THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, August 19, 1996 TAG: 9608170023
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A6 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: 82 lines
The City of Chesapeake has added a fifth name to the list of employees it allegedly overpaid as a result of its own clerical errors. The city is suing the five to make them repay the city the extra money, even though the employees were blameless in the errors.
The newest victim of the city's incompetence is Bradford Y. Hartung, a police sergeant. He has been asked to repay $8,296 that the city says he was overpaid between his promotion in March 1991 and September 1995, when the error was corrected.
The city already was seeking more than $10,000 apiece from three firefighters and another police officer, even though they reportedly questioned the sizes of their raises when they received them.
The city has said the employees can repay the money by reducing their salaries, performing additional work or surrendering equivalent value of certain benefits - or a combination of all three.
We recommend that people going to work for Chesapeake receive written guarantees that they won't be sued later on account of mistakes made by the city - not them.
We wish that the five cases would go to trial by jury and that we could be jury members. The Cali Bowl
It was reported last week that Maryland State Police seized 11.8 pounds of uncut cocaine bound for Hampton Roads. The kilo bricks of cocaine were labeled with the insignia of a South American drug cartel.
If the coke cartels have already got logos, can TV ads, sporting-event sponsorships, blimps shaped like spoons and celebrity endorsements be far behind? What a site!
Way cool net sites are available that can help the Internet-literate keep up with the remaining 80 days of this year's election cycle. Two especially good bets are Politicsnow and Project Vote Smart. Politicsnow has the latest national poll results and those from individual states, a primer of federal election law, data on 7,000 interest groups and government officials and campaign-finance information.
Project Vote Smart also includes campaign-finance information as well as links to candidate home pages, historical results for primaries and caucuses and background on the issues.
Will all this data at the fingertips of computer users make them better-informed voters? It can, if they use it. Having it both ways I
As early as last Monday, top officials of the Republican party were sending signals that the platform was a dead letter. Bob Dole, Jack Kemp, Newt Gingrich and Haley Barbour, the party chairman, all implausibly asserted that they hadn't even read the party platform.
Voters are left to leap to one of two conclusions. The party platform that Christian conservatives and Pat Buchanan delegates filled with planks advocating pro-life, anti-immigrant, anti-trade positions was a sop thrown to the right wing of the party but wouldn't really set the agenda for the next four years. Or the party is downplaying the controversial elements of the platform until after the election, when they can be implemented. Having it both ways II
Part of the logic behind Bob Dole's supply-side tax cut is: If you let people keep more of the money they earn, they will be spurred to earn even more money. Instead of tax revenues going down, they'll go up.
But Susan Molinari, in her keynote address said the Dole economic plan would let women have more time at home with their families. How? Presumably since they'll get to keep more of the money they earn they won't have to work as hard. But in that case, tax revenues will decline.
Since a crushing burden of debt and the fate of the economy are riding on the issue, it would be nice to know which explanation the party is placing its bet on. Favorite sons
Perhaps inspired by the recent addition of a statue to Richmond's Monument Ave., Gov. George Allen answered the roll call of the states at Wednesday's GOP convention balloting by calling Virginia ``the birthplace of American liberty, the home of heroes past and present, from Patrick Henry, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Arthur Ashe and Colin Powell.'' The syntax was a bit odd, but the sentiment was admirable. by CNB