Gunpowder Chronicle posted on June 2, 2007 11:31 AM | Rating:
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The news that Marty the Mick has appointed Baltimore County Police Chief Terrence Sheridan =as MSP Superintendent is bad news for Baltimore County, and worse news for the State of Maryland.
Chief Sheridan is an effective county chief that has led an agency in dramatically attacking and reducing crime in Baltimore County. Losing him will be a loss to the agency and the county, particularly in a time when gross incompetence on the part of the zoning department and the County Council have allowed an explosion of growth in understaffed precincts (like the North County).
How does it hurt the State of Maryland? Because it shows that the governor still does not recognize that certain functions are government are local in nature, and you want your best people in those positions. No offense to State Troopers, but here in Baltimore County, Maryland State Troopers are nothing more than glorified traffic cops with guns. They fulfill a more important role in Western Maryland and the Eastern Shore, but even then, their primary responsibilities are traffic in nature.
By taking the police chief of one of the largest jurisdictions in the state-- and one that borders on three sides the cesspool that is Baltimore City -- and putting him charge of a less-important agency is a dumb management move and displays a quantitative and qualitative lack of leadership on the Governor's part. Big surprise there!
Finally, why not promote someone from within the MSP? It's not a poorly run agency, although some of its personnel decisisions recently have been mystifying. Are we to believe that there are no troopers of long and distinguished service capable of running this agency? If that is the case, why isn't the state police being gutted and revamped from top to bottom?
Answer: It isn't. And here is the rub. This is payoff to County Executive Jim Smith, who was Marty the Mick's biggest cheerleader in the recently concluded election. And this allows JimBob Smith to put his own man in his Sheridan's place.