Tuesday letters: Haley hires friends rather than experts

I did not vote for Gov. Nikki Haley in the last election; it was only the second time that I did not vote for a Republican in my 64 years on this planet.

When she first ran for governor I was excited to maybe have a conservative woman to break up the good-ol’-boys network in Columbia. It seems her administration has become the good-ol’-girls network, and things are even worse than before.

Many have said that experienced people need to be appointed to the S.C. State University Board of Trustees to clean up this mess. I agree. I wish Gov. Haley would run this state with the attitude she uses for S.C. State. It seems that the only job qualifications for agency directors is to be a friend of hers and a lawyer.

What qualified Catherine Templeton to run the Department of Health and Environmental Control other than knowing the governor? How many qualified and knowledgeable employees either quit or retired when Ms. Templeton started hiring/appointing her friends, with no knowledge of the agency or public health, to positions of power? Ms. Templeton was not appointed by Gov. Haley but was given a ringing endorsement.

It does not seem that Gov. Haley’s directors and their staffs have any problems with getting pay raises or bonuses. It would be nice for the worker bees to get a pay raise that was not offset by some other expense such as a health-insurance rate increase. The citizens of South Carolina deserve a competent, experienced director for one of the largest agencies in this state.

Mount Pleasant

This story was originally published April 6, 2015 at 7:30 PM with the headline "Tuesday letters: Haley hires friends rather than experts."