL reported, required police officers in Ogden City to write more tickets to get their pay raises. KSL’s report said, “Right now most officers in Ogden say they write a couple of tickets a week on average, but the union for the police has warned the rank and file that to make a five-percent raise, they need to write more. Chief Jon Greiner says that’s what cops are supposed to do.”
Mayor Matt Godfrey told the Tribune at the time, “The concern I had and the chief had was that his officers weren’t telling the truth [about the protests]. We fire people all the time for lying.”
“Guess what a police officers job is: write tickets,” says Greiner.
Greiner says tickets are just a small part of what the officers need to do to meet performance standards. He says his officers are just whining.
“This is about having a job. If this is the job you want to have, then show up and do the job. If you don’t then I’ll have to find someone else to do the job,” says Greiner.
The City Council later changed the policy failing to back up Chief Greiner. The Council took action after a case of the “blue flu” walkout by police.
On Saturday June 24 the Ogden Standard Examiner reported that a gunman took a hostage, held police at bay and ultimately shot himself and injured his hostage. Drivers and pedestrians who happened by as the incident was unfolding at the intersection of Ogden’s 12th Street and Monroe Boulevard could be forgiven for wondering why officers from other jurisdictions, including Brigham City, South Ogden and the Weber County Sheriff’s Office were present. The simple answer: “In excess of 90 percent of those normally scheduled to work called in sick,” Ogden Assistant Police Chief Randy Watt said Friday of the 158-member department.
And where was Greiner while all this was happening, Watt was the acting police chief while Chief Jon Greiner vacationed in Europe that week. That was also the week of the primary election where Greiner was a candidate for public office.
QUESTIONS BEGGING TO BE ANSWERED
If the Ogden Police Chief doesn’t administer federal grants to the police department, and he doesn’t advocate for his police force with the City Council, and the morale is so low that 90% of the force will walk out, what does he do? . . . . go golfing with Salt Lake County Sheriff Aaron Kennard?
Can he really in good conscience chide his officers to “show up and do the job” when he is off in Europe and running for public office?
And, will Mayor Godfrey keep his promise to “fire people all the time for lying” when Greiner asserts publicly that he does not administer federal grants? Is it reasonable to believe that that the Police Chief does not receive, manage and supervise the grants given to his department?
Seems to me that it’s time for a new direction in Ogden.
