Saturday, January 31, 2009

Who is funding Fort Bend Sheriffs?

The elected officials in Fort Bend must be affected by the water. According to the Houston Chronicle Sheriff Milton Wright gave a $1000 bonus to each of his deputy sheriffs. That in itself isn't bad, but the Sheriff had to admit the $250,000 came from an anonymous donor and would not reveal the source. Huh? What the Fox?

Could it be that a good, rich. Samaritan had $250,000 burning a hole in his pocket looking for a do-gooder act of gratefulness? Giving a $1000 bonus to anyone, especially a Sheriff is a great act of goodness, but, what if it wasn't a do-gooder?

What if the anonymous donation came from a drug dealer looking for a little help from the Sheriff, to look the other way when needed, or to pick up the phone with a much needed timely tip, or to help carry a bit of product across county lines? Huh? Huh? HUH?

This would be just as bad as a wealthy home builder giving unlimited donations to our elected officials in Austin to get support for a bloated, bureaucratic, $10M friendly commission to oversee his industry. (oh wait......we've done that already. Never mind)

Besides the fact that the Sheriff has broken the law if the donor is within Fort Bend County, the appearance of this raises ethical questions. And it should.

Even though the checks likely were given and received in good faith, such a large donation could create the appearance of impropriety in the eyes of the public, said Geoffrey Corn, associate professor at the South Texas College of Law.

“The reason the public pays a public servant is so that their loyalty is exclusively to the public, and I do think this raises some ethical concerns,” he said.

There is a right way and wrong way to accept the cash. The Sheriff did something extremely stupid and accepted it the wrong way. Seriously, what idiot would think this was OK to do?

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

You didn't even have to waste your time putting in his picture. As if anyone could't guess.

Anonymous said...

Do you have a scintilla of a hint of a shadow of evidence that Bob Perry made the donation?

Or is the fact that you don't like him enough reason to suggest he's a criminal?

John Coby said...

stupid matt, blogs are for kids or for those who can read.

Anonymous said...

Cereal slogans aside (I'm not matt, by the way), do you have any evidence?

You put Perry's photo up in connection with this story. What makes you think he made the contribution?

Anonymous said...

You are just as dumb as matt. You cant read either.

Anonymous said...

So you are telling us that of all the pictures you could have chosen, you just happened to pick one of Bob Perry?

It really doesn't make sense in the overall context of the post, since you only mention him as a an example in a hypothetical.

Unless, of course, your intent was to imply that he was involved in this actual financial transaction -- while maintaining plausible deniability, of course.

(FYI, I'm not matt or the other anonymous, either.

Anonymous said...

Gee, John, it seems rather interesting that an actual legal analysis of the relevant laws and regulations has determined that there was nothing wrong with these bonuses. Any chance you might retract what you have written?

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/headline/metro/6248458.html