Is it really good for the gander?

Do you know what my grandson would love to see for his next birthday? His grandpa, dressed as a firefighter riding on a big old fire truck, delivering his birthday present!

No? I can’t use a fire truck? How about … let’s get a deputy sheriff to drive me to his house! Yeah, that’s the ticket! Let’s do that instead! How crazy would THAT be!?

Sounds pretty crazy, right? And cool. That too! What toddler wouldn’t love that? He’d talk about it for days. Months, even!

But, it’s not something that I, Mr. John Q. Public, could do without intense negotiations, a fist-full of money and, likely, an unusually close personal relationship with a fire chief and, perhaps, a county sheriff.

But that’s exactly what Williamson County Judge Bill Gravell did last week. Well, it is if media reports, a sworn affidavit which accompanied a criminal complaint, and his own tacit admission are to be believed.

There are problems with this. Oh, there are problems.

A few weeks back, Judge Gravell issued a county wide order to stay at home unless your business is essential. He did that in concert with leaders from other counties as a measure to slow the spread of the coronavirus pandemic. He seemed serious about it. He even imposed a fine and jail sentence for those who violate that order: $1,000 and/or six months in jail (note: no one has been fined or sentenced to jail, nor do local law enforcement contemplate making any arrests for violating the order).

In fact, in nearly every single public appearance since, he has preached the necessity of social distancing and urged us to stay at home unless our travel was absolutely necessary. The order says “essential.”

Attending his grandson’s birthday — no matter how briefly, no matter how well protected, no matter how well intended — cannot be considered essential.

I get it. I really do. On the surface of it, it’s not that big a deal. But, the optics are very bad. If we are subject to a stay home order, shouldn’t the public official who issued that order do the same?

If a public official can break quarantine, why can’t we?

In my house, we haven’t seen our grandkids in a month. We haven’t seen many of our friends in about as long. If it weren’t for Face Time, we’d never see ’em. One of our staffers hasn’t seen his wife in about that long. Some of us are more than just a little inconvenienced by the stay-at-home order but we plug along, doing the best we can because we know — or have been convinced — that this is critical.

But, really, there’s worse. In my view, using public resources for this stunt was really … ill advised, to put it gently. Why? Well, conviction of even a misdemeanor count could cost him his job.

It’s right there in Chapter 87 of the Texas Local Government code … scroll down to 87.031:

“The conviction of a county officer by a petit jury for any felony or misdemeanor involving official misconduct operates as an immediate removal of that officer from office.”

Misuse of public resources — borrowing bunker gear from a fire department and directing a county employee (on county time?) to drive him somewhere not on official county business in the midst of a pandemic — is official misconduct.

I get why he did it, I just cannot fathom why elected officials in this county believe that they can do things the rest of us cannot.

Given the political affiliations of the county officials who would prosecute this (allegedly criminal) violation, it seems unlikely Judge Gravell will face any real consequences for this stunt. That’s my opinion based on six years’ observation of Williamson County and another 25 years experience reporting on county government in Texas.

That said, unless the judge issues a sincere apology for his poor judgement and, perhaps, voluntarily pays the fine for breaking quarantine, the commissioners court should censure him, and use pretty explicit terms. That would not be out of line and would serve the judge a well-deserved plate of humble pie.

If it’s good for us, it should be good for him.