Now that the Great Jail Switcharoo of 2007 is dead after only a few days, what was the point?
What did Parks Helms gain by floating the notion of taking the jail away from the Mecklenburg Sheriff’s Department? He made fellow Democrat Jim Pendergraph mad and caused a brief firestorm, but anyone who has spent 15 minutes in Char-Meck had to know that was coming. Parks didn’t just fall off a turnip truck. Why did he do it?
There is a chance that Helms didn’t expect it to be news — didn’t expect the likes of WBT’s Pete Kaliner to pick it up immediately and note the import. There is also the chance that County Manager Harry Jones has really pushed back unexpectedly on the idea, which would afterall dump all the headaches of running the county jail in his lap.
But if Parks wasn’t ready to go to the mat to fight for local legal community’s takeover of the jail, why go through having to apologize and back down just for mentioning the idea? I think the gambit was calculated to demonstrate to local Latino activists just who their friends were as well as the limits of the politically possible right now.
In sum, it was Parks showing that particular interest group that if they want to change policy, they are going to have to help change the political landscape. That’s my best wild guess anyway.
Then there is my crazy guess: The hubbub is supposed to distract us from something even more disturbing.
