Anyway:
Theres a new ex-sheriff in town
Howie Carr
Friday, December 28, 2012
Cabral lands $150G-a-year gig
I guess you might say the outgoing High Sheriff of Suffolk County, Andrea Cabral, is a people person.
The $124,000-a-year High Sheriff will soon be the $150,000-a-year secretary of public safety, succeeding another dodgy hack named Mary Beth Heffernan.
In celebration of her pay raise, Andrea gave an interview to NECN yesterday in which she said the following of her current job:
Youre in the people business. Youre constantly managing people. The people who are incarcerated live there. And youre constantly looking out for the people who do the very tough job of working there.
As I said, shes a people person.
Theres an old saying in Massachusetts politics about the two major problems facing every sheriff.
First problem is, youre dealing with the absolute dregs of society.
The second problem is the inmates.
Why anyone would want to be a sheriff is beyond me. The only positive aspect is that its a Group 4 public safety job you get to retire sooner, with a bigger kiss in the mail.
Thats assuming, of course, that youre not lugged and sent off to Club Fed, like two sheriffs appointed by Pee Wee Dukakis (a third Duke sheriff was merely fined by the State Ethics Commission).
Like all of the above, Andrea is quite the extinguished, I mean distinguished, public servant. She was picked up on waivers a decade ago by Ralph Martin, the Republican district attorney of Suffolk County. Ralph quickly ushered Cabral into the Corner Office, which was then occupied by Jane Swift. Andrea said shed switch to the GOP, and soon she was the new High Sheriff. When Ralph took a powder a few years later, Andrea began hiring his erstwhile coat-holders, with big pay raises.
They called it the Ralph Martin Re-employment Act of 2002.
Being a woman whose word is her bond, Andrea waited all of four months or so before switching back to the Democratic party.
Its been a rocky ride, this last decade. I just wonder if she thinks that a secretary of public safety is a constitutional officeholder. Thats what she claimed of the sheriffs position when she was trying to wiggle out of paying a $300,000-plus settlement she owed to a whistle-blower who won a civil suit against her.
And I wonder if shell be hiring any ex-cons to do outreach to the people who are incarcerated in the state prisons.
After all, she is a people person.
Unless youre the Craigslist killer who commits suicide in one of her jails.
Or a guard whos charged with raping a female prisoner in her cell. Or a C.O. whos addicted to Oxys.
Or one of the two C.O.s put on paid leave last winter while under probe for possible overtime abuse.
Good luck, everyone in Public Safety.
Howie Carr list ping (see article above in this thread)