Fay Parker Strikes Again

The Lauderdale County Commission has just appointed one of its own, Fay Parker, to the 911 Board. After learning of this appointment, a local political influencer whom we respect and admire made the comment that surely of 93K Lauderdale County residents, the commission could have found some new blood. She was promptly criticized for using the entire population as a literal pool for applicants.

Let’s take a very conservative look at how many were qualified:

~ Let’s use 90K as the actual population.

~ Let’s say 50% are children, leaving 45K.

~ Let’s assume 5K are automatically disqualified due to previous crimes of true moral turpitude, leaving 40K.

~ Of the remainder, how many would be competent and willing applicants? One out of four? One out of eight? Let’s say the latter, leaving 5K.

So out of 5,000 qualified individuals, Commissioner Fay Parker was selected? Even if the opening was not widely advertised, this has to raise quite a few questions.

Our political pundit friend specifically questioned why so few women and racial minorities are on local boards. We won’t even go that far. We simply want to know why anyone thought Commissioner Parker was the best candidate for this job.