Posted: Monday, 02 February 2009 11:47AM
Chew On This Food For Thought
Steve Corbett Reporting
Monday, February 02, 2009
The woman nervously approached me Saturday afternoon in the soup aisle in the Wilkes-Barre Township supermarket. The story she told about a former high school student’s experience with disgraced former Luzerne County President Judge Mark Ciavarella needs a full investigation all its own.
Within minutes, a man approached me by the pasta aisle. He wanted to talk about the history of political corruption that has pillaged the public trust. A woman and her husband wanted to talk near the candy. A tractor trailer driver held court by the hot dogs. A Larksville man railed against bribery by the butter. Another guy whispered by the string cheese. A woman stood with her daughter by the soda aisle and talked about the election for the new president judge.
The joint was jumping with points of view.
They all said they’re listening to “Corbett” on WILK News Radio and they’re all paying attention to see what happens next in the biggest political scandal in county history.
I always knew people cared about the sorry state of affairs in Luzerne County. But I never thought I’d see the outpouring of public outrage I experienced while grabbing groceries.
With shock and indignation erupting all around me during a Saturday shopping expedition, I knew that history was, indeed, being made.
And I felt proud to be part of it.
Like everybody else, I was stunned last week when news broke that Ciavarella and former President Judge Michael Conahan had signed plea agreements admitting to accepting millions of dollars in kickbacks and agreeing to serve more than seven years in federal prison.
Also like everybody else I wanted to do my part to help the continuing investigation into public corruption.
So I did what I knew I had to do – I opened up the phones and asked listeners to weigh in on the impact of the news and the possibility that we will have more pleas, arrests and prison terms.
And I got to work digging for more details and trying to find out as much information as I could to share with listeners who depend on WILK News Radio to stay on top of the issues that most impact their lives.
Although I had been hearing and talking about the federal investigation for two years, I knew we were entering a new era in Luzerne County government and that we were preparing for an onslaught of law enforcement action unlike anything we had ever seen.
It felt good to know that the cavalry had finally arrived. Now we need all the reinforcements we can get. Good cops, good prosecutors, good public officials and good citizens must all work together to root out the evil that has harmed people for generations in hard coal country.
That means listening and talking as much as possible about what’s going on around us. That also means letting federal investigators know about any information you might have that will help them fix this problem that has run amok. That means encouraging good elected and appointed public officials as well as excoriating the bad ones.
Even without the alleged crimes of Ciavarella and Conahan, Luzerne County has a nest of bad public officials.
Most are likely not criminals but some are.
Public pressure must be placed on them and their bosses to make sure that they are not allowed to go unpunished.
Acting Controller A.J. Martinelli currently faces drunk driving charges.
Police charge that he crashed his car into a wall at 3 a.m., flashed his county badge when asked for identification, threw around the names of local politicians in a bid to get out of being arrested, and tried repeatedly to get out of the police car by pushing on the door.
For what it’s worth, police also say Martinelli’s pants were hanging around his knees when he exited his smashed vehicle.
If what police say is true, Martinelli must be terminated from public service.
Yet, county officials claim that nobody can fire him. He’s the acting controller and the boss of the row office because Gov. Ed Rendell has not appointed a full-time controller to serve until a new controller is elected and starts work a year from now.
Absurd, dysfunctional and dangerous, the logic is pure Luzerne County.
The “we can’t get there from here” school of thought is what helped get Luzerne County taxpayers into this precarious situation in the first place. Believing that good citizens are helpless enables corruption to grow and spread.
It’ll take breaking more than a few eggs to make this scramble into a nourishing omelet.
See you in the supermarket.
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