Where are they now? Jerry A. Taylor
For those who can’t remember Jerry A. Taylor he’s the city manager of the City of Tuttle, Oklahoma, US. About a year ago he became something of a celebrity in the open source world after threatening a CentOS developer with the FBI. This was all because his website was showing the CentOS Apache holding page which he had mistaken for a hacking attempt.
After that embarassing moment gave him fame as the story made The Register, Slashdot and various other news sources, he then went on to describe that CentOS developer as having too much time on their hands and Linux users as a bunch of freaks. All comments made by Jerry Taylor were showing his obvious failure to understand the situation despite supposedly having over 20 years of computing experience. The Mayor publically backed the city manage in all decisions made.
Now one year later and Jerry A. Taylor is still city manager of Tuttle and in June 2006 the council voted to give him a payrise due to his excellent work with the city. It just shows the level of incompetence allowed within public office, if once he realised that he was wrong he just apologised for his threats then this story would have just been a joke, but as he persisted the insults after the situation was resolved just shows his lack of professionalism.
Should he still be city manager? This all depends on the other work he does in the city and his effectiveness there. Hopefully he now leaves all IT issues to someone more knowledgeable.