Park Finance Officer Milton Struts has not made any public appearances since last Wednesday, when he allegedly made a number of specist remarks during a massive budget protest.
As a result, a number of Park citizen groups are calling for his resignation, saying he has “lost his way” and become “too entrenched” in the budget process.
“We need new blood, that’s for sure,” says Oliver S.P. Franklin, head of the Confederation of Ground Squirrels (CGS) and a long-time critic of Struts.
Small Animal Reform Group (SARG) head Mason L. Tortoise agrees.
“If he can’t face us and defend what he calls a budget, then it’s time for him to go and for us to have an Animal who understands Park life,” he says.
Meanwhile, Sylvana Rana, president of the pro-sortition group Save Our Political System (SOPS) calls the budget “a threat to our way of life.”
“I don’t know what Struts was thinking when he put this thing together,” she says. “It’s as if he was panic-stricken and couldn’t make a decision.”
Rana says Struts’s seeming indecisiveness and what she calls the “total inappropriateness” of the budget might serve as fodder for those who advocate moving to an elected system of government. Presently, the lottery system known as sortition is used annually to select the 35 Animals who serve as our government. The Archons, who are the de facto heads of the Park Finance Office, have not as yet made any statement regarding the 2015 budget.
“To say that I’m disappointed in their silence is a gross understatement,” Rana says. “If they can’t defend our political system by supporting their choice of budget head, they are effectively handing us over to the other side.”
