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Leave Bud Day alone
February 17th, 2012, 6:23 pm · 5 Comments · posted by t-mac
A lot of our readers have been expressing the opinion lately that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Rick Scott and everyone else ought to just lay off Col. Bud Day.
They don’t like the idea of a war hero, a patriot and Medal of Honor recipient being investigated over a little thing like pocketing about 80 grand a year in taxpayer money for not doing a lick of work.
I couldn’t agree more.
Leave Bud Day alone.
I’ve been covering the court beat here in Okaloosa County for a bunch of years now, many more years than Col. Day, now on an unpaid leave of absence, spent the helm of the Public Defender’s Office.
And I can tell you by virtue of being on the beat —from personal observation, conversations with people in the know and just trying to reach the colonel on the phone — anyone harboring the notion that Day was busting his butt in the service of the Public Defender’s Office is sadly mistaken.
That he was a figurehead was the worst kept secret in the world.
But I’m of the opinion that if we’re going to blame someone for Colonel Day cashing a big check for dropping by the office and reading the paper we ought to be blaming his boss, James Owens.
Oughtn’t we?
He was after all, the guy making out the checks, right?
My guess is that Day did all he was expected to do for the Public Defender’s Office before he ever took the job.
Remember four years ago? Remember the signs that sprouted up featuring the smiling face of a relatively unknown (in these parts) James Owens rubbing shoulders with the very prominent Bud Day?
Remember that James Owens did right well in Okaloosa County.
After Owens was elected it seemed almost logical, in that sad way political patronage has come to seem logical, that Day would be named to head the Public Defender’s Office in Okaloosa County.
I don’t know what’s going to happen with the FDLE investigation of Bud Day, but I do know, as one Spouter so beautifully put it, that if we’re going to start putting people in jail for freeloading on the taxpayer dime … we’re going to fill up some jails.
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Tom – I’d like to respect the man – but unfortunately, I am all too aware that he knew exactly what kind of person James Owens was when he endorsed him. Bud unfortunately is going down because of his lack of concern about the type of individual he endorsed – knowingly. Maybe you should get your facts straight. Bud was not pawn in this game, he was the King and he didn’t care about what happened as long as he got paid.
Yep to all that.
Crooked lawyers doing crooked and illegal things….No news here…
Tom: You are basically right on, but I think the NWFDN really dropped the ball on this one. The Pensacola News Journal broke this story and ran 3 articles and an editorial. They focused (rightly) on Owens’ conduct. Unfortunately, the NWFDN did nothing but run the AP version of the story, which talked mostly about Col. Day because he’s the most famous figure. As a result, readers in Okaloosa (where this all happened) are left thinking that this situation is primarily about Col. Day, and you’re getting the predictable comments.
You know what was really going on, as do many other people. Write some columns about Owens and his operations. He’s up for re-election, so it’s timely. Even if you only run the columns from the PNJ, you’ll be doing people over here a favor.
I was promoted to essentially a lobbying position in my company before I resigned, and it was because of issues like this. Okaloosa & Walton are corrupt seemingly beyond repair. I’ve had one-on-one face to face meetings with most of our local politicians and let me let the public know that there are very few that are not corrupt. Even the FWB Tea Party can be influenced now. And Bud Day is not the story here Tom; our tax dollars are being stolen and we the people expect YOU to report corruption instead of trying to persuade us the crook is a good guy.
Has a country of the people, by the people, and for the people perished from this earth?