Monday, September 22, 2008

A man of his word

And leave the vehicles, cell phones, computers, etc. here when you go.

The story flashing around town today is about the resignation of Joe Santiago as the former police director for the city of Trenton. This inspirational move came on the last day of the 75 day period granted by last July's Appellate Court decision; a period designed to allow for the "orderly transition" to new leadership of the TPD.

Now, the wags are posing the question "How can he resign from a position that the courts determined he no longer held?" And it is a valid question.

Resigned or fired, it doesn't really make a difference (except maybe for the $136,000+ in legal fees our cash-strapped city spent on this ridiculous court case).

What does matter is that Mr. Santiago, the once and future former police director, has shown that after all that has occurred, he is a man of his word.

Last November, Santiago was quoted in the newspaper as saying he'd quit before he moved his family here. Ten months later, he's holding true to his word.

And to show how much we appreciate the former police director's integrity, we offer a similar response to his resignation that we gave nearly a year ago:

Good! Bye!

1 comment:

Christine Ott said...

Another great line: Palmer told ABC last night, "[Santiago] helped reduced [sic] crime almost 50% over the last almost [sic] six years. He certainly has done tremendous things here, and I'm certainly sad to see him go," said Mayor Palmer."

This quote coincides with the release of the UCR this week which states that violent crime is down in most of the county, except for in Trenton, where murder is up.

So, I wonder how Palmer comes up with his 50% reduction? Does he mean violent crime? All crime? Petty crime? Or are the statistics manipulated?

No matter what: goodbye, Joe. Maybe you should just retire for good this time, instead of causing another ruckus someplace else.