In County government, the most personally threatening kind of power manifests itself in law enforcement and adjudication.  Power at this level can literally end a human life, imprison a man forever, force someone into a mental hospital or keep a parent from their children.

While we all hope that those whom we elect to govern are honorable and honest people with the best interests of the community in mind, we all know that this is not always the case.  This is why the positions of the county Sheriff and the District Attorney are crucial in defining the overall integrity and reputation of the entirety of the community.  The people we elect to these offices reflect the highest and best individuals we can elevate to those positions of trust, honor and ultimately, power.

There should be a healthy, professional distance and a respectful skepticism separating the relationships between police agencies and the judicial/adjudication side of the administration.  Clear personal relationships, even friendships to the point of mutual campaigning and commingled staff and volunteers does not set the proper tone for the natural inter-agency separation that should exist between entities that many times find themselves at loggerheads.      

The use of power demonstrates ones character.  When a inner-office romance bloomed with a subordinate, as it did in the sheriff’s office when then Captain Akshar was living with a female co-worker, or when then captain Akshar had a sexual encounter with the mother of a murder victim while the matter was actively being adjudicated, or when then Senator Akshar had another affair with a young woman that worked in his office, tripling her salary, prompting the ethics panel in Albany to slap the Senator’s wrists, or when District Attorney candidate Battisti called then Captain Akshar and ultimately had him dispatch his brother, a Broome County sheriff, to arrest Battisti’s estranged wife, in which all charges were ultimately dropped, well, we see power and character in action.

This kind of a quid pro quo power-structure is the worse thing that could happen to the residents of Broome County.  Those who play fast and loose with the rules, use their power inappropriately and are indebted to one another in a Gordian knot of payback and one-hand-washing-the-other shenanigans sets the bar too low and demonstrates a dangerous tenor from which all police agencies will get their cues and when those cues suggest anything other than fair-play, integrity and honorable behavior, you can count on getting none of that in return.

The people we entrust with great power should be those most reluctant to use it.  The lust for power is the surest sign of why the person seeking it should be kept from it.  Power engorges the ego of the tyrant while humbling the wise, the tyrant’s eager first choice, and the humble man’s reluctant last resort.

Einstein warned us when he said, “Force always attracts men of low morality.”  Edmund Burke finished his thought when he said, “The greater the power the more dangerous the abuse.”