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Dr. Herb Ruhs & grandson
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by Herb Ruhs, MD, Unknown News July 13, 2008
I always try to remember to never say always or never, but I always never remember. It turns out that it is not true that cozy political graft never goes unpunished. A little story out of San Francisco about a guilty verdict on a official corruption charge is to news what the dog that didn't bark is to mystery writing. This is a sort of man bites dog kind of un-news.
Seems that Julie Lee, described by the SACRAMENTO BEE as an "activist," was convicted of covertly channeling $125,000 of government grant money to Kevin Shelley's successful 2002 |
campaign for California Secretary of State. The real news part of this story is that someone was actually prosecuted for what is a standard brand of corruption in the US. That is, if the evidence isn't just all made up to frame an activist, which has to be a possibility.
Maybe some readers could come forward and speak about graft and corruption they have personally known about but that was never punished. For instance, in my former county of residence I discovered that the conservative majority on the County Board of Supervisors was awarding $500,000 a year (in 2000 that was a lot more money than today) to a non-profit made up of a consortium of local businesses, the biggest player by far being Fetzer Vineyards, to stage tourism promotion activities. I found this out during a routine investigation by the county's civil grand jury that I was sitting on (I am now convicting myself of a misdemeanor by reporting this).
Since this was County money we asked to see the books, the receipts for the expenses incurred in the promotional activities. During sworn jury testimony the spokesperson for the non-profit consortium agreed to submit the requested paper work. Shortly after this I conscientiously resigned from the Grand Jury about a seemingly unrelated matter. Just after I left, the remaining sitting members of the Civil Grand Jury were individually sued over the matter of the non-profit's receipts for supposed reasons that remain unintelligible to me. Whew! Once again I had miraculously evaded a blow.
One disappointment I had in leaving the grand jury at that point is that I never got to ask about the uncanny correspondence between the list of campaign contributors to the conservative majority of the Board of Supervisors and the membership of the non-profit. Oddly the total of the said contributions was nearly exactly $500,000? Coincidence? You decide.
It is of interest to note that these few conservative Supervisors who controlled a majority vote were responsible for preventing the passage of a grading ordinance (one of only a few counties in California not to have one) year after year. Fetzer undoubtedly avoided much expense by the lack of environmental regulation on the grading of their vineyards.
I believe that were it not for the juicy opportunity for such graft that government grants would be much less numerous. So maybe, in the long run, it is a good thing since some money occasionally gets spent on worthwhile things as part of the graft system.
© by the author.
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