Doubts Arise Over Markey Disability

I was surprised to read about Thousand Oaks Mayor Mike Markey’s suit with the city of Compton (“Mayor Settles Dispute Over His Disability,” Dec. 21).

I can certainly appreciate and support an early retirement for a police officer injured on the job and for whom no appropriate light-duty assignments are available. As I understand it from your article, Markey was retired from a desk job “answering phones . . . and working on fraud and forgery cases” because of his back injuries and the possible risk of “liabilities of having an officer on medication.” Today he is a city councilman, a very active mayor, has worked in security at Conejo Valley Days and is studying to be a paralegal assistant.

I have a hard time understanding why these career activities would not also be limited by the aforementioned back problems and liabilities. It seems to me that there is a very major inconsistency here.

Either Markey is sufficiently disabled so as to be precluded from working for the city of Compton in a desk job and as Thousand Oaks mayor, in security at Conejo Valley Days and as a paralegal assistant, or he is fit for all of the above. Am I missing a subtlety here?

I am also concerned that at least one city councilman, Andy Fox, is circling the wagons around this issue. Despite the intense politics on the City Council, this should not be a political issue. Neither is this an issue of supporting our public safety officers when they become injured. Rather, this is an issue of fairness to both Markey and the citizens of Compton, who have just agreed through their city government to provide a 42-year-old man in his prime with a retirement annuity of $27,000 per year.

If questioning the equity of this arrangement is a “cheap shot,” as Fox has indicated, then I guess I’m guilty of throwing one. By my definition, however, $27,000 or more each year for life is not a cheap load for the taxpaying public to bear.

KENNETH C. FREE

Thousand Oaks