Aaron ‘Goo’ McGowan laying out the facts.
Wow! I have seen our state legislature and city council make some really f’ing stupid decisions when it comes to taking money from the feds, but when the county is offered $240,000 from the feds to improve public safety and all the county has to supply is a desk and a cubicle it would seem to be a no-brainer to accept the money. Right?
But, McGowan says there are no hidden costs, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make sure there’s more prosecution of DUI cases.
“There aren’t any strings attached to this. There’s no local match, I offered to house them in a cubicle in our hallway because we don’t have any office space like other offices in the county,” McGowan said.
But our bone-headed CC thinks there is something nefarious about this. Barth was the only commissioner willing to accept the money. Does anybody else find it suspicious that the biggest opponent, Pekas, is a private practice lawyer? Gee, I wonder why he is opposed to more prosecutors? Him and Hajek shouldn’t even of been able to vote or comment on the issue because of conflict of interest. CC candidate Nesiba sums it up best in a press release;
Aaron McGowan, our State’s Attorney, came to the commission with a federally funded renewable grant. It would be used to fund a special prosecutor for DUI cases. The commission simply needed to vote to accept it. Yet the commission failed to act. In Minnehaha County we have over 1,500 DUI cases annually. There are four pending vehicular homicide cases. If the commissioners cannot act given current conditions and when the federal government is picking up the bill, when will they act?
Overseeing public safety may be the most important responsibility of the county commission. More than half of the Commission’s $64 million budget is spent on costs related to public safety through funding areas related to the Sheriff, State’s Attorney, County Jail, and Public Defender’s offices. If I were serving on the commission today I would have been enthusiastic to make the motion (or the second) to accept Mr. McGowan’s request and to vote in support of it. We all benefit from keeping drunk drivers off of our roads. I hope that when Commissioner Kelly returns, that Mr. McGowan will bring back his request. If it doesn’t pass then, I hope the people of Minnehaha County elect commissioners on November 2 that will support the State’s Attorney request.