We still do not understand why JP candidate Brian Boatman wrote a character reference for confessed killer Toni Fratto.
While Fratto’s attorney were ecstatic to get one from the local Juvenile Probation officer most lawyers and judges agree that character letters have very little if any impact on a judge deliberating on a sentence, and the greater the crime the less impact a character reference has.
Surely Mr. Boatman must have been aware of that.
He also must have been aware of the needless pain his letter would cause the Costanzo family already suffering a year long nightmare of a murdered daughter.
Some two dozen people wrote letters wrote on behalf of Toni Fratto, we have the list and with the exception of Mr. Boatman all of the others all of others are either relatives or decades old friends of the family.
There is one other thing everyone on the list has in common except for Mr. Boatman, they aren’t running for public office.
While it may be incredible to imagine, we believe Mr. Boatman grossly underestimated the outrage his letter would cause.
When we talked to him before going to press last week he obviously was made aware of that anger.
We will take him at his word that he no longer has a copy of it albeit in the age of computers we still have grocery list from 2006 hiding somewhere in our own files.
And we believe him when he tells us that his and Toni Fratto’s mutual membership in the LDS church had nothing to do with his reference although many people’s knee jerk bigotry against Mormons will believe different.
But if that was the case Toni Fratto would have received a thousand letter of support and not the paltry 26.
So we ask again why write a character reference for a young woman who committed the most heinous crime in Wendover history?
The only answer we can come up with is phenomenally poor judgment.
Bryant Blake has been a disappointment since he assumed office. and he just keeps on disappointing.
We weren’t surprised when he defiantly said he would stay on the council until he actually left town.
How nice.
In that same meeting Blake voted to borrow $2.6 million for sewer upgrades to be paid off over the next 40 years.
He will be here for another four months at the most.
Thank goodness he doesn’t teach civics