Trustee Heck's resignation should serve as a warning

There are many regions in the United States where government corruption is so rare that having an officeholder vote to give her brother a public job could be considered trivial, but the Mahoning Valley isn't one of them. Indeed, with the embarrassingly large number of elected officials and other public employees who have pleaded guilty or been convicted of using their government positions for personal gain, the word trivial certainly should not be used in reference to any kind of unlawful act.
But that's how J. Gerald Ingram, one of the Mahoning Valley's leading criminal lawyers, attempted to portray what his client, Shirley Heck, had done while serving as a Springfield Township trustee. Heck resigned Friday after pleading guilty to an unlawful interest in a public contract. She was sentenced to a six-month suspended jail term, given 90-day nonreporting probation and fined $100 by Judge Maureen Sweeney of the Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
The first-degree misdemeanor charge, which stemmed from Heck's voting to hire her brother, Walter McKinney, as Springfield Township recycling coordinator, carries a maximum sentence for the offense of six months in jail and a $1,000 fine.
The former officeholder, who was seeking re-election to a second four-year term in the November general election, is prohibited from running for trustee again.
"It is a shame that the residents of Springfield Township have lost such a dedicated, hard-working trustee over something this trivial," Ingram said, after his client's guilty plea.
Negative stories
That attitude is the very reason local governments are viewed with such derision by law-abiding citizens and have become the subject of numerous negative stories by reporters from around the country. Unfortunately, Ingram isn't alone in using the word trivial to describe such acts by elected officials.
Apologists for congressman-turned-jailbird James A. Traficant Jr. of Poland still insist that he is serving eight years in federal prison for a trivial offense -- using his public position for personal gain. They argue that the charges brought against him by the federal government pale in comparison to crimes committed by other elected officials who have managed to get a slap on the wrist from the courts.
These Traficant supporters are so convinced that he was railroaded that they have been trying to get his prison sentence commuted.
Fortunately, they have been unsuccessful. The Mahoning Valley can ill afford the national publicity if this free-Traficant effort is successful.
With regard to former Springfield Township Trustee Heck, it is inconceivable she would not know instinctively that nepotism is wrong and that voting for her brother is a violation of the law. With all the publicity surrounding the federal and state investigations of government corruption in Mahoning and Trumbull counties, did it not dawn on her that every elected official is now under the microscope and that anything untoward would result in investigators being alerted?
Indeed, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification has been conducting a probe of the private use of township-issued cell phones by Fire Chief Brian Hughes and EMS Captain Karen Philibin and has submitted a report to the county prosecutor's office. The chief and the EMS captain were given retroactive permission in July by trustees Heck and Jim Holleran to make personal calls on the cell phones after questions were raised as to who originally approved the practice. Trustee Reed Metzka refused to go along with Heck and Holleran.
We urge the BCII not to terminate its investigation until it has a definitive answer to this crucial question: Who initially authorized the personal use of the cell phones?