There is a lot of waste in San Bernardino County government these days. The sad revelations of former GOP rising star, County Assessor Bill Postmus’ drug use, and the scandal about alleged illegal political operations in his county office, affecting another young staff member, underscore how a career in public service originally based on good intentions, can end up wasted.
But the real waste, for taxpayers, is in the extraordinary effort the Board of Supervisors is putting into prosecuting Postmus. Reports are they have hired an outside private prosecutor, the guy who did the Enron prosecution of Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling, with a $250,000 contract. The $250,000 is the initial contract. As a lawyer, I can tell you that with a quarter million green light, that prosecutor will not only be sure to spend all the money, he will be coming back for more.
Hiring a national big gun lawyer to prosecute what is essentially a criminal meth case with some added public agency abuse claims is like blowing up an ant hill with an atom bomb. It is over kill. It is a waste of resources. Like all other counties, San Bernardino has a District Attorney’s office. There is also a unit of the FBI that handles elected officials crimes (its the one that helped get an ankle bracelet on former local Congressman Jay Kim) and the U.S. Attorney for the region handles such crimes as well. These are the law enforcement units that should be making the case against Postmus, and making the case against him should not be so urgent that taxpayers need to pay double, triple, or quadruple the price to do so. Postmus can be held accountable for his actions without being buried alive by the Board of Supervisors, who are looking as if doing so is exactly their goal.