Politicians paranoid about FBI
Picture this. East St. Louis Mayor Alvin Parks Jr., state Rep. Eddie Jackson, ESL School Board President Lonzo Greenwood and Charlie Powell, vote fraud felon and former political boss, meeting at ESL City Hall.
Their topic of discussion? FBI wires and keeping tight-lipped around a certain individual.
That’s what happened, according to a federal wrongful termination deposition in which Parks described a clandestine meeting, about three months ago, in which he was warned by Greenwood that ESL school district employee Anthony Tarvin was “dangerous” and perhaps was wearing an FBI wire.
The deposition, taken on June 14, was the result of a federal lawsuit filed by Tarvin and two other ESL school district employees. They allege that they were demoted, then laid off, for not supporting the political agenda of the school board president during the April 2009 school board election.
To no one’s surprise, all of the characters involved in Parks’ meeting have either denied being there, had selective memory or denied having such a discussion.
Forget the impropriety of Parks allegedly conducting such a meeting at City Hall or being in the company of the likes of Charlie Powell, who served 23 months for vote fraud.
We know that good judgment is an area in which Parks has challenges. His own former deputy liquor commissioner was recently convicted, and awaits federal sentencing, for shaking-down liquor license holders.
The real question here is if no one is doing anything wrong, then why worry about FBI wiretaps and who may be an FBI operative? Honest people don’t worry about being caught up in criminality because they are honest.
The answer is, as I’ve written repeatedly, that these ESL politicians are paranoid not for the potential of being indicted but, rather, for how many things they could potentially be indicted for.
That’s the level of corruption, in my view, which has permeated ESL politics, from City Hall, to the Board of Education to, quite possibly, the State House.
And I’m sure, with the Blago mistrial and upcoming retrial and the recent history of ESL politicians being indicted, convicted and incarcerated, that Parks, Jackson, Powell and Greenwood want to put a lid on any “inappropriate” talk on their part.
Also, with the ESL mayoral campaign season rapidly approaching next year, Parks probably won’t be trusted by the Democratic machine, especially after his federal deposition in which he apparently threw his political buddies under the bus.
Rumors already abound that, as a result, Parks will not receive the endorsement of the Democratic machine during his re-election bid. That endorsement is being widely speculated as going to ESL City Councilman Robert Eastern III, with Carl E. Officer potentially entering the contest in a bid to recapture the mayor’s seat.
That can’t make ayor Parks (or mother Lillian) very happy. This time, however, Parks can only blame his own big mouth and lack of judgment for the potential mess that he (and his political friends) find themselves in.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.