The two most disturbing aspects of the Town Council meeting in Tiverton, last night, speak directly to the corruption of Rhode Island, more generally.  The problems and dynamics at the local level often mirror higher levels of governance, and in this case, they cut across both the local and state layers.

The Cost of No Rule of Law

The first observation that should be made is of the short-term thinking.  Expediency was the main justification that the council members used for not being more aggressive in making sure that an employee who appears to have been stealing from the town didn’t get away with it.  Maintenance foreman and union president Robert Martin threatened lawsuits and grievances; dues taken from taxpayer-funded salaries have given the unions seemingly endless resources; so, the council feared the high cost of the battle.  (At least they claim that as their reason in public.)

One wonders at the Medieval concept of justice that such people must have — as if to conclude that, yes, everybody wants justice, but if it cannot be afforded, there is no real cost for living without it.  But vengeance shouldn’t be the motivation for seeking justice; the effects on everybody involved, including observers, should be.

We can be assured, though there will not likely be a visible link, that the next employee contemplating misuse of work time will find the decision that much easier to make.  He or she may not go to the lengths of Mr. Martin — so dramatic as to attract the attention of television crews — but here and there, in countless daily decisions, employees are bound to wonder:  If he got away with that, can there possibly be anything wrong with this minor indiscretion?  Even if the town had lost the suit, employees would know that a drawn out and public display awaited them as a sort of punishment.

Whether losses in employee productivity will amount to the potential liability of the lawsuit that the council avoided is impossible to know, but they aren’t the only cost of trading justice for ease.  The more profound cost comes with the general sense of lawlessness.  If the outcome of the Martin case were the final straw changing a family’s decision to move or stay here, if it was a weight on the negative side of the scale as a business decided whether to set up shop in Tiverton, then the cost in property values and tax revenue would add up quickly.

People will not want to invest their lives in an area that so clearly empowers others to take advantage of them.  Take a moment to watch the first Channel 10 report, paying particular attention to Mr. Martin’s in-your-face arrogance when he realizes that he’s been busted.  He’s the poster boy for public employees’ poor attitude toward the people who pay their salaries, and he therefore makes Tiverton the prime example of a system that transforms government into a racket.

The Passive Victim Play of Government

The second important observation that this episode allows is that the people we elect, appoint, and hire to lead really don’t.  They’re more like passive middle managers.

We see this in the plaintive explanation that they had no choice.  We see it in the urge to make challenging issues go away, rather than to solve them.  We see it in the urge to blame everybody and anybody else (whether former President Bush, former Governor Carcieri, or the previous Town Council, of which a majority is also on this Town Council).  And we see it in the blank-faced and shameful denial of responsibility, blaming a contract that they themselves renewed and pointing in every direction.

Most starkly, though, we see it in the quickness at both the town and state levels to scapegoat the television station that broke the story.

At the Town Council meeting, member James Arruda insisted that he’d gotten the impression that “Channel 10 wouldn’t cooperate with the State Police.”  “Or us,” chimed in a chorus of aggrieved councilors.

When I spoke with the state police and with Attorney General Peter Kilmartin’s spokeswoman, Amy Kempe, I got the same story.  It took a while, as I slammed against the brick wall of the state police explaining that the decision not to prosecute was made by “a conversation” with the attorney general’s office. Although statute puts the authority to “draw and present all… indictments” in the hands of the AG, Kempe insisted that it was a state police investigation and a state police decision.

Through the cracks of the wall, Kempe did let slip her “understanding” that Channel 10 “refused to provide” the “raw footage.”  But the raw footage is available to everybody on the news station’s Web site.

The salient point that this brings home is that it isn’t a news organization’s role to participate in criminal investigations and prosecutions.  Rather, it’s the state police’s role to retrace the journalist’s steps and find their own witnesses.  (The fired “whistle blower” would be a good place to start.)  It’s the AG’s role to build a legitimate case to prove in court what can be seen on TV.

At the same Town Council meeting, Mr. Arruda seemed more interested in investigating whether an unpaid volunteer really lived in town, notwithstanding an incorrect report in a local Massachusetts newspaper.  The drama and public interrogation of a resident concerning where he actually lives on his mixed-use property was a thing to behold.

By their passions may you know them.  It’s difficult not to get the impression that every government official and department involved in the Bob Martin mess, from the Democrat attorney general to the state police to the teacher-union-allied Tiverton 1st council members, was perfectly content to find reasons to make this supposedly difficult decision.

But such decisions are difficult only because they are so clearly wrong, so clearly in keeping with the political culture that is driving the state into the ground.  There is no rule of law and no accountability, here, and there’s nobody looking after the interests of the people.

Lesson learned… again and again.

 

Image above from last night’s Town Council meeting.