Today, nearly a fortnight after his election, Los Santos will finally have a new mayor.
Such has been the dalliance of Tobias Bamsford in taking up his role, Oleander Addams has managed to wind up confined to a hospital bed on two separate occasions. His first term will consist of less than 20 days formally in office – indeed, should he be challenged at the end of December, he will spend more of his premiership campaigning for re-election than he will serving the people of Los Santos. In a campaign that saw the incumbent mayor stand aside from the electorate and both of his rivals lose their lives, Tobias Bamsford has left a dozen days of chaos, uncertainty, and indecision as the only answer.
Of course, to suggest this is entirely the fault of Mr Bamsford would be unfair. Ending in predictable fashion, the Addams regime saw out it’s death-throws with a violent, bloody incident leaving the Police Commissioner in a hospital bed (Some of you may be able to spot a recurring theme here). Tradition has dictated that he inducts new mayors – a grand and ancient custom enshrined in law, that nobody would dare have circumvented lest centuries of cultural heritage be washed away.
Oh, no, sorry. I mean a 4-month-old convention that any responsible human being with a true desire to lead and serve the people of this city would happily do away with. Instead, Tobias Bamsford has began offering people jobs that he currently has no power to give them – filling the offices of city hall before he has taken any oaths. Each one of these hires has been offered a job paid for by us, the citizens of Los Santos, without any of the due process a public service should require.
It is a point I cannot make strongly enough. These roles are publicly funded, their wages paid with our tax money, and as such a certain level of scrutiny is the least that we can demand. When I established the Los Santos Civil Service, I laid out a very clear mission statement and person criteria – as well as a clear path towards checks and balances with the eventual introduction of a Head of the Civil Service role once the department was fully established. Moreover, this was done entirely while in office and no offer of money or power was made to any individual while I was not sworn, by law, to act in the best interest of the people. All hires were made after a full application and interview process, and their roles came with explicit and clear guidelines on how they were to serve the public.
This process was abandoned by the succeeding Mayor, and now an absolute farcical replacement has been made that even Mayor Addams would not be so bold as to have considered. Before even getting the keys to his office door, Tobias Bamsford has offered jobs as (presumably armed) Security and, beyond the boundaries of belief, LAW ENFORCEMENT AND HEALTH MINISTER to private individuals. Unbound by oaths, scope, or reality, he has been happy to defy not only governmental convention the world over but also the most basic of human logic to give extremely important, high-clearance government jobs out while his own most recent employment is still in a city centre coffee shop.
Of course, living in the real world, we all know that deals for people to take certain positions within a future government are commonplace. There are, of course, 2 gaping differences with Tobias Bamsford’s Wild West approach and the way that anyone with an ounce of tact or credibility would take. Firstly, these are typically agreements left out of the public eye, not waved around in people’s faces like a drunken uncle’s phallus at a Boxing Day party. Secondly, and most importantly, is that in Municipal Government these would normally be limited to staff of the mayor – not public sector employees whose tenure may, presumably, outlast the Mayor for continuity of public service.
It is impossible to confirm ill intentions from Mr Bamsford’s appointments, and I will freely state that I am not implying any criminality on the part of those appointed. However, that point still exists – the possibility of criminality, malpractice and corruption is amplified when a man (who decides it is better to stand on the side-lines, watching as the current Mayor racks up more hours in a hospital than Ellen Pompeo, than step forward and do a damn thing about it) begins to form a government in the shadows, without oversight or accountability, not limited or answerable to the Oaths of Office. Simply put, whatever your opinion of the man in a political sense, the electorate CANNOT be expected to assume the best of Tobias Bamsford when he so happily, brazenly and uncaringly treats the responsibilities of his office as more of a suggestion and an afterthought than the honour and, indeed, burden that they are.
Now, dear reader, if we may briefly divert from the point at hand – allow me to tell you what will happen in the hours after this article is published. Tobias Bamsford will state that all his appointments have been made following a process and with no corruption whatsoever – completely missing the point either intentionally or because he has the intellectual complexity of an iceberg lettuce. Oleander Addams will send out a tweet, backing Tobias Bamsford and calling me something to the effect of a ‘bitter old man’, once again refusing to hold the office of Mayor to the same level of scrutiny she (quite rightfully) did before taking on the role herself. The usual twitter trolls, sweating over a crusty laptop in a room that reeks of tapioca and cum, will dive on to attack me instead of engaging in critical thinking or, even, providing a well-reasoned counter argument.
This article is not personality politics – I have been out of office for several months and have no plans to launch a return in the near future as anything more than a political commentator. Look past your own biases, look past me and mine, and see this for what it is – an objective misuse of power and a cataclysmic start to a mayoral premiership. Our Civil Service was built to be great, something to be proud of that could stand the test of democracy and seek to challenge and enhance the office of Mayor in equal measure. Oleander Addams threw that to the ground. Tobias Bamsford has pissed all over it.
Demand better of our public servants, Los Santos. We deserve it.
