By Scott Wright

In 2003, then-Probate Judge Phillip Jordan convinced the four other members of the Cherokee County Commission that he needed a steep pay increase in order to properly perform his supervisory duties at the county’s one-stop car tag office. The move to raise Jordan's pay drew a firestorm of protest from the people of Cherokee County, but first local and then state politicians saw to it that Jordan’s salary request sailed swiftly through to passage. Quicker than he could climb into the new SUV the county commissioners had purchased for him, Jordan’s annual salary shot to nearly $90,000.

A week after Sen. Larry Means introduced the bill in the state Senate, one county commissioner refused to answer questions on the record regarding the raise. Another commissioner said she didn’t remember voting for the raise to begin with. She may have been right about that, too, since there was no official record of any discussion about the raise in the commission’s minutes for the entire year prior to the request. A third commissioner said he didn’t specifically remember voting for the raise but could not “imagine that (he) didn’t.” He also said he felt the raise was a “good idea” since the probate judge is “very important to the county” because “someone who did not know the job could really screw things up for the taxpayers.”

You said a mouthful, coach. But you might have approved that pay raise too soon, because it turns out the guy you already had in office really screwed things up for the taxpayers of this county.

First of all, Jordan lied about the size of his pay raise. During one interview after the raise was publicized, he told this publication that his annual supplement for running the one-stop tag office was $4,800 and the new legislation would raise it to $12,000. Actually, the legislation raised his pay by $12,000, from $4,800 to $16,800. That act of arm-twisting the Commission was bad enough, but at least it wasn’t illegal. And Jordan certainly wasn’t the first politician to look a reporter right in the eyeballs and lie to cover his ass.

It’s likely no one would have every found out about Jordan cramming his hand into the cookie jar if he hadn’t been nabbed a little over a year later while trying to make off with the whole, darned thing. Cornered by the feds, in July 2004 Jordan admitted accepting over $65,000 in bribes in exchange for convincing the same county commissioners who gave him the raise to allow the folks running the Three Corners landfill to partially renege on their already agreed upon financial commitment to the taxpayers.

So what? you may say. That was years ago. These days, Jordan has resigned as probate judge, served his six months in the federal pen and returned home, and pretty much stays out of sight; that entire batch of rubber-backed commissioners is either retired, deceased or incapacitated in some form or another; and new Probate Judge Kirk day is voluntarily returning the extra $12,000 salary back to the county's General Fund, and he donated the free SUV to the sheriff’s department before he even had his name painted on the door to his new office.

Only problem is, Day is up for election this November. It’s not that I don’t trust his Democratic opponent, Rev. Melvyn Salter, to do the right thing, either. The point I’m trying to make is that it’s only been three years since all this corruption came bubbling to the surface and many of us have already forgotten the details of just how badly we got "screwed" up, as the commissioner put it. Hell, writing what you’ve read so far has taken me two hours because I’ve had to dig through our archives and find about a half-dozen of my own columns and articles just to get all the particulars.

Again, it’s not Kirk or Brother Melvyn I’m worried about. Whichever of them wins the election in November would find something honorable to do with the $12,000. But what about the next guy? Or the next guy? What about 20 years from now, when we've all REALLY forgotten about this "screw" job?

Rep. Richard Lindsey has already acted, at the request of Day and the GOP-controlled Commission, to permanently rescind the raise. On Tuesday, Day told me he has already been contacted by the governor's people and asked about the bill, which Lindsey has introduced in the Legislature. Day said he told them the whole thing was his idea to begin with and to go ahead and sign it. The official announcement is expected at any time.

I think it’s important that this legislation go through quickly so everyone in Cherokee County can get a little further down the road to recovery from the years of corruption and crookedness we were all forced to endure, though I would argue that the recovery is already proceeding nicely. If you don’t think we’re headed in the right direction politically, just look on the side of the road as you drive to work tomorrow morning. There are more candidates for public office in Cherokee County than flies at a barbecue and I think that’s a great sign that the people of this county have learned their lesson about the efficiency and integrity of the homegrown network of self-serving back-scratchers that has dominated this county in the past.

We’ve got a really good bunch of folks running the county right now, and there's a truckload of well-qualified candidates lined up to try and replace some of them in the June 6 primaries. It is an exciting time to be involved in the political process in Cherokee County (or writing about it, anyway). If you're not involved in local politics, consider getting to know the candidates and the issues, and for heaven's sake, go to the polls on June 6 and again during the run-off election and vote for the ones you discover you like the most. Get yourself educated and you can help choose the kind of elected officials we need, folks who are out to serve the people they represent instead of themselves.

We didn’t have enough people like that for a time but that’s who we have now, and I believe that’s who we’ll continue to have regardless of the outcome in the upcoming elections because of the people who are running for office. Still, get involved. It never hurts to make sure we choose the best of the best. Maybe if we show we care enough to go to the polls and vote, we'll continue to have high-caliber characters willing to put their names on the ballot.

Who knows? I suppose it's possible all the corruption we’ve had to endure in the past will end up being a benefit for the people of Cherokee County in the long run. If quality leaders like the batch we have on the current ballot continue choosing to sacrifice their time and talents for the betterment of us all, some good may yet come from all the humiliation and embarrassment we've endured since '03.

Only time will tell. But in the meantime, good luck to all the candidates regardless of which side of the ballot their name is listed on. Whichever of them wins, I hope they'll remember the lowly lessons in illicitness we've all learned over the past three years. If they can manage that, then they will be assured of doing a better job than the some of the officials who preceded them by a factor of at least twelve thousand.

Scott Wright is a member of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and an award-winning member of the Society of Professional Journalists. He is a native of Cherokee County.