Loyalty is nice but can be misguided Part Two

Then we have another family in favor with the CE: The Porr Family:

Harry Porr, Former Village Administrator for the Village of Bronxville, former City Manager of Newburgh, former candidate for County Executive (he ran unsuccessfully against Mary McPhillips-read Mike Levine’s article in the THR 01/14/07) But most interesting, former boss to Stevie Thunder in Newburgh, Harry now works for the County Executive as the Director of Operations. We’ll have more on Harry at a later time. (At the risk of being cliche, "Who's the Boss?")

Johanna Porr  The loyalty continues to the next generation, Harry’s daughter, Johanna is now the Orange County historian, replacing Cornelia Bush. Johanna does have some qualifications for the position and may eventually turn out to be a good county historian, but Auntie and the team are not necessarily concerned about how qualified she is but HOW she got the job.

Johanna has a MPA from Marist, a BS from SUNY New Paltz in Anthropology and an Associate’s degree in European History from Franklin College in Lugano, Switzerland. She also has certificates in Archeology and Museum Studies.

One of the approaches that she supports is laid out in “The Anarchist Guide to Historic House Museums” by Franklin Vagnone, Executive Director at the Historic House Trust of New York City. His approach to historic house museums is one of a more “hand-on approach” eliminating the rope barriers so that people may actually sit on one of the chairs that George Washington used. (Imagine one of your heavy relatives sitting on a gentle spindle-legged harpsichord bench and the subsequent CRASH!!!- While this increases the tactile experience of the museum visitor, it does little for historic preservation, in our opinion. We suggest Mr. Vagnone come up with another way to increase “visitorship” to museums.) Let’s hope that Johanna does not plan to act on this premise as County Historian.

Johanna has worked as the Director of the Historical Society of Newburgh Bay & the Highlands; Historian, Washington's Headquarters Newburgh. If you like, compare her experience with that of other County Historians. ( Here's an example: http://www.rocklandhistory.org/page.cfm?page=314 )

Auntie wonders: Could Johanna apply the skills she acquired getting her degree in anthropology to dig up some of the OC political skeletons? Does her European History degree (which includes, off course, the study of dictators) qualify her to work for a “wanna-be” dictator?

Think about this, folks, Ted Sly, the Historian before Cornelia was the County Historian through many regime changes, indicating a non-political status to the position.

But remember, the issue isn’t necessarily Johanna’s qualifications but about HOW she came to replace the former historian, Cornelia, who has credentials in Genelogy and has business experience.

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Wait! Business experience? Who is it that talks about government being run like a business? Oh yes, Stevie Thunder!!!

Auntie must preface the following information with a caveat. Auntie does not like to engage in rumors but this info comes from a very strong source. We consider it reliable but not necessarily publicly documented. So, don’t be surprised at words such as supposedly, allegedly etc.

It seems that not only did Stevie Thunder allegedly want to get rid of Cornelia as the County Historian and replace her with his buddy’s daughter, but he did it in his usual enigmatic manner. Supposedly, when she was on sick leave, our Stevie Thunder sent one of the Sheriff’s Deputies to her home to inform her that she no longer had a job!

Nice...(sarcasm)

This, if accurate, would be wrong in so many ways, but the biggest one is discontinuing someone’s employ when on sick leave!!! Not only is this an example of bad management style, but also a lack of humanity.

And is it even legal?

And would  the Sheriff approve of his office being used as the little messenger for the County Executive?

Can you imagine this? With a friendly wave of the hand, akin to the Donald, Stevie waves goodbye to another casualty of orange county employment, the former Orange County Historian. As he rides off into the sunset, he is satisfied that another political promise to a friend has been kept.

   

If only he had such loyalty to the people who elected him…