Judges took bribes. School board members took bribes too. So did redevelopment authority people and that superintendent of schools. There were some other thieves and miscreants who also did wrong, but basically local corruption has come down to bribes. We’ve caught a bunch of bribees with their hands in the till. Fine. Is it too soon to ask, when are the bribers going down? Aren’t they just as crooked as the people they bribed?
I’m serious about this. We have 18 schmos who violated their offices and the public trust by taking money from people who wanted favors. There are more to come. Okay, they did wrong and their lives are ruined. But without exception, they took money from people we consider our local captains of commerce and industry. I want to know who they are.
Not everyone agrees with me. My friend Mark Ciavarella doesn’t believe Rob Mericle did anything wrong when he gave Mark and Michael Conahan $2.6 million after he got the contract to build the new juvenile prison. Mark said Mericle paid it as a finder’s fee and Mark got in trouble for how he reported it. Sorry, but I find it incomprehensible that two people can be involved in an act which is legal for one but illegal for the other.
This corruption investigation is giving us a glance at today’s crooks. But I want the people who paid the bribes too, because I have the feeling they’ve been around bribing forever. How many of the names we’re hearing in the news belong to venerable companies? Mericle is a huge local real estate developer. Pasonic is a major engineering firm. King Glass is an old and venerable concern. Did these people get big because they did business better, or because they dealt cash from the bottom of the business deck? I want to know who the real captains of industry are. Is that too much to ask?
Don’t think it doesn’t matter who gets the business, because it does. That fabled Big Dig in Boston is the most outrageous example. The project was infested by insider deals and old-boy contracts. It came in decades late, billions over budget, it has leaked from the beginning and a partial collapse has already killed a motorist. Too far from home? Okay, how about the current lane widening project on the turnpike near Valley Forge? That job was bid at $90 million. So far it’s cost $170 million. There are widespread reports of substandard concrete discovered on the site, other serious construction flaws and reports of contractor bribes. Yes, the FBI is investigating. This is road construction. You know, the roads that carry your kids? You’re damned right it matters.
I’m also against the notion that these so-called business leaders should get lighter sentences by spilling their guts about everyone they ever led astray with money. Think about it. They become rich and successful by breaking the law and bribing people in the first place. Clearly they thought they had to do it to get ahead. Then when it goes bad, they lighten their own loads by telling on the very people that they turned into criminals when they bribed them in the first place. It is so unfair.
I am not suggesting for a second that the people who took bribes shouldn’t be punished. They deserve whatever ruin lies ahead. Tomorrow they’ll be gone. But if the Mericles and the Pasonics and the King Glasses of the world are still here tomorrow, what will have actually changed?
Nothing at all.
Corbett
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