Jackson County politics: grade school with more lawsuits

Last September, a task force led by a University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor came forward with a new ethics code. The presentation got a nice write-up in the Star — and promptly found its way to a shelf. The full legislature has yet to take up an ordinance to make the code enforceable.

For a moment, I got worked up about all this. Then I realized: It all sounds very important, but it's not.

County government is mostly a pass-through organization. Sure, the jail and the prosecutor's office are essential functions. But once the big-ticket items get their funding, county officials' "real" work seems to consist of peeling off a few grand here and there for friends and pet causes.

What I learned from paying closer attention: County government is, at its highest level, a mostly inconsequential exercise conducted by tedious people.

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