Borough right to drop its guard

The recent controversy concerning a security guard at the Borough building brings to mind the immortal words of Melissa Click, the freedom loving academic at the University of Missouri: “Hey, can we get some muscle over here”.

Given the age we live in, it is not unreasonable to address personnel and building security. However, that consideration must be rational and appropriate to the situation. Given the rather negligible possibility of a terrorist attack in Palmer, the hiring of an unarmed, wannabe mall rent-a-cop at $4,200 to escort every borough citizen entering the building was a knee-jerk overreaction.

Mr. Moosey and his staff should remember that their job is to serve the citizens of the borough. The borough building is not a castle to protect or isolate the bureaucratic aristocracy from the common riff-raff. Our needs justify their jobs, we pay their salaries and we demand their respect. We are the reason the bureaucracy exists. We are not a problem that needs to be “managed” or an interruption to their work and we most certainly are not a threat to their safety. And if those thoughts have shown up repeatedly on staff satisfaction surveys, then perhaps Mr. Moosey and his staff should talk a long hard look in the mirror and wonder if their attitudes and actions haven’t engendered the very reactions they so irrationally imagine and fear. Have you become so paranoid and fearful that you’ve forgotten we’re your friends and neighbors?

The Assembly has rightly nipped this insult in the bud. But I also get the impression that they were unaware of this situation. One wonders what other actions and wasteful expenditures Mr. Moosey has undertaken without the Assembly’s knowledge or approval? At the very least, it would seem that Mr. Moosey’s actions as borough manager deserve closer scrutiny and a shorter lease. It would also behoove the Assembly to investigate, and reasonably accommodate, the security concerns of the staff but to also pointedly remind them that their job is to serve the public — not the other way around.

Finally, I first had to learn about this and the comments of Rep. Gattis concerning senior citizens through stories in the Alaska Dispatch News. Frankly, I find that disappointing. The Frontiersman did eventually run a very well reasoned editorial on the Gattis comments, which I applaud. But I always thought one of the advantages of a hometown newspaper was its ability to stay on top of local news. I realize that the ADN is a daily with far more resources at its disposal than the Frontiersman. But, unfortunately, the Frontiersman seems to have been a day late and a dollar short concerning these two stories. I like the Frontiersman. In the future, I hope it does better by its local readers.

Paul Scheidenberg

Palmer