County Executive Chris Shorter seems to have found a new hobby: scouring the nation for versions of himself. This time, Shorter has managed to unearth Wesley Dawson from the bustling city of Baltimore to serve as the county’s inaugural Director of the Office of Community Safety.
Dawson, armed with a spectacular work history that screams "Shorter's clone #2," brings with him a resume that seemingly got a CTRL+C, CTRL+V treatment from Shorter's own, boasting of a background in community engagement and public safety from his tenure in Baltimore. "We're not just appointing Dawson for his eerie similarity to our County Executive," said Deputy County Executive for Public Safety Dan Alexander, trying to keep a straight face. "He's also got great experience in, you know, actual safety things."
As if stepping straight out of a 'Twilight Zone' episode, Dawson materialized from the same city where Shorter previously held his City Administrator role. Coincidence? We think not. Shorter's strategy of hiring doppelgängers seems to continue unabated, making Prince William County's leadership look more like a hall of mirrors with every appointment.
Upon his unveiling, Dawson said, “I believe that my community engagement and public safety experience align perfectly with the county’s Community Safety Initiative goals,” which is exactly what you'd expect to hear if Shorter were voicing his own thoughts through a Dawson-shaped ventriloquist dummy. The county's CSI program, much like Shorter's own career path, promises to be rooted in strategic, data-driven, and inclusive practices.
Prince William County’s CSI program has been described as a holistic and community-oriented approach to safety, making it sound suspiciously like something Shorter would design if he had another clone in his back pocket.
One thing is clear - County Executive Shorter has a type, and that type appears to be "me, but also from Baltimore." As we wait for the announcement of the next hire, a community safety administrator/data analyst, the county’s residents will be left pondering whether there are any more Shorter-clones waiting in the wings.
As for the rest of us, we're looking forward to the next uncanny hiring announcement. Will it be a Shorter-clone #3? Or will Shorter surprise us all and hire someone who isn't his mirror image? Stay tuned, dear readers, for the next episode of 'The Twilight Zone,' also known as Prince William County's local government hiring process.
