The town either settles, or you go to court, and if you win, the court compels them to comply with the law, and the town probably has to cover legal fees.
It was an off-season election (i.e. no Congress people or presidents up for election), which usually have an order of magnitude smaller turnout.
That's the best opportunity for a dedicated candidate to rally enough support to get elected even if they aren't one of the two major parties, especially to a relatively small potatoes office like this.
Honestly, refusing to allow any duly elected official to be sworn into office and do their job as specified by law, whatever it is, is far more mountain than molehill regardless of the nature of the job or the qualifications of the person elected.
You are of course right that a CPA is a better choice for auditor than a non-accountant. But that's either an argument to the state legislature to change how the position is chosen (e.g. making it an appointment with professional qualification requirements) or an argument to the voters to elect a CPA (assuming one chooses to run). It's not an argument to flout the system as designed by duly elected legislators and illegitimately shove aside the candidate duly elected by the voters.
Where, anywhere, in this thread, is there an actual refusal?
I don't think they refused. I think it just didn't happen yet because people wrongly assumed it wasn't necessary. I think it's all a silly game of telephone gone bat-shit wrong and then blown up into a huge fucking deal for no reason other than internet drama.
My interpretation:
1. The author asked the Supervisors about swearing him in. They genuinely have no clue what to do and suggest picking this up at the next meeting.
2. The Supervisors (elected) asked the City Manager (employee) about this in their weekly meeting.
3. City Manager sends an email saying that since they retained a CPA firm there's nothing for the author to do. Likely the City Manager's sincere understanding of state statute. Notice that the email DOESN'T EVEN STATE THAT THEY WON'T SWEAR HIM IN! Just that he's not needed. Which is not entirely correct but also definitely not incorrect.
4. Supervisors (wrongly) assume that the author is operating in good faith and that hearing that his main volunteer task has been outsourced to a reputable firm is end-of-story.
Case-in-point: I'd LOVE to hear from the author if he reply-all'd to that email with "Great, thanks! I'd still like to be sworn in! Does the next meeting work for everyone?"
After hearing from the City Manager, did he go ahead and ask to be sworn in anyways? Or did he start his social media campaign?
I think there's just genuine confusion on the part of a bunch of part-time city admins about who this dude is and how they're supposed to interact with him, given that they are already paying a CPA to do his only job.
My prediction for the future: I don't think there's a genuine refusal to swear him in, just confusion and/or incompetence. So now that this whole thing blew up on social media this dude will be sworn in ASAP. And then... nothing. Because the alternative is that a sizable accounting firm fucked up big time and/or accepted kickbacks from a tiny township, which doesn't seem likely.
My meta-prediction: bat-shit malcontents are running for local office in droves, and every aspect of local government is going to become insane and dynfunctional until the entire country collapses under the weight of incompetents with massive egos.
(Note that the CPA is not a rando from the town -- it's a mid-sized firm that is specializes in single audits and has its offices in a major metro. There is probably nothing that a corrupt official in a dinky township could offer a Principal at a mid-sized audit firm to fake or lie on an audit.)
I hope you're right that they'll swear him in soon, and allow him to do whatever job he's legally supposed to do. (And yes, I hope he lets the CPA do the job they were hired for, to the extent the law allows them to do it and to the extent they're behaving ethically themselves.)
Honestly I do think the elected auditor (calling him "this dude" is a needlessly demeaning moniker) is operating in good faith - the CPA will still be allowed to do what they're supposed to do, but state law puts certain responsibilities in the hands of the elected official even when a CPA is hired.
I strongly presume that no ethical CPA would want to fulfill duties that legally aren't theirs to fulfill, so either the town is giving inaccurate instructions to the CPA firm which isn't investigating well enough to learn the true legal limits of their duties, or nobody is fulfilling those duties which are statutorily reserved to the elected officials, or the CPA is knowingly exceeding their authorized duties. I can't tell which is true but none of these possibilities are good.
By contrast, since the same thing happened two years prior with the other guy who was elected then, I think the city admins are either negligent in not having the correct answer from that interaction ready for prompt application this time or not acting in good faith themselves. Again, I can't tell which is true but neither of these possibilities is good.
> Honestly I do think the elected auditor (calling him "this dude" is a needlessly demeaning moniker) is operating in good faith
I disagree. I think he went into local government looking for a fight.
>I strongly presume that no ethical CPA would want to fulfill duties that legally aren't theirs to fulfill
The supervisors are fully within their rights re: the external firm.
> By contrast, since the same thing happened two years prior with the other guy who was elected then, I think the city admins are either negligent in not having the correct answer from that interaction ready for prompt application this time or not acting in good faith themselves. Again, I can't tell which is true but neither of these possibilities is good.
Yes, the city admins of a 17K person township misinterpreted an arcane piece of law. Also, they were idiotic for assuming that the fact that he has no real responsibilities means it's NBD to not swear him in.
All of that is granted.
The reasonable resolution to this case would have been for him to reply-all to the original email and insist on being sworn in anyways. I have a suspicion that this didn't happen, and that this guy is making a big deal over nothing for the sake of a social media following.
Welcome to Idiocracy, where instead of competent CPAs doing boring work we get twitter threads about a game of telephone between a bunch of part-time employees.
> My meta-prediction: bat-shit malcontents are running for local office in droves, and every aspect of local government is going to become insane and dynfunctional until the entire country collapses under the weight of incompetents with massive egos
I genuinely don't know whether this is the case with this guy (I do not know enough about the person tweeting) but this is apparently a very real, growing problem. I kinda hope these people get bored and move on.
I agree - though if it is just a few local officials acting foolishly, and who will soon be put in their place, then there's nothing much to worry about. Society can handle a few dummies acting in character.
If, on the other hand, it was happening more broadly - say, for example, a national election, with officials at the highest level of government acting in this way - then there would be much greater cause for concern.
I'm not convinced you could agree to settle such an application for money. Agreeing to discontinue an application for mandamus (the kind of court order you're referring to) that was to bless you with public power and impose upon you duties you were elected to carry out in exchange for money is roughly as corrupt as trying to prevent this guy from taking office in the first place, and may well be illegal. But "the town settles" in a broader sense of "agrees to stand down and swear you in", yes. Also nitpick, you would sue the individual members of the Board in their official capacity.
Moore’s story is kind of funny. He was still in high school and was sick of the principal. He had also just turned 18. So he went door to door to all the stoner kids, skateboarders and other young adults that also disliked the principal and got them sogned up to vote him in as a bloc.
Then the older, more conservative types got wind of it and ended up fielding three candidates, all of whom split the vote allowing Moore to win.
So in the end, he spent his last months of high school being the principal’s boss and being called “sir” instead of being yelled at for having his shirt untucked again.
You sue the town for violating state law.
The town either settles, or you go to court, and if you win, the court compels them to comply with the law, and the town probably has to cover legal fees.