Government as a sacred trust
A friend of mine pointed out this article in the New York Times to me about the arrest today of 11 elected and appointed officials in Monmouth County on corruption and extortion charges. Three of the arrested were mayors, but sadly, not the mayor of my own home town, only a slightly lower level official (a former mayor, if I’m not mistaken; the township committee members take turns being mayor here). My favorite quote from the article:
In one case, Raymond O’Grady, a Middletown committeeman, casually dismissed an undercover agent’s question to him on tape about whether he feared being caught by the police, according to the criminal complaint. "I can smell a cop a mile away," Mr. O’Grady bragged to the undercover agent who was taping the conversation, according to the complaint.
Mr. O’Grady was charged with taking a total of $6,000 in bribes to help the contractor get work. Mr. Christie, commenting on the case during a news conference on Tuesday, said, "Mr. O’Grady should have his olfactory senses tested immediately."
Somehow the good burghers of Middletown seem to keep electing these clowns to office. Go figure.
Posted at 2:47 PM
I’ve followed this story at APP since your posting. Perhaps the whole mess will encourage voters to install the opposite party into power. Middletown has come close to getting a Democrat or two on the council in recent years. This might just do it. Hazlet had Dems until very recently - didn’t take the Repubs long to put their hand in the till. Also interesting to note that all related photos that I have found show the perpetrators to be Burly men (as opposed to Girly men).
Posted by Mamacita at 11:50 AM, March 3, 2005 [Link]