You’ve got to feel sorry for them

In the words of Michael Corleone in “Godfather: Part III,” “Just when I thought I was out ... they pull me back in.”

This writer had planned on offering something other than the usual snarky, negative, anti-government screed on this Easter Sunday (indeed, there’s a column on hold that’s kinder and gentler) when an e-mail arrived from a long-time reader. It said, in part:

“I anticipate that you will jump on the bonuses handed out to the various county employees as reported in the Vindy today, April 3, 2015.

“I could not believe that Judge Dellick handed out 1 percent bonuses to 112 of her employees ‘In anticipation of OPERS raising the employees portion from 10 percent to 11 percent.’ This is similar to the other county departments handing out raises to employees when they were required to pay their portion of OPERS Retirement, a few years ago, in order to ‘Make them whole.’ ”

Dear reader, why couldn’t you have left well enough alone? Why did you have to drag this writer back into the abyss that is government in the Mahoning Valley?

Here goes

But, we aim to please, so here goes.

The explanations and justifications for the bonuses and raises were so tortured, so painfully pathetic, that county officials must have suffered brain hemorrhages. Indeed, some of them tied themselves up in such tight knots, they’re going to need chiropractic adjustments for years to come.

You’ve got to feel sorry for them.

Consider the verbal gymnastics from Anthony D’Apolito, administrator of the Mahoning County Juvenile Court, in attempting to defend the $48,636 in bonuses granted by Judge Theresa Dellick to 112 employees. The payment, D’Apolito said, was given on the basis that the Public Employees Retirement System might raise the employee contribution to PERS from 10 to 11 percent of salary.

The keyword is might. But, as Vindicator courthouse reporter Peter Milliken — who broke the story of the bonuses and previously had shed light on pay raises and bonuses granted by former Auditor Michael Sciortino and a windfall before that for 700 county employees — pointed out, PERS has no intention of raising the employee contribution by 1 percent.

And yet, that’s what juvenile court employees got: 1 percent of their salaries in a lump-sum payment.

You gotta feel sorry for D’Apolito. He’s probably having to undergo painful physical therapy to get his foot out of his mouth.

Then there’s Karen U’Halie, Mahoning County’s human resources director, who joined other county officials in blasting Milliken for his investigative reporting.

“This kind of media that is so negative and so divisive — I have great concerns for this county,” U’Halie said during a meeting of the county commission. “Who wants to come and live here when you read this constantly, and, more importantly, as an HR director, who wants to come here to work when they know that this is going to be a constant media blitz negative campaign?”

Earth to U’Halie

Negative and divisive media? Earth to U’Halie: Young, college-educated people are leaving this region because there aren’t any jobs, and the government positions that do become available usually go to individuals who are related to some officeholder or some Democratic Party insider. It’s who you know, not what you know.

And, for good measure, highly qualified, highly motivated, honest individuals living outside the Mahoning Valley don’t want to come here because of all the government corruption that has made this region a national political cartoon.

Every time an officeholder is hauled away in chains or some public employee is caught with his or her hand in the till, or taxpayer dollars are squandered on pay raises and bonuses, the region’s reputation takes another hit.

Local government has become the pot of gold at the end of the political rainbow for the chosen few.

There’s job security and, at the end of a largely comatose tenure, there’s a lucrative pension and health-care coverage — compliments of private sector taxpayers.

There were other comments made by county officials who sought to denigrate Milliken’s reporting. Here’s some advice for the defenders of the indefensible: Shut the (bleep) up. No one in the private sector wants to hear about why county government employees are so deserving of pay raises and bonuses when the average taxpayer is barely getting by.