Who are The Kathleen and Sheriff Mahoney supporting in Tuesday's election?
- The supervisors who stood for the revolving bail fund for jail inmates.
- The board members who spurned the deputies, the judges, and the district attorney who objected.
Just one short year ago, The Kathleen was using our property tax dollars to bail criminal defendants out of jail with the connivance of the current liberal-Progressive Dane majority on the County Board and without objection from Sheriff Mahoney. It was a scheme that would have made Mike Dukakis blush.
The following is taken directly from Capital Newspapers:
Five thousand dollars was available in a revolving loan fund to help indigent inmates pay bail amounts.
District Attorney Brian Blanchard disapproved of the approach the county is taking.
"We need to work together, but every public official has defined, limited powers under the law," Blanchard said. "Wisconsin sheriffs don't set bail amounts."
In response to objections from Blanchard, the attorney general wrote last April:
"... nothing in state statute 'expressly authorizes the sheriff to loan county funds to persons booked into the county jail."
"It's really sad that this jail bond fund went away," said Paul Rusk, chairman of the County Board's Public Protection and Judiciary Committee. "We tout ourselves as being one of the most progressive counties in the United States, and we couldn't even allow a small program to go forward."
And that's from the chairman of the county's chief law enforcement committee!
In her 2009 budget, "County Executive Kathleen Falk pressured judges and prosecutors to toe the line or suffer the consequences at budget time.
Falk said: "We need them to do what the sheriff is doing," referring to Sheriff Dave Mahoney's plan to quadruple the number of inmates on electronic home monitoring in order to reduce the jail population.
Blanchard demurred:
"One of my concerns is that we (make sure we) don't value speed as a goal so much that we drive down the values of cases and dilute our response to crime in a way that's not productive."
Several judges also expressed concerns about the program.
These are the links:
County leaders pressure courts, district attorney
Criminal justice on fast track; count aims to cut jail population
County should not use taxpayer money to bail out low-level inmates
Spite at work
What does it tell you that the Sheriff and his deputies inhabit separate political spheres?
Dane County Sheriff David Mahoney is known as Sheriff Kathleen. The sheriff supports whomever The Kathleen supports for Dane County Board.
I like Dave Mahoney. He has the instincts of a good cop but I bet bad that David Mahoney would find his own trousers and discard The Kathleen's ballet froufrou.
With few exceptions, the sheriff's rank-and-file support an entirely different slate of candidates in Tuesday's County Board elections. This rift is unprecedented in Dane County history. It portends pure trouble for this heretofore well regarded law enforcement agency.
Deputies are incensed that their sheriff refused to stand up for them against the bullying of cop hater, disliker, under-appreciator Brett Hulsey, chairman of the county board's budget-writing committee who can always find money to purchase swampland "so that it can never be developed" but pinches pennies on the backs of those who protect the public.
As punishment for their objections, the sheriff's deputies are now being subjected to unparalleled scrutiny. For the first time in history, a sworn deputy's request for the training that will keep him/her current in proper police procedure is now routinely routed to The Kathleen's desk instead of the Sheriff's.
One deputy told me that if you don't submit your request a good two months in advance, "forget it." In fact, this deputy has yet to hear back on a single training request.
Once again, their sheriff is missing in action -- not sticking up for his sworn deputies, and they are bitter.
Law enforcement continues to rank somewhere below purchasing swampland and somewhat below a "sustainable food policy."
Parsing Comrade Nichols
Comrade Nichols used his column in Sunday's WI State Journal
Tomorrow's chuckle:
