Another shoe drops -- What's in store?

     Now the charges are dropped in another high-profile case, a consequence of charges being dropped last week in a murder case.
     Now do you get why politics and ego should never be factors in law enforcement issues?
     Here's the irony: During the hearings in Annapolis several years to consider a bill to keep the commissioners from exercising their constitutional duty to consider someone other than the sheriff being designated the lead law enforcement agency in Carroll County, his most influential advisor at the time was Lt. Robert Keefer, who has since retired. Keefer faced off with me in the corridor outside the Annapolis hearing rooms and said that I had no right to raise questions about Sheriff Ken Tregoning's version of the events that had led to the controversy.
     Such a challenge to the credibility of a sworn law officer could lead to reversals in previously investigated cases, he said. Once one case was overturned, he vigorously argued, there would be a succession of other cases brought back for review.
     My point was that we wanted a full exploration of the options for that very reason; we needed to have a dialog on what agency would best handle investigations of crimes, and I knew the State Police had serious concerns about the capabilities of the county sheriff's department, even while they acknowledged vast improvements in professionalism in recent years.
     The conversation in that corridor echoes today.
     The current board of commissioners bowed to the wishes of the sheriff and a powerful lobby of supporters. The shoes are now dropping.
     These commissioners are "reviewing" other actions of the previous board -- the airport was put on the shelf, costing taxpayers and airport users time and money. The consequences of that is a loss of revenue and staff, contractors will be leaving, revenues will be down, and the airport still needs a new runway.
     Will that decision be reviewed? Is it already under study, in an effort to recoup the opportunity to get federal funding for necessary work? Are they looking for a fall guy to blame for the decision to shelve the plan?
     Same with the waste to energy issue. Months of work by staff and top experts in the field are being "reviewed" by still another committee, this one made up of many of the people who had their own agendas in the original studies.
     And we haven't even started to calculate the consequences of dropping the tax rate and giving up revenues needed to fix roofs and failing heating/air conditioning systems in county schools.
     As I've said before, someone has to pay the bills, and like the auto mechanic on the old billboard ads used to say, "You can pay me a little now, or a lot later."