MARC CHASE: Disgraced officials should 'scare straight' region leaders
NWI Times
July 13, 2014
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/opinion/columnists/marc-chase/marc-chase-disgraced-officials-should-scare-straight-region-leaders/article_bef7a80e-e742-507e-b324-d85d4820d89f.html
Most of us know of the "scared straight" programs. You know, where troubled youths visit with locked-up convicts, witness morgue autopsies or experience the fallout of any number of tragedies induced by lives of crime.
With the recent release of two big-name Northwest Indiana federal convicts, it seems we have our own opportunity for a similar program. Only this one would target a certain segment of our region's adult population, and "scared ethical" might be a better program moniker.
The concept behind "scared straight" is changing the direction of juvenile delinquents heading in a trajectory of bad decisions by demonstrating the even worse consequences.
Maybe this same sort of shock therapy could help Lake County's elected and government officials, too many of whom find themselves in the three-hots-and-a-cot care of the federal prison system after victimizing taxpayers who elected them.
We have two solid candidates to teach such shock-therapy classes in former Lake County Clerk and Coroner Tom Philpot and former region political fixer/kingmaker/power broker Bob Cantrell.
Timing couldn't be better to execute this plan. Both men received varying forms of release Wednesday from federal prison terms brought on by unrelated public corruption convictions in Hammond federal court.
Philpot left Michigan City halfway house, fresh off an 18-month sentence for stealing from taxpayers.
Cantrell went into a halfway house program from a Kentucky prison. He's about six months shy of a 78-month prison term for taking government kickbacks and hiding the cash from the IRS.
One might surmise the convictions and prison sentences of these once prominent Lake County politicos would have served as a deterrent to other region elected officials from following in ethically questionable footsteps.
But one would be wrong.
In an unrelated case, Lake County's former elected surveyor pleaded guilty in December to using taxpayer resources in the furtherance of his political campaign — and then directing the destruction of computer evidence implicating the behavior.
Lake Station's mayor, his wife and stepdaughter stand federally indicted in yet another unrelated case of allegedly bilking taxpayers. And FBI and IRS agents swarmed the Calumet Township trustee's office in Gary earlier this year, seizing boxes of evidence and a computer in a case that presumably remains under investigation.
With the continuation of probes into allegedly corrupt government officiating -- in spite of the specter of a heavy legal hammer -- perhaps it's time to think out of the box.
Maybe the region-based Shared Ethics Advisory Commission should reach out to jailbird politicians like Philpot and Cantrell to teach Anti-Public Corruption 101 classes. Imagine the real-life meat that could put on the bone of commission endeavors.
Offer Philpot and Cantrell the warmth of a renewed public spotlight, only this time teaching and counseling contemporary local government officials about the pitfalls and consequences of defrauding hard-working taxpayers.
It's a way to make their misadventures count for something.
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