Shelby County – Other’s Wrongs Make It Right?

Shelby Co. (ECWd) –

It appears we have identified a common denominator in Shelby County as it relates to all kinds of malfeasance in local government.

When the County-hired forensic auditor spoke about his findings in his audit of the payroll fraud in the Sheriff’s office, he made a comment about his findings being tied to a “culture”.  Until the culture changes, the problems will continue.

What is that culture?

If others can do it, so can we.

Virtually every county board meeting for the last 2 years we have heard people point to other counties doing something so since they are doing it they can too, all while ignoring roughly 75% of the other counties not doing it.   It’s commonly called “advocating for a position by finding others doing the same thing”, regardless of whether it’s right or wrong.

To our surprise, such a position now shows up in the law community in a fashion I never imagined.

According to an unclassified FBI document we obtained, a lawyer points to what we know is a crime as the justification his client did nothing wrong.

“GOEBEL didn’t believe the matter was a problem since previous County Engineers had companies that provided services to the county”.

Todd Goebel was the attorney former County Highway Engineer Alan Spesard hired once he realized he was under a criminal investigation by the FBI.  According to the FBI record, Goebel and Spesard, through conversations with the former state attorney, which would have been Gina Vonderhide, and county board members, Goebel didn’t believe the matter was a problem since previous County Engineers had companies that provided services to the county.

While we have never asserted Spesard, in his capacity as Shelby Engineering, was providing services to the county, we are shocked to see an attorney actually indicate that other county engineers in the past had companies that provided services to the county so it must be OK for Spesard to carry the legacy forward.

It should not take a lot of brainpower to understand that employees of a unit of government can not provide for-profit services to their employing unit of government through their private business, but we digress as we are talking about Shelby County.

So in the mind of a lawyer, since others did it and got away with it, no harm no foul, never mind the fact no one ever claimed his client was offering services to the county. Why would he draw that comparison since no one to our knowledge has ever accused him of providing services to the county through his private business? Stay tuned for more FBI records that indicate key county board members approved such services to the county.

An example of the culture in action can be found in the video contained in this article, which also includes links to several articles that covered the actions of Spesard.

We have an “if others can do it so can we“, question.

If other county Sheriff’s Offices can use the same electronic timekeeping system Shelby County has, why can’t Shelby County Sheriff’s Office use it?

Stay tuned for numerous future articles on Spesards actions and what his own employees had to say during the investigation by the FBI.  Our source confirmed the FBI turned over the case to the Attorney General to prosecute.  The AG chose not to pursue it.  The message that sends, it’s OK to run a private business out of government facilities for 20 years, and operate your private business during county time, and our laws have no meaning.

For the local propagandists, NONE of the records we published in this article and future articles on this topic came from any Shelby County official, former or otherwise.