If the court upholds the criminal charges filed against five county landfill employees and two business owners, Douglas County government will have failed that test on both counts. That would be a major failure by local government, and county officials must take action to prevent such abuses for the future.
Under the scheme, some landfill employees allegedly showed favoritism toward certain dump truck owners, who had to pay a mere $20 or $26 flat fee instead of the proper hundreds of dollars. The owners, authorities charge, then compensated the landfill workers with cash, gift cards and even hams.
No one knows the exact amount stolen. One estimate put the amount at $350,000 over a three-year period. And the abuse may have stretched across decades. Some employees told the Sheriff’s Office that the abuse extended back to 1995 - which would amount to a staggering long-term dereliction of duty by Douglas County government.