There is a friend of mine, a published author, who has found herself in a crazy situation.
As the story begins...a few months ago, she contacted the police department in her current hometown of Spring City, PA, a sleepy little town, a former blue-collar town where the industry moved out years ago and nothing really moved in. (For background music, play Billy Joel's Allentown...) She contacted the department not with an issue, but to ask for help in her research for her next novel. She struck acquaintanceships with the female police chief and one of the male cops, separately and over different time-frames. (As this is a small town, this represented about half of the police force.) The chief was particularly interested in this process, as she expressed a desire to attempt to start writing herself. My friend has shared with me over these past few months, some stories of the things she was learning.
And then, at the beginning of March, what happened is outlined in this local newspaper article: http://pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/04/05/news/doc4d9a8e73944f3739460178.txt?viewmode=fullstory
As the story begins...a few months ago, she contacted the police department in her current hometown of Spring City, PA, a sleepy little town, a former blue-collar town where the industry moved out years ago and nothing really moved in. (For background music, play Billy Joel's Allentown...) She contacted the department not with an issue, but to ask for help in her research for her next novel. She struck acquaintanceships with the female police chief and one of the male cops, separately and over different time-frames. (As this is a small town, this represented about half of the police force.) The chief was particularly interested in this process, as she expressed a desire to attempt to start writing herself. My friend has shared with me over these past few months, some stories of the things she was learning.
And then, at the beginning of March, what happened is outlined in this local newspaper article: http://pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/04/05/news/doc4d9a8e73944f3739460178.txt?viewmode=fullstory
And here is a separate article, not directly related: http://pottsmerc.com/articles/2011/04/13/news/doc4da50515ea7c1592771767.txt?viewmode=fullstory
And in response to the second article is the following posted comment:
"[The chief] can comment on a letter she wrote to resign but she can't comment on a letter she signed to fire someone? An investigation is immediately announced by [Council President] to be done...to discover who leaked documents that exist, but none of them will investigate or speak on documents that allegedly don't exist related to an officer getting fired? [Council President] is quick to say he and borough council stand behind Sherman 100% because she wanted to resign and someone leaks it, but won't blink an eye when she fires someone for giving her friend/former mayor who hired her a ticket. This is the same council president that said on record he wanted to fill an empty council seat with another Republican and one he wanted to see sit in it so he didn't want to waste time by opening the vacancy to the public?..."
The worst part about this to me is this…I don’t know what the current chief, mayor, and council are trying to pull off, but in the end, two innocent people (one I know is innocent of anything and one I have no reason to believe is NOT innocent) have had their lives seriously and negatively affected. And the only recourse they have is to look for and spend money to hire lawyers, and investigators, to threaten these public officials to stop whatever it is they are doing, and to get something else on record after the fact to try to “clear their names.” The damage has already been done, however; from here on out, this is just an expensive exercise in damage control to try to limit the continued impact to my friend and her friend.
I also have to comment that the “creators” of this issue are publicly elected officials in our system of democracy, which is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. How are the events here, in any way, shape, or form, of the people, by the people, and for the people?
I recently posted about my experiences on jury duty, which is in the Judicial branch of our government. I ended that post with the question of: “Does Justice has an admission fee?” The above is an example of how our Executive Branch of government can be corrupt – when elected officials can behave themselves as they wish, for their own personal gain or motive without regard to the people who elected them into their position, then I need to ask: Government Leadership has an admission fee?” (I'll save my rant on how PA Governor Corbett has proposed massive cuts in the PA Budget, but is insistent on not taxing companies who are pouring into PA to drill for natural gas. But wait - he received nearly a million dollars in lobbying money from natural gas drillers in his 2010 campaign fund.)
Yes, I know, this is old news. But the main point here is that we like to focus on the corruption at the federal level, and even the state level, and we end up downplaying federal and state corruption issues since most of that doesn’t appear to have an immediate and drastic impact on us. But in this case, two people were instantly and drastically impacted by a local government issue that, in my opinion, reeks of corruption.
I also have to comment that the “creators” of this issue are publicly elected officials in our system of democracy, which is supposed to be of the people, by the people, and for the people. How are the events here, in any way, shape, or form, of the people, by the people, and for the people?
I recently posted about my experiences on jury duty, which is in the Judicial branch of our government. I ended that post with the question of: “Does Justice has an admission fee?” The above is an example of how our Executive Branch of government can be corrupt – when elected officials can behave themselves as they wish, for their own personal gain or motive without regard to the people who elected them into their position, then I need to ask: Government Leadership has an admission fee?” (I'll save my rant on how PA Governor Corbett has proposed massive cuts in the PA Budget, but is insistent on not taxing companies who are pouring into PA to drill for natural gas. But wait - he received nearly a million dollars in lobbying money from natural gas drillers in his 2010 campaign fund.)
Yes, I know, this is old news. But the main point here is that we like to focus on the corruption at the federal level, and even the state level, and we end up downplaying federal and state corruption issues since most of that doesn’t appear to have an immediate and drastic impact on us. But in this case, two people were instantly and drastically impacted by a local government issue that, in my opinion, reeks of corruption.
PS - Coming soon: Does (all of) democracy have an admission fee too? (Hint: yes it does.)
PPS – that PS was originally posted at the end of my Jury Duty post…)
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