Readers: Mayoral Candidate Sam Dotson Should Resign As Police Chief
Filing hasn’t opened yet to run for mayor, but the list of people setting up campaign committees is growing rapidly. In one-party cities, such as St. Louis, few challenge an incumbent, but the minute an incumbent indicates they don’t plan to seek another term everyone decides to jump in.
Most hold another elected office, at least one of which also holds a private job. At some point that candidate might need to take a leave of absence or resign if her employer feels she’s not doing her day job to their satisfaction. The public isn’t impacted if the CFO of an architectural firm is distracted for a few months.
If the chief of police is distracted for a few months the public would notice. Unlike every other candidate for mayor, Sam Dotson has a direct role in keeping citizens safe. I personally think he, as a first-time political candidate, is being incredibly naive about the amount of time a campaign will take.
Here are the results from Sunday’s non-scientific poll:
Q: Agree or disagree: Police chief Sam Dotson should resign since he’s running for mayor in the March 2017 primary
- Strongly agree 28 [41.18%]
- Agree 12 [17.65%]
- Somewhat agree 5 [7.35%]
- Neither agree or disagree 1 [1.47%]
- Somewhat disagree 5 [7.35%]
- Disagree 9 [13.24%]
- Strongly disagree 8 [11.76%]
- Unsure/No Answer 0 [0%]
More than two-thirds agree, on some level, that Sam Dotson should resign. I’m not certain how a new chief is selected now that the city has control instead of the state. My guess is Mayor Slay would get a say in picking the new chief.
Filing begins in late November.
— Steve Patterson
If the CEO or CFO of an architectural firm is distracted, the public isn’t impacted because the CEO doesn’t work for the “public”—but he does work for his shareholders. ….and in that case the architectural firm and his shareholders aren’t adversely impacted IF the CEO has wisely hired his support staff…… If he hasn’t, there are other issues that need to be addressed.
If L. Reed and G. X. Daly can be “distracted” for several months without consequence, as you suggest, it can be concluded that 1) both Reed and Daly have been astute enough to surround themselves with qualified support staff, or 2) their job responsibilities and demands are minimal and, with a few tweaks, their positions can and should be eliminated from the City budget. Neither Reed nor Daly appears to be “overworked.”
DOTSON IS NOT ASKING FOR A LEAVE OF ABSENCE!!!
No one–not even the US president–is so important that he is indispensable. When our esteemed president ran for his second term, the country did as well (…..er….) during the campaign as before and after.
I suspect another agenda in mind in this discussion……!
Sam Dodson is like any other top executive – he sets policy and is the “face’ of the organization, the actual work is being done by “anonymous” people several levels further down in the organization. And you’re right, no one is truly indispensable, but at the other end of the spectrum, if we expected everyone running for public office to quit their jobs as a condition for running, we’d have an even smaller (and more pathetic?) pool of candidates to select from!