Mayor Brown’s Indictment: Is 18 months enough?
Shawn Brown was indicted Monday on Federal bribery charges. He will be heading to prison for 18 months in accordance with the minimum guidelines for a Federal bribery case. The judge was good to him, considering he could have faced up to two years in prison. He relayed this sentencing along with a good dose of reprimand. He basically told Brown that his campaign promises were lies and that he has disgraced the office of the Mayor. He did NOT honor the home confinement request as Brown and his attorneys had the nerve to ask for. Why ask for home confinement? A few reasons have been speculated amongst his critics in Saint Peters.
Maybe he was waiting on a “delivery” from another company he was bribing? Or, he possibly thought since Martha Stewart could do it on a much higher level and get away with it, he could do it as well? All joking aside, having a wife and young children was the main reason I’m sure for asking for home confinement. What will they tell their kids? That daddy is going to jail over a measly $2750? How do you explain that he put the family at risk just to get a few extra bucks? You have to feel sorry for the family and relief that justice has been done.
Then there are his main supporters. The “big money” support such as daddy Warbucks Busch and the Great Alliance. I have to wonder if he’s feeling like he wasted a big amount of money on a whole lot of nothing. And the “ground soldiers” who thought this guy was the answer to St. Peters prayers, while blasting Former Mayor Tom Brown whenever they could. Well, guess what? When you don’t have any experience at anything relating to public office, you can honestly campaign and say that “he’ll make a great, honest Mayor. St. Peters gave the guy a chance, he got a little power and went crazy with it. Hey, if you’re going to throw your whole three year career away, go for it and ask for a little more, will you? These same “soldiers” are the ones who blasted State Representative Scott Rupp for just about everything they could to campaign for “their candidate”, Joe Brazil, who by the way lost by a large margin. Now they are saying that although Shawn Brown was wrong, he wasn’t as wrong as some of the public officials. These people are never wrong, are they? So the hard lesson St. Peters might learn this next time around is don’t support any candidate who is connected with the one issue group; which is basically anti-growth. If you do support them and decide that maybe you would like to think for yourself the next time around and vote for someone else, you will be considered a traitor and all ties will be cut off. They will try to disguise themselves in e-mails and websites, but I think by most of us know who they are by now.
Speaking of the upcoming election this spring, voters are heading once again back to the polls after a disappointing past November for us conservatives. The confirmed candidates as of Tuesday for the non-partisan position as Mayor are Alderman Jerry Hollingsworth, Terry Hawkins and Len Pagano, along with local businessman, Rick Nault. Many have been buzzing about Former Mayor Tom Brown taking another shot at it, as he did call it correctly about Shawn being a crook, but I think the final decision has been made and we will be choosing between the aforementioned men. The winner will go on to serve out former Mayor Shawn Brown’s final year of his four year term with another fun election in 2008.
All the candidates seem to have one thing in common: they all want to restore the integrity of the office and restore the public’s trust that the former Mayor took away.
February is a great time for conservatives. With the upcoming “Lincoln Days” events, candidates from all over the state for all levels of Government will be gathering to mingle and gather support. Things are going to get interesting.
