Pinal County Sheriff Chris Vasquez
Someone in Pinal County thinks routine plagiarism is a serious offense. Tribune writer David Biscobing is reporting that a petition drive has been launched to recall Pinal County Sheriff Chris Vasquez after Biscobing revealed Vasquez had stolen the words and speeches of others to fill a monthly newsletter.
Vasquez apologized in writing but clearly believes that his kind of plagiarism just isn’t a big deal.
Casa Grande resident Ethan Groh says he takes it quite seriously and is the leader of the recall effort. But Groh couldn’t have thought this through.
Under Arizona law, recall elections are designed to be an outlet to remove an elected official when a regular election is too far into the future and no criminal charges are likely to do the job. But recall elections must be held on specific dates in May, June, September or November (like all Arizona elections). And if a recall election is called, the incumbent isn’t necessarily removed from office. Another candidate must stand for election and actually receive more votes than the office-holder.
That makes launching a recall drive on May 23 when Vasquez already must stand for regular election this year rather silly. The earliest a recall election could be held would be in September on the same date as the primary. Wouldn’t it be confusing if Vasquez is selected to be the Democratic candidate for the general election on the same day that he’s voted out of office?
The only thing that would be worse is if the recall election were scheduled for the general election date in November, which also is possible depending on when petition signatures were turned in and verified.
Since the recall committee has until Sept. 17 to turn in those signatures, Biscobing notes that a recall election also could be held after the November general election if Vasquez wins. But then, the recall election would have to be in May 2009, a full year after this issue came up.
If Groh sincerely wants to see Vasquez voted out of office, it would make far more sense for him to drop the recall effort and to work for Vasquez’s defeat in the September primary and the November general election. Otherwise, Groh really is just grandstanding for public attention.
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Disagree:
1. Routine plagiarism IS a serious offense.
2. He “apologized” only IF his acts were plagiarism. He believed they were not, therefore he didn’t apologize.
3. It certainly would not be confusing for Vasquez to be selected the Democrat nominee the day he is removed from office. Come on, people really aren’t so stupid.
Agree:
1. The election is too close for the recall to be necessary.
2. Groh would better serve those who agree with him by focusing on defeating Vasquez in November.
I am the one who started the recall this is a good article but I need to clear some things up, I researched this all the way through I understand everything he said about the recall being close to the elections and he is right I am doing this to make a point to see how mad the public is about this, if you go to 85239.com you can get more of how I feel on there story, and I dont think plagiarism in itself if a very serious offense depending on who and why, my problem is with the entire set of events before and after, how long he had been doing this, he is a Sheriff, he sits on the AZ-POST and judges others for this same type of dishonesty, as for am I doing this for public attention well I will let the public be the judge of that, so tell me am I.
Mr. Templar, your first sentence is rather troubling: “Someone in Pinal County thinks routine plagiarism is a serious offense.” That’s because it IS a serious offense for an officer of the law to be breaking laws–ANY laws–that he or she is sworn to uphold. I would encourage you, Mr. Templar, as a professional journalist not to even appear to condone Mr. Vasquez’ unapologetic attitude about his illegal activity.
The fact of the matter: Plagiarism IS a serious problem. It’s a matter of U.S. copyright law. If Mr. Vasquez doesn’t know those laws or understand them, AND if he further believes it’s not a big deal if he breaks those laws, he doesn’t deserve to hold the title of sheriff. It’s that simple.
If Mr. Vasquez were a student at any accredited university in Arizona, he would be facing disciplinary action and possible expulsion for knowingly representing someone else’s words as his own. Why in the devil is it somehow MORE excusable to plagiarize as a county sheriff?
Mr. Templar, kindly direct me to the nearest recall petition instead of trying to minimize what Mr. Vasquez did.
I agree with Q2theC, The letter only came about after he “laughed” and scoffed. Once everyone scolded him, politically he had to try and save face.
Anyone with an education higher than 8th grade could see his “apology” letter is nothing more than a campaign ad about his rightousness.
As a Pinal citizen, I want an apology for taking not just words, but other’s expieriances and passing it off as his own. What a shame. It shows everyone how little expieriance he truely has and it is not about how may years but what you did with them that count.
The plagiarism issue is minor icing on the cake to the deeper and more thoroughly corruptive tactics of Sheriff Vasquez’s growing cancer. The sad thing is that he’s so busy concocting a “public image” (as if he’s LAPD) that ordinary services of the Sheriff’s Office are being sadly neglected and are understaffed to the crisis point.
He seems to have no idea what is really going on out in the field of his employees, and seems not to care about the unnecessary expense and ultra-stress that has resulted. He has taken over the helm of a corruptive system of operation from the former sheriff and turned it into a growing disaster. Ask any victim who has called the Sheriff’s Office for ordinary daily needs what they think of the response. He needs to learn that the Sheriff’s Office is not a political regime, but a public service.
I need to make one clarification to the original post. I think Sheriff Vasquez’s plagiarism is extremely serious. I fully support the Tribune Editorial Board’s views. But I live and work in Maricopa County, and before the recall petition was filed, we hadn’t heard much criticism out of Pinal County about this. But as you can see from the earlier comments, we definitely are hearing some now!