Editor,

“As the CEO of ____________, as the mayor of ____________, as the chairman of the board of directors of _____________, as the superintendent of _____________, as the top executive of ___________, as the head honcho of _________, I take full responsibility for this situation.”

Please explain to me what that means anymore. It used to mean the buck stops here, and I will make it right because I am in charge.

Now it means I can make that statement and then penalize my customer base or clientele, my employees, the taxpayers and any other constituents who have indicated their trust in me by placing me in this top position of responsibility.

I can let go of valuable employees and outsource to far-flung regions, cut and slash needed services and products in order to save a penny, and lose thousands of customers and supporters, and thus millions in revenue in the process.

I can see to it that the overtaxed populace is gouged even further with higher and higher taxes to make up for the fact that the organization I’ve been hired to oversee has spent its monies on something other than that for which they were designated.

I can give myself a pay hike while downsizing and reducing in force and whatever other terms you want to use for issuing pink slips to those unsuspecting workers so far below me. After all, I’m in charge — that’s my responsibility.

Whether it be governmental, educational, corporate, public service or virtually any company or institution you can name, I am finding this abhorrent trend occurring among more and more of its executives. They use lip service to indicate acceptance of responsibility while taking none. No skin is removed from any of their noses. They feel no pain, only gain. Whatever cliché you want to use, it happens time and time again.

It has to stop. If you’re getting paid for the final accountability, then pay up when you blow it. Don’t make those whom you are there to serve pay for your lack of oversight and failure to do what you’re paid the big bucks to do.

This is a call for Executive Director Martha Rose, Helen Price Johnson and the other members of the Board of Directors of Island Transit to reverse this trend.

Do the honorable thing. Take a pay cut, skip the spendy vacations, or whatever else it takes to get the buses back in service and our drivers’ jobs restored.

If you can’t, then accept your own pink slip, move over and let someone else take over who not only says they take full responsibility, but who also means it.

Teresa McElhinny

Langley