Or should I say- when all is right in my world?
The last four years have been an extremely difficult time for me with regards to my employment. Our office saw the rise (and ultimate fall) of an incredibly corrupt elected official that did nothing but help herself to tax payers funds and make a complete mockery of a system that is supposed to be here as an example to the citizens of Salt Lake County.
Her first item of business when she was elected was to request an incredible pay increase for a job she had never participated in and was never really qualified for. She ran on the Republican ticket and her BYU education in the hopes that the citizens would be too "church struck" to notice that she was a wolf in sheep's clothing.
She then falsified statistics to secure funding for new attorneys to fight crime. According to the arresting agencies in the area, they had never seen the same statistical increase that our office had. The money was used to bring in her inexperienced friends to run divisions in our office from locations that seemed to be anywhere but at the office.
She fired a former prosecutor with over 25 years of experience. It doesn't take a genius to know that the issue had to do with his audacity to run against her in the election. Ultimately it was determined that his termination wasn't justified and he was reinstated. Of course, she retaliated against him, costing the County hundreds of thousands of dollars to settle. It's amazing what pride can do, isn't it?
She instituted the Discovery Fee's that would ultimately require our office to charge private defense attorneys for access to our records. Never mind that most of the discovery was being provided to our office free of charge by the arresting agency. She stooped to a new low...all in the name of making a quick buck.
She unjustly spent federal grant money to hire people from her husbands private firm. Does anybody else see a problem with this? These individuals didn't have to go through the proper hiring procedures and ultimately, more qualified individuals in Salt Lake County missed out on a great employment opportunity.
Do you have any idea how difficult it is to be forced to participate in conduct that you know is unethical? Do you know how difficult it is to see people being mistreated in a work environment and know there isn't anything you can do to stop it because all of the officials in the office are just as bad as the "top dog?"
Well, eventually we fought back. And...we won!
Tomorrow, Sim Gill, the newly elected Salt Lake County District Attorney will be taking an oath to protect the citizens of Salt Lake County. I'll be there to witness the event. For many of us this will be a day of renewal. A day that we've spent years waiting for. It will be a time where we can finally let go of the past and all the things we've endured and have been forced to do, and know that as soon as that oath is taken...it all goes away and we can start over.
Having witnessed first hand what this corruption can do...I personally will do whatever it takes to make sure this past individual never holds office again in the state of Utah. When she decides to run for Mayor of Salt Lake County, I'll be there to remind the citizens why she wasn't reelected as District Attorney. When she tries to run for Attorney General, I'll inform the citizens of her misconduct while serving as District Attorney and remind them that she still has yet to prosecute a felony. If she can't prosecute even the simplest of cases at the local level then clearly, she isn't qualified to run an entire state judicial system. I'll be there. I will always be there as a reminder of who she really is. I will never let people forget.
So, for the first time in a very long, long time...all is right in my world.
Happy New Year!
