Is it time to drain the Hamilton County swamp?
An eye-opener about Hamilton County Government from City Beat. By JAMES MCNAIR APR 12, 2017
If you thought the Hamilton County courthouse was a vehicle for political patronage, nepotism and favoritism in hiring, you were right. CityBeat gave the practice the closest look ever taken.
In effect, the courthouse is like a scale model for ancestry.com, with overlapping branches of multiple family trees. Some in the community have grown weary of the absence of a formal merit system in the county courthouse. Robert Newman, who has practiced law in Cincinnati for about 45 years, called the hiring of family members a “pernicious” practice.
“Sure, there are some sons and daughters and nephews and nieces who were likely hired because Dad was a judge or a prosecutor and who are performing well on the job,” Newman says. “But some are not and are less qualified than others who applied or who could have gotten the job if the employment process were an open one.
“So they work side-by-side with people who are doing the job and they are not,” he continues. “This does not do them any good. It doesn’t do the office any good. It is not fair to taxpayers. It is just bad personnel policy. Most businesses have policies against nepotism for these reasons.”
Read on at City Beat…
