Don Sumners, ladies and gentlemen.
We won’t miss you, Don
“There is no transition,” said lame-duck Tax Assessor-Collector Don Sumners.
The occasionally cantankerous 73-year-old anti-tax taxman said he and his two predecessors came in cold, and [Tax Assessor-elect Mike] Sullivan will have to do the same.
“Frankly, I guess, it’s a little bit of bitterness on my part that he chose to run against me when really there wasn’t anything that I had done that would justify an opponent from my own party, and that he chose to, in effect, buy his way in with the slate votes,” Sumners said, referring to endorsements Sullivan received after contributing to prominent conservatives’ groups or advertising in their newsletters. “I just don’t feel like I owe him anything. He’s not qualified, he shouldn’t have run, so he’s just going to have to work it out when he gets here.
“I just decided to be uncooperative, I guess,” Sumners continued. “I was, quote, pissed.”
Sumners is the embodiment of the philosophy that says just because you’re getting older doesn’t mean you have to act like a grownup. I don’t need to note Sumners’ many, many screwups as Tax Assessor to point out how ridiculous he sounds here, do I? I don’t know how much actual transition is needed for a job like this, but it shouldn’t matter. We expect elected officials to not act like spoiled children, even after losing an election. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out, Don.
If memory serves, the reason one of his predecessors came in without transition help was because his predecessor really WAS cold – as in he was no longer, he had left this vale, he was an ex- tax assessor.
Considering how incompetent and possibly corrupt Summers is, why would anybody WANT his successor to have any training from him?