'UNRULY' FERRY PILOT FACED AX

New York Post ^ | 10/17/03 | FRANKIE EDOZIEN, WILLIAM J. GORTA and PHILIP MESSING

[kattracks]

October 17, 2003 -- The Department of Transportation tried to fire Staten Island Ferry pilot Richard Smith, but instead had to relegate him to a job ferrying corpses to a potter's field in The Bronx, a former official told The Post yesterday.

[Sam Cree]

"But one thing it does tell you if true:It is almost as impossible to fire a government employee as it is a union employee"

I am betting that it is almost impossible for an outsider to get these kinds of jobs too. The union very likely runs this as an exclusive club. In Miami, you practically have to be born into a river tug family to even think of working on one.

[gunnedah]

Unfortunately this is the way politics operate across all of America. You have to have a contact and political connections. Jobs are sold for votes in my opinion.
I have personally watched while a government job was created,salary set and a person appointed without a resume or application for the job. It was all handled in 30 minutes.This was against the written policy of the body and against state law I believe and I could never get any help addressing it and I was an elected member of the said body.
Since then I have been told by reliable sources that this same body went along with getting rid of a position for a while and then recreating it so they could give it to the so called "Chairmans" relative.
Goes on all the time and the government prosecutes those in the public who violate the law but there is no recourse against government. Government is run like the "Mafia".

[gunnedah]

The Government and Mafia are one in the same.

[showme_the_Glory]

Cops said Smith had two pellet wounds to the chest and a slash wound to his left wrist.

Police found a .177-caliber American Cross pellet gun near Smith inside his Staten Island home an hour after the collision.


Are they saying he tried to off himself with a pellet gun???

[Montfort]

Hey, what's more important? People's lives and limbs, or a man's right to his government job?