O, Brother, Who Paid Thou?

I have no idea whether Milton Street is guilty of the crimes he was charged with today. Here are two things you can be sure of though: 1) Milton will make sure he gets a free lawyer; and 2) his trial will not get bogged down by a parade of character witnesses.

John Street, who could not become ex-Mayor fast enough for me, could have put a stop to all his brother's shenanigans with a single announcement once he learned companies were paying his brother -- tens of thousands of dollars a month, if what the feds are saying is true -- to "consult," or whatever they are calling services rendered by political relatives these days. Mayor Street could have made clear that his brother's involvement with anyone seeking city contracts would be a conflict of interest for him and his administration and thus disqualify that entity from city business. Maybe Milton or one of the companies might have sued him, but so what? The city gets sued all the time. The message would have been sent. Instead, the Mayor even today was trotting out his usual "my brother is just like any other citizen entitled to try for city business" baloney. And so it goes.