Still Banned from MPW... for being a Joy Nurmi Supporter?

Comment attempted to be posted to Maryland Politics Watch deep discussion on Adam Pagnucco's analysis of Joy Nurmi's appointment to East County Regional Services Center.

As usual, Adam probably won't tolerate actual differing opinion, especially not from me. So here it is:

Adam says:

"For the readers who are not acquainted with the folks who are here, let's list them for the record. Kevin Gillogly is a longtime political activist who worked for Don Praisner in 2008 and Ben Kramer in 2009, both candidates who ran against Navarro. Cary Lamari is a respected civic activist who supported Praisner in 2008 and ran against Navarro in 2009. Rocky Lopes supported Praisner in 2008 and Lamari in 2009. Sharon Dooley is a former candidate for County Council who ran against Mike Knapp in 2006 and supported Praisner in 2008. All of them are good people who are friends of mine and have contributed valuable material to the blog. All of them served the Praisners and worked against Navarro at one point or another. I understand why former Praisner supporters would want to speak out for Joy Nurmi, who rendered invaluable service to the Praisners over the years.

But I feel that all of you are missing the point of this post. I never expressed an opinion on Joy Nurmi's qualifications for the job, although Just Up the Pike's Dan Reed has. This is a cold-eyed political assessment. Ike Leggett's words of peace simply do not match his deeds. There are many other people who could have performed well in the East County job. The fact that Leggett picked someone who openly opposed the new Council Member to occupy a critical position in her district says that he does not want peace with her. This is going to have ramifications down the road.

Incidentally, this shows that the council's decision to make regional directors political appointments was wrong. I opposed that idea at the time. If Joy Nurmi had won a merit-based competition for the position, there would be little basis for discussion. But because these are political appointments - and Nurmi was undeniably a political opponent of Navarro's - now this can of worms has been opened.

Whether you like Joy Nurmi or not and whether you think Ike Leggett was right to do this or not, you have to acknowledge that this is going to put great strain between Leggett and Navarro's supporters. It was Ike Leggett's decision to go down that road. He may not like very much what waits at its end."

And I respond:

And you will probably never let this comment see the light of day.

That's why I will repost it both at my blog and at JUTP.

You seem to be fixated on how this will impact Nancy Navarro, in the first part, and in the second part, you seem to be fixated on how this will impact Ike Leggett.

The problem you have here is that these things are not the issue.

The issue is how well are the constituents served. That's really the only issue; all else is sidebar.

Joy Nurmi will be an exceptional and high-value service provider and program omsbudsman and enabler. Try to think about the constituents for once.