Response To Mr. White (link).

 

For starters, Tommy Rodella, the former Sheriff of Rio Arriba County, is not hyperbole. 

 

Neither is former Mora County Sheriff Thomas Garza who was convicted of tampering with public records by having deputies (patronage employees) falsify reports. Nor is Sheriff Joe Arpaio down in Phoenix who was just convicted of obstruction of justice.

 

Perhaps I’m just paranoid, but let me explain to you where I’m coming from. I grew up in Springfield, Illinois. In Springfield, there was a saying that there were two things that Chicago shipped downstate: their sewage and their politicians. And it was often hard to tell the difference. But downstate also produced a few “jewels” of their own.

 

One of these was Paul Powell, a “good ole boy” from Vienna (that’s pronounced Vie-enna with the accent on all three syllables) Illinois. He was Secretary of State for a number of years. In Illinois, a large part of the state government is administered by the Secretary of State (the DMV, for instance). He had more patronage than the governor had. He even had his own police department that was separate from the State Police. And he was always looking to expand his domain (sound familiar?).

 

Paul was the consummate patronage politician. He’d show up at every political function (sound familiar?), no matter what little dipstick county it was located in. Why, he’d be honored to give you a speech. He remembered everybody’s name and he always had a good story to tell. People liked Paul, and if you had a problem with the state government or you needed a state job, he’d “take care of it” for you.

 

Paul died in 1970. When they opened up the closet of his hotel room in Springfield, they found $700,000 in cash stuffed in old shoe boxes. It was mostly in $10s and $20s. Guess where that came from. The more they looked, the more money they found. There was even a stash under the floorboards in an old house Paul owned in Vienna. It got to where treasure hunters were breaking into houses where Paul used to live just to see what was under the floorboards. Then there were the 12 large manila envelopes that Paul’s cronies removed from the safe in the Secretary of State’s Office before Paul’s death was announced. They only found one of those. Paul’s mistress had it. It contained $50,000 in $100 and $1,000 dollar bills.

 

I believe that we need to do whatever we can to keep politics and particularly patronage politicians away from law enforcement in Los Alamos.

 

That’s why I don’t like the idea of giving the Sheriff policing powers. If we do, we’re just asking for trouble. Our present Sheriff shows all of the attributes of a patronage politician. Gotta have a police cruiser. Complete with lights, radios, and all of the latest cop equipment. Gotta have an Undersheriff. Gotta have a ¾ ton pickup with a horse trailer hitch. Gotta have more deputies. And, gotta have my picture in the paper as often as possible.