Boy, attorney Michael Maistelman sure is keeping busy these days…
Milwaukee County Supervisor Johnny L. Thomas – the frontrunner in the race for city comptroller – was charged Thursday with accepting a bribe in exchange for promoting a company for a county contract.
Prosecutors charged Thomas with two felony counts, one for accepting a bribe and the other for misconduct in office. Thomas, 43, is chairman of the board’s Finance and Audit Committee.
I had heard rumors of another John Doe investigation in Milwaukee County that involved Supervisor Thomas, so this news isn’t shocking. However, these allegations sure would seem to put a damper on Thomas’ comptroller campaign, which had garnered the support of much of Milwaukee’s liberal establishment, including Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, and Democratic State Sen. Lena Taylor, not to mention Sachin Chheda, the Chair of the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County (who also happened to be Thomas’ campaign manager).
Allow the process to play out, and if the charges are true, lock ’em up. No excuses. We need to demonstrate that our side does not tolerate corruption.
Precisely.
I don’t care if it’s liberals or conservatives; corruption has no place in government.
Democrats need to remember that once upon a time, Milwaukee voted in Socialists when the Democratic Party refused to aggressively root out and destroy corruption from within the party ranks. Voters punished them again by electing Scott Walker when Dems made this mistake again. Do not underestimate the ability of Milwaukeeans to reject the party again if they treat this matter lightly. One could make the argument that the Ament administration’s corruption in the 1980’s brought us Governor Walker. Let’s nip this corruption in the bud, shall we?
While I was surprised at the allegations against John Thomas, I wasn’t shocked. John was my Co. Sup. and our experience with him was less than professional. He was underhanded in his dealings with our neighborhood Assoc. and less than helpful with some of the problems that we tried to get him to help us deal with. At one point he even told the president of our Assoc. not to call him anymore. Government is better off without someone like John, he was a ladder climber and being ethical was not in his nature. We didn’t get our tax dollars worth with John.