Backwards Priorities

Two stories out of Frankfort this weekend perfectly illustrate how state government has its head up its ass on deciding what to preserve and what to destroy.

Franklin County is about to destroy a historic building to satisfy a state program to build giant ugly monuments to our lack of justice.

The church and its adjacent Good Shepherd School sit on Wapping Street in historic downtown Frankfort, just around the corner from the county courthouse that judges and officials say they outgrew long ago. The church, with its distinctive steeple, has been a signature of Frankfort's modest skyline and a keystone building in the historic district near the Kentucky River.

The steeple is depicted in several works of 19th-century artist Paul Sawyier, who lived in Frankfort.

And as Governor Beshear prepares to dismantle state services in the face of a depression, his second-biggest cabinet is proudly maintaining the tradition of creating unnecessary jobs for political cronies.

The Cabinet for Health and Family Services created a $63,000 job earlier this year for a woman who had dated a key lawmaker who helps oversee the cabinet.

The political appointment was made in June, at a time when many front-line positions that serve the state’s most vulnerable citizens remained vacant.

It's bad enough that the state's personnel laws and regulations institutionalize seniority, requiring the dismissal of newer staff, no matter how exceptional, to keep staff who have been around longer, no matter how borderline.

But spending a week crying to the press about having to cut services while adding management layers takes arrogant malfeasance to a new level.

And where are all those downtown Frankfort business owners who bitch and whine nonstop about how nobody visits downtown? Do they really think yet another concrete eyesore full of accused criminals and their lawyers is more business-friendly than a historic church that draws tourists?

This budget crisis is an opportunity to examine our priorities and figure out what's really important to save and what's even more important to destroy.

Keep the church; dump the deputy.

Cross-posted at BlueGrassRoots.