THE LOGAN THEORY

If you are like me and you have wondered why someone so young and so inexperienced like Liberty County candidate Logan Pickett is running for District Attorney, here are a few theories to consider. One or all may apply.

Shortly after his 29^th birthday Logan Pickett has decided to run for Liberty County District Attorney and there is nothing in his career path thus far that suggest he is ready for the job or that he intended to run. So what is happening?

Theory I:

District Attorney Mike Little thinks he can force voters to choose someone in his office and he feels he needs to so he is protected by one of his employees being his successor.

Theory II:

The current employees in the District Attorney’s office fear losing their job so they pooled the persuasiveness they learned in law school and talked the youngest trainee in the department to run – so if he wins they can run the office.

Theory III:

Logan Pickett is from a family that has always had an unusually strong and disproportionate influence on Liberty and now Logan wants to increase his family legacy by being the number one prosecutor for the entire county.

Theory IV:

The Pickett law firm has always had a strong influence in the D.A.’s office and they want to keep it that way.

Theory V:

Though the Picketts have supported state and national Republicans they have never supported anything but Democrats locally and they see a chance to play catch up and become leaders in a local Republican party they have heretofore wanted to shut up.

Theory VI:

Former Judge Rusty Hight’s daughter is named after Logan Pickett’s mother (Laura) and their families are close. Just like Hight tried to beat one of his political enemies last election by running a candidate in order to obtain his revenge, he is doing the same with Logan.

Under each scenario, it could be surmised that Logan Pickett is a tool.

Perceptually, it could be stated that Logan Pickett is driven, maybe driven by the same arrogance, sense of entitlement and self righteousness that those before him like Rusty Hight have mistakenly believed.

Regardless of which one, or if all, of these theories is correct, Logan Pickett would better serve Liberty County and himself by waiting until he has the experience and the maturity to hold higher office. His campaign padding the numbers of cases he has tried and trying to make him look ready will not fool a county that is so closely in touch with each other. Deception and revenge are a bad basis for getting elected. Voters want change, not more of the same.

MOREFIELD FULFILLING VOTER’S EXPECTATIONS (Part I)

For years local Republicans have advertised the good things that would happen if voters put conservatives on every bench in the Liberty County Courthouse. So when the votes were counted in November 2009 and Tommy Chambers, Chap Cain, and Mark Morefield swept into the courthouse with large margins of victory, it was time to put up or shut up.

Liberty County has watched as the months have gone by and these three judges have proven to have been everything conservatives had hoped for. They joined with County Judge Craig McNair and engineered substantial money saving procedures by reducing the time taxpayers pay to house people accused of nonviolent crimes. That program alone will save the county millions over the years.

Then if you look into the day to day work, you find the two new judges are more out of the hard working mold of Chap Cain than the one of their predecessors. 75th District Court Judge Mark Morefield, for example, worked into dark thirty on November 28th to get juries for three cases. Then Judge Morefield presided over almost as many jury trials in four days as former District Judge Rusty Hight use to in a year.

But politically active conservatives are very aware that no matter how efficient and no matter how hard working and no matter fair and just everyone else is in the courthouse, if the people in the District Attorneys office drag their feet and wait as long as they did to get these three cases to trial, then fair and speedy trials will continue to be a problem. Our hats are off to the Judge in these three cases, to the juries, to the bailiffs and the court reporters and everyone else involved …… everyone except the prosecutors - Logan Pickett, and Mike Little. (Part II coming soon)

PATTERNS OF CORRUPTION AMONG PUBLIC OFFICIALS

In a lifetime most of us have seen enough corruption to have experienced a pattern that happens among public officials when they have been found out. The pattern goes something like this: First, ignore the accusations as if they go unheard. Second, if someone comes forward and gives a public voice to what was said privately, belittle or attack the messenger and hide behind the authority voters have given them or their constitutional rights. Third, if forced to reveal the facts, blame someone else.

District Attorney Mike Little and Liberty County Sheriff Henry Patterson could both be in stage three concerning allegations of them misusing the seized assets their respective have been the steward of. Both have ignored rather than responded to an outcry for openness concerning thousands, or perhaps tens of thousands, of dollars worth of assets.

Little eventually disclosed how much was still in the fund. But that seems to be some kind of gesture to pacify people or some kind of political ploy when one considers what the crux of the matter is. Since Little should know the allegations are about how the funds have been used or spent, why would he suddenly reveal how much is left in the fund if it isn’t to try and appease his accusers?

Or is Little like Sheriff Patterson and his re-election squad? Patterson and his team seem to have reacted to Liberty Dispatch asking the Sheriff the same question he enjoyed us asking the D.A. by firing off comments to us asking us who “the hell” we think we are? They also communicated and indicating that the public couldn’t care less about holding them accountable.

So if they are true to form, the next reaction we will get from the D.A. and the Sheriff after they spend time railing on us will be to assign blame. We say that because if every one on the commissioners’ court is too timid to pursue this, it will still be pursued. The assets that are confiscated are not the personal property of the Mike Little or Henry Patterson. They can holler “politics”, or they can try and put the blame on someone they don’t like, but the public deserves accountability from its public officials.

Mike Little has had three decades in the office of District Attorney and it is shocking to think the huge money that is that has been spent outside the county budget. Will he blame former County Attorney Jack Hartel? Hartel served as the County Attorney most of those years. Or will the longtime Democrat D.A. blame our new Republican County Attorney Wes Hinch?

Of course, if Little and Patterson want to see some fair and balanced reporting by Liberty Dispatch and show they are guilty of nothing, they will skip stage three of what corrupt public officials routinely do and they will disclose to the public how they have spent their slush fund money and allow the paper trail to be examined.

Liberty County will have a new District Attorney in less than twelve months and it is our hope that if we have not been able to shake Little and Patterson loose from records on this matter that the new D.A. will make the information public, and if assets have been stolen Little and/or Patterson will be treated like anyone else.

There is a pattern concerning what is usually done to public officials who misuse county assets and get caught. It is called a jury trial and a sentence of time in the slammer and a large fine. Hopefully we are just seeing a stinginess of cooperation and soon we will see commissioners’ court act and we will see everything is in order. But we are off to a slow start if that ends up being true.