Monday, June 14, 2010

Is Romley Ending Another Successful Program in the County Attorney’s Office?

Special Report from Eliot Ness:

Since being appointed county attorney, Rick Romley has had three Bureau Chief positions come open and he has filled two of them. The one he has not filled? That would be the Bureau Chief position for the Auto Theft Bureau. Since the establishment of the Auto Theft Bureau, the Phoenix Metro Area plunged from having the 4th worst auto theft rate in the Nation to the 40th. In 2009 alone, the auto theft rate plummeted 35%.

So why is Romley leaving the Auto Theft Bureau in the lurch? Well, Romley has never been too attentive when it comes to auto theft. In a look at the number of auto thefts in Phoenix during the second half of Romley’s previous stint as county attorney, the numbers went from 22,997 auto thefts in 1996 to 34,742 in 2004. That’s a staggering increase of 51%. Mind you, that’s looking at just one city in Maricopa County and it is spread out over eight years. Yet, the Auto Theft Bureau, most recently led by Bill Montgomery, Republican Candidate for County Attorney in this year’s Special Election, achieved the 35% drop across the entire Metro Area in just one year!

This is now becoming a trend with Romley. He ended cooperating with the County Sheriff in the County’s award winning Legal Arizona Worker’s Act Enforcement Program, and ceased prosecuting co-conspirator’s under Arizona’s human smuggling statute. I guess the only thing Romley could do further to ensure defeat in the Republican Primary would be to oppose SB1070 and earn the endorsement of Democrats. Oh snap, he did that too!

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