Piermont's Kevin Timoney Wants Your Kids As Interns.

Given that but a short 15 years ago, Piermont Village government’s failure to monitor the Piermont Fire Department led to a 16-year-old boy tied to a chair by three other firefighters and sexually-abused, in turn leading to criminal charges and massive civil liability not to mention inexcusable severe psychological damage to the victim and desecration of the Village’s reputation – how smart do you think it would be for Piermont to bring in college-age interns to Piermont Village Hall to handle the Village’s social media presence and other office work? 

Well, guess what? It's another one of Kevin Timoney’s bright ideas. 

Here. From last Thursday night's mayoral debate transcript:
 

DORIA HILLSMAN

… [B]eyond architecture and environmental issues, is there anything else you feel threatens the character of the village?…

 

KEVIN TIMONEY

Thank you. I think… the threat… I would say is that we aren’t really promoting our small businesses as much as I… as I would like... um[sic]… We do have a downtown that does have… a lot of restaurants that we all know, but it does have a beautiful number of shops, and there are also spaces… um[sic]… This is a destination for people to come to. We need to make sure that our stores are getting…um[sic]… [pause]… a social presence. If that is getting[sic]… you know, one of my ideas that I’ve had is trying to get interns… um[sic]… from STAQ or Dominican here to help with… um[sic]… the Village Hall staff with the burden of work, or having them do social media presence for us, so… people realize that, you know, there’s Valentina’s Hair Salon, there’s Presence of Piermont, there’s women’s closing[sic] stores, we have ice cream. I want people to know that this is a thriving community, and we have a lot of character, so I think helping these local businesses… is very important.

 

So query - would you want your college-age children helping Jennifer DeYorgi Maher affix postage to envelopes and then mailing them out at the post office? Or saying that they did?

Would you want your college-age children caught up in a New City litigation, or a Bruce Tucker-esque New York State Comptroller audit - even as a witness?

 
For that matter, would you want your college-age children learning to speak word-salad and fake answers on the fly while on the job just like Kevin Timoney?
 
I didn’t think so.
 
Moreover, why don’t the spirit and principles of American ingenuity and capitalism generally, mean that the businesses need to do their own damn social media promotion for themselves? Why would that even be government’s function? Because after all, you already know that if digital luminaries like Bruce Tucker and Michael Wright tried to do social media promotion for Piermont businesses, those business would all go bankrupt in the same hurry. 

For that matter, why should Kevin Timoney be allowed to make presumably unpaid interns slave away for free, while full-time workers in Piermont Village Hall cash-in with salary, pension, and benefits? Why should the interns be doing the jobs that professional government workers within Village Hall are already collecting lots of Piermont tax dollars to do? 

The whole concept is insulting and disconnected from commercial reality.
 
And besides, the last time I can remember a Democratic Party administration using interns to ease the workplace tension, it didn’t go so well, did it?