I hate re-plowing old ground.

But …

A report out of Florida concerning a former top Amarillo municipal administrator brings to light the dangers of failing to screen applicants thoroughly for these jobs.

According to an Amarillo Globe-News story co-written by my friends Karen and Kevin Welch, Jihad El Eid has been charged with bribery and is being sought – along with his brother – by federal authorities who want to arrest them. El Eid is charged in Broward County, Fla., with taking $150,000 in bribes in exchange for landing construction contracts from a company also under investigation.

Why does this matter to us here in Amarillo? Because El Eid once was hired to be the city’s traffic engineer, a post that pays a handsome six-figure salary financed with public money. The problem with El Eid, though, was that he was under suspicion of bribery at the time he was hired in December 2010. El Eid was a traffic engineer in Florida, but had been demoted from that job. No one here at the time thought to inquire about the demotion and what led up to it.

Amarillo officials acknowledged this major hiring breakdown. El Eid left the city and eventually the country – ending up in his native Lebanon – while on the job in Amarillo. City Manager Jarrett Atkinson fired him when he failed to report to work.

To his great credit, Atkinson – who was fairly new in his own job at the time – called for a top-to-bottom review of the city’s hiring practices and has instituted a policy that requires background and reference checks on all applicants.

That revamped policy is the good news coming out of this embarrassing tale. The bad news is that the city is having to relive this nightmare all over again while authorities in Florida seek to solve a criminal act.