Spearfish High School held a career fair for the sophomores yesterday. The nice businesspeople who came to my classroom to hold forth about the real world said, among other things, that they see a big need in every field for people who can write well and proofread.
Meanwhile in Aberdeen, Brown County Commissioners want the City of Aberdeen to pay $358 to cover a tax abatement caused by City Attorney Adam Altman's clerical errors:
The issue was broached at today's commission meeting by Mary Worlie, Brown County director of equalization. She and [Commissioner Duane] Sutton said there have been too many recent clerical errors involving legal descriptions on documents from Adam Altman, city attorney.
Sutton noted that a legal description was also inadvertently left out of Tax Increment Financing district paperwork involving a plan to convert buildings at old Central High School into apartments.
And, Worlie said, there's another potential abatement resulting from an incorrect legal description on a deed. She said each of the documents was prepared by Altman.
Sutton said the mistakes are aggravating. He said he doesn't think getting the proper legal description on documents should be that difficult [Scott Waltman, "Weary of Clerical Errors, County Sends Abatement to City," Aberdeen American News, 2013.03.26].
City Attorney Altman says he's frustrated that the county didn't invite him to the meeting to discuss these errors first. Aberdeen's counsel also "doubts that errors in legal descriptions are all that unique"... which leads one to wonder how many other folks in Aberdeen have paid more property tax than necessary due to a slip of the pen.
I have a friend about to take the bar exam. I'll ask him what they teach in law school about proofreading and attention to detail.
US counties pay lawyer/brokers to move people off welfare and onto disability:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/03/22/174194673/unfit-for-work-the-startling-rise-of-disability-in-america