Bent Corner

If the Herald-Mail newspaper is going to continue smearing the reputation of Hagerstown City Councilperson Kelly S. Cromer, I guess I will continue to blog about it.  Being that the Washington County Ethics Commission cleared Cromer of acting unethical the day she was pulled over by a Hagerstown police officer for speeding, I thought the Herald-Mail would move on.

Evidently I was wrong.

Today’s edition included a front page story reporting that the local chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) voted unanimously on July 16 to rescind Councilwoman Kelly S. Cromer’s associate membership. This was before the Washington County Ethics Commission even ruled on the matter. Their decision wasn’t made public until July 31.

Today’s article included something that appears to be factually wrong. It reads:

She also was quoted as saying the police department had a vendetta against her because she questioned the validity of a program under which some city employees are permitted to drive city-owned vehicles to and from work.

She was never quoted as saying the police department had a vendetta against her. Someone who claimed to have been with Cromer when she took a phone call from the reporter from the Herald-Mail asking about the incident claimed on a message board that at no time in the phone conversation did Cromer say the word “vendetta”.

Shortly after reading that, I emailed Dan Dearth, the reporter who wrote the article, and asked him if Cromer actually said the world “vendetta”.  He promptly replied:

Rick,

I never quoted her directly as saying that. I asked her whether she felt some city officials and some members of the police department had a vendetta against her. She said, “Yes.”

Thanks.

Dan

Dan Dearth was the one that chose the word vendetta, not Cromer.  She only answered in the affirmative when asked if she felt “some” city officials and “some” members of the police department had a vendetta against her. She did not answer in the affirmative that she felt that the entire police department had a vendetta against her.  The key word is “some”.  The way it reads in today’s paper is that Cromer was quoted as saying the entire Hagerstown police department had a vendetta against her.

She never said that.

Can anyone even blame her if she does feel that some in the Hagerstown police department have a vendetta against her? How else did the newspaper learn about the traffic stop three weeks after it happened?  Someone leaked the story to the newspaper and it wasn’t because they were a supporter of Councilperson Kelly Cromer.  They did it to make her look bad and the Herald-Mail seems to be going out of their way to do everything they can to help.

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From the Herald-Mail:

A Hagerstown resident told the City Council on Tuesday that she intends to file an ethics complaint against Councilwoman Kelly S. Cromer over a traffic stop in which Cromer was given a warning for allegedly speeding last month near City Park.

During a council meeting, Cathy Ridenour said a “can of worms” had been opened after Cromer was given a warning rather that a ticket on May 26 for allegedly driving 43 mph in a 25-mph zone — an infraction that carries a $90 fine.

“I, as a tax-paying citizen of Hagerstown, am asking that the (Washington County Ethics Commission) investigate in full the incident that occurred in regards to Councilwoman Cromer being stopped …,” Ridenour said. “My belief … is that no one is above the law and using one’s position of authority is inexcusable, unprofessional and wrong.”

Now this is just getting silly. Unless Cathy Ridenour knows something that the rest of us don’t, she has no basis to accuse Cromer of anything. She certainly has no basis of going to the Washington County Ethics Commission.

Even if Cromer somehow used her position on the City Council to get out of a ticket — and there currently is no evidence showing that she did — it’s the police officer that made the decision to NOT give her a ticket.

I think I’m going to do my best John Kerry impersonation now and flip-flop on this. At first I was ready to criticize Cromer for trying to get out of ticket, but now I’m not so sure if she has anything to be criticized about. She claims she didn’t say “Don’t you know who I am“. She claims that since the officer obviously knew who she was, she asked him if she needed to look through her luggage for her license.

The more I think about it, the more I believe she didn’t ask the officer if he knew who she was. She obviously knew the shit-storm that was created when her fellow City Council member Alesia Parson-McBean said that when she was stopped by the police.

Of the two versions of the story — Cromer’s and the officer’s — it’s Cromer’s that makes the most sense.