Saturday, July 26, 2008

Draud and Rasche: This Week's Comment on Kentucky

Draud's Car not quite Surplus

Rash judgements about Rasche

Tony McVeigh from Kentucky Public Radio broke the story this week on Jon Draud's plan to sell his state vehicle on eBay. Calling it his favorite story of the week, guest host Mark Hebert, invited him to appear on Comment on Kentucky. With Hebert and McVeigh were Pat Crowley of the Enquirer and John David Dyche a Louisville attorney and C-J columnist.


McVeigh: John Draud has an albatross around his neck, and its a $31,000 Chrysler 300...

The school board called him on the carpet; he apologized to the people of Kentucky for the way he handled the matter...The apology didn't seem to appease the board, they wanted to know, "What are you going to do." He said, well, I'll either make up the difference or I'll buy the car. And apparently he's going to buy the car...They're going to put it up on eBay...

...I talked to Glenn Mitchell over at Finance this week and he said they can't sell it on eBay until its surplus property so there'll be 6 months; they'll declare it surplus property in 6 months.

Pat Crowley said he drove down from northern Kentucky to talk with Draud about it and he said the only way to get the safety features he wanted was to get the bigger engine. But, we've been all through that. It was Draud's repeated insistence on the larger engine, as C-J showed through numerous emails, that drove costs up.

Hebert asked,
"Do you think he gets it?" The deal wasn't so much the car. It was the impression ...the message it was sending out there. When your teachers aren't getting any raises or anything...
Dyche quipped,
It's like flying your staff in airplanes to town hall meetings.
...a reference to Governor Beshear's recent decision to fly staffers to an eastern Kentucky town meeting.

McVey:
I think he's gets it because his first performance review is next month.
Hebert:
You think the timing might have something to do with it?
Crowley then segued into a question involving Frank Rasche's appointment this week to a legislative liasion position with KDE.

David Adams over at Kentucky Progress opined earlier this week Rasche's hiring was actually a Beshear move to get rid of Draud. His post, "Beshear makes move to behead Draud," suggested that "if Beshear plans to replace him with Rep. Frank Rasche, he is not exactly moving us forward."

I don't buy any of it - mostly because it doesn't make any sense.

Beshear didn't hire Rasche - Draud did. Now, I'm willing to stipulate that Beshear is a smart guy. But to pull off what David suggests, he would have to be some kind of hypnotic genius.

When I pressed David on this he backed down a bit saying, "Draud hiring Rasche to be policy adviser and legislative liaison may not be Beshear's move. I never suggested that..."

But PolWatchers bit. So did Crowley. Hebert didn't.

Crowley:
Mark, what do you read into the reporting this week that a legislator, Frank Rasche, may be hired by the department? Is that any kind of signal that Draud might be in trouble here?
Hebert:

I don't think he's in trouble. He and Rasche are buddies. They were on the Education Committee together and I think that's where that came from. You know, Frank Rasche is a pretty respected legislator. I think, if Draud's smart, he wants to hire some more folks around him who he trusts and has known for a while.

The voice of reason.

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