Thursday, January 10, 2013

Barnett Jones: Working for a Living?


John Wisely of The Detroit Free Press reports:
Flint’s administrator of public safety resigned this morning after the Free Press raised questions about how he could work there while also working as the head of security for the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department.

Barnett Jones, a longtime lawman in southeast Michigan, was earning $273,750 at the two jobs, which are almost 70 miles apart. He had been working both since May.


22 comments:

  1. Over a quarter of a million dollars!?! No wonder Flint and Detroit are broke!

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    1. I could live pretty well in San Francisco on that kind of money. Now imagine how you could live in Flint or Detroit on $273 K?

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  2. Either the jobs weren't getting done, or they are getting way too much money for what they do.

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  3. Congress and the President were thinking of Barnett Jones when they agreed on $450,000 as the threshold for higher tax rates and deduction and tax credit phase outs instead of $250,000.

    In Detroit and Flint, $273,000 has to be in the one percent for sure.

    The 70 mile distance quoted, is that between the Flint City Hall and the Detroit Waterworks? Isn't that Downriver toward Lincoln Park?

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  4. Frantic Ernie Durham used to commute from WBBC in Flint to WJLB in Detroit every day. This was years before I-75 was built. In fact, that is why he was Frantic. It is not impossible. The issue is whether Mr. Jones actually worked every day in both cities.

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  5. So far I've seen comments from both ends that he appeared to do each job well, working on the order of forty hours a week at each...of course, involving some night and weekend work at each. Which means there must have been significant stretches of time...probably whole days...when he didn't do anything for one job or the other.

    What a cushy gig government managers have if at that highly paid a managerial level, they're not expected to do more than just show up for forty hours a week, and they can pick which forty hours and claim regular credit for the managerial work they do for special circumstances.

    At my small-to-medium-sized manufacturing employer, work for managers starts at 50 hours a week and goes up from there...and in a normal week, you're expected to work the full workday every day so that other managers and outside parties can interact with you and you can supervise the people who work for you. When a special circumstance needs more hours outside of the normal fifty hour workweek, or when weekend work is needed, you just do it. You don't get extra pay, and you don't get to skip out on regular-workday presence.

    Oh, and nobody at my employer, except possibly the owner in a good year, makes his double-dip pay rate.

    I've previously been a defender of Mike Brown, but this sure does make Flint seem to have been incompetently managed lately...and by some accounts the management lately has been better than for a long time.

    I'm not sure what information-knowledge causes that to be said. It's depressing to contemplate.

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  6. One paycheck for Officer Jones and one for that impressive moostache of his. Seems fair to me.

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  7. The whole town is talkin' about this story. The Mills Brothers even wrote a song about him.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_y1fXJnR7FE

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  8. Not only did he work in both Detroit and Flint, but notice that the patch on his uniform looks like it says "Ann Arbor Police". And I also read that he was police chief in Sterling Heights. Actually, I have worked for pay, interned, or gone to school in all of those cities, but never during the same day.

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  9. The very definition of a hard worker. Rumor has it Barnett worked graveyard in AA2 and even picked up an occasional weekend shift washing dishes at a Sterling Heights Applebees.

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  10. Flint is moving out. Many of the institutions that once were exclusively in the Flint area are now even seen in other states, such as Citizens Bank. Keeping with that Sterling Heights Applebee's reference, The University of Michigan-Flint is opening a branch nearby in Sterling Heights! They're also borrowing a page from Flint's Baker College and renovating a former Utica Community School building. The idea at this point is that students in UCS and other nearby districts will take classes there while still in high school, as has been done in the Flint area for many years. A lot of interest was generated by their Kiosk at Lakeside Mall. A lot of students that hang out there wanted to take classes, but it was too far to commute more than maybe once a week. Hence, The University of Michigan-Flint at Sterling Heights.

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  11. youre all from flint! he's a hustler... youre all just mad because you cant double-dip like him

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  12. Barnett is downright sexy Look at that come hither gaze. Who could possibly resist giving him whatever he wanted?

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    1. I reckon there may be a gender/orientation aspect to that.

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    2. Wrong-o. Barbara is correct, Barnett is smokin' hot. I'm a straight dude... or was a straight dude. I'm transfixed by Chief/Commissioner/Officer Jones. Does one's attraction to a (sultry) member of the same sex alter decades of prior orientation affiliation? There is no shame in saying you think B.J. is stunning... so, say it.

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    3. So, do we have multiple people posting as {street name 1} {street name 2} or does one person have multiple personalities? I'm curious. How long until we hear from Frank Dougherty? Wayne Burr? Ida Cummings? The suspense is killing me.

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    4. Linnaeus TillinghastJanuary 24, 2013 at 4:07 PM

      I can verify the identity of my pal Toronto Van Buskirk, he is no phony. Good 'ol Tor just so happens to share the names of two of Flint's most picturesque lanes. I think Wayne Burr already posted. Y'know, Ida Cummings is much too elderly to access the internet, bless her heart.

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    5. Not all are street names. Some posters utilize schools as handles- Johnson Bunche, Freeman Sobey, Anderson Potter... now the big question is which am I?

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  13. I love a man in uniforms

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  14. I can guarantee that at least three people have adopted the practice of street names. I thought it was clever, but the names were never in my end of town, so I just came up with some new ones. The two posters I know about use names within a mile or two of their "Home 20" (and boy, can I tell you a story about some CBers close to my adopted intersection! Thomas Wirt and bustdup probably could too. The connections of people within "six degrees of Flint" are fascinating to say the least).

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Thanks for commenting. I moderate comments, so it may take a while for your comment to appear. You might enjoy my book about Flint called "Teardown: Memoir of a Vanishing City," a Michigan Notable Book for 2014 and a finalist for the 33rd Annual Northern California Book Award for Creative NonFiction. Filmmaker Michael Moore described Teardown as "a brilliant chronicle of the Mad Maxization of a once-great American city." More information about Teardown is available at www.teardownbook.com.